Body Surfing Rules!!

Some folks don’t need a board to surf the big waves. They just put on swim fins and walk backwards into the ocean. I guess that’s how you tell a body surfer from a distance. They are walking backwards so those fins don’t trip them up. And they aren’t toting a board. This weekend was the Patagonia Pipeline Body Surfing Classic—2005, the sport's most prestigious event. There is no pro body surfing circuit. These people surf for the fun of it.
The famous Banzai Pipeline is about 100 yards to the left of Ekuhai Beach Park. The wave break is less than 200 yards off shore so it’s easy to watch. Body surfers enter the water in groups of six, each wearing a different colored water polo cap so the judges can tell them apart.
A North Shore Lifeguard jet ski is hovering just beyond the wave break in case someone gets in trouble and to make sure the pipe is reserved for the competition. It’s the one day of the year the body surfers don’t have to share the waves with boarders. In between heats the jet ski roars inside the wave break with lifeguard number two hanging onto the trailing sled. Then they charge out through the surf leaping over the breaking waves.
The next heat of six competitors enters the surf while the previous heat is still trying to catch a big wave.
They all seem to have an unusual heads up swimming style so they can see the waves coming at them. They dive under the wave just before it breaks on top of them and appear again on the other side, little white, pink, black, blue, red and yellow caps bobbing like tiny balloons. The current at the beach is fierce and moves the swimmers sideways past our view point faster than the can swim forward. So, to get to the line up the surfers are swept one hundred and fifty yards to the right at an oblique angle requiring them to swim that same distance out and then back to get even with the spot where they enter the water. They cluster around the jet ski like baby ducks. But if they touch it they are disqualified. Several judges sit under a canopy at a table and watch the action.
A timer with an air horn sits just outside the tent next to a pole with three large squares of color. Green means the heat is on. Yellow means it’s almost over and red notes the end of the heat. The timer rotates the pole so the body surfers can see the status of their heat.
Farther down the beach where the spectators and participants sit is another tent with an announcer who describes the action and gives results over a PA system. A spectator who has the urge can plunk down fifty bucks and enter on the spot if there is space available. The only qualification seems to be a willingness to enter the water and play with the big waves.
Last time I was here I met Michael who is a big wave body surfer. He told me that body surfers can do whatever the boarders do. There are lots of maneuvers like climbing, stalling, cut backs, dropping, belly slides, spinners and tube rides. The participants are judged on wave riding ability, maneuvers, wave size, travel distance and sportsmanship. Points are deducted for fouls like interference.
I’m not sure we saw much of that fancy stuff today. The waves, with ten to fifteen foot faces, were rambunctious and seemed to be giving the riders a hard time. I saw a couple guys drop off the top of a wave like they were falling off a building. The Pipeline breaks weren’t spilling nicely. Most of the rides were short and the riders disappeared into the foam as the tube collapsed around them.
We focused on one of the two women competitors. Her name was Judith Sheridan.  It turns out she has quite a reputation (which you can read about  here  and
here ) in the body surfing world.  A fortyish Ph’d from California, she had been the only female competitor in 2003 and 2004.
She backed into the surf and began swimming. It was easy to see her baby blue top and yellow cap.The current swept her past us and she dived under a series of approaching waves.
Once the heat started she rode up and down in the big waves which must be a thrill itself. Choosing a wave, Judith would windmill down the face of it to gather speed. If the wave was good she would ride for quite a distance. If the timing was off she wiped out. Ms. Sheridan did well enough to finish third in her heat and move onto the next round. Anyone who swims out there and back is a winner as far as I’m concerned. Of course, they are also nuts.