The Ocean Beach Bulletin spent a large amount of time at the Rip Curl Pro Search surf contest, not only to watch the surfing, but also to speak with many of people involved in the operations of the contest itself. We talked to everyone from cameramen to lifeguards, security guards to trash sorters. In a break from our normal news reporting, we present here an in-depth examination of contest, as told in the words of those who were behind the scenes throughout the event. So make yourself comfortable, and settle down for a long-form retelling of the event, and enjoy Jon Weiand’s photos while you’re at it.

Waves and Weather

Kyle Parsons, president of Indosole, a sandal company that refurbishes Balinese motorcycle titles in their sandals

Kyle Parsons with Indosole, down here at Ocean Beach watching the Rip Curl Pro Search. We’re really stoked on this event. We’ve been blessed with great weather and waves, and Kelly’s title, making history here on our beach. It’s been really awesome.

William Hood, Ocean Beach lifeguard for 5 years

They scored. They chose a really good time, and they got about as good of waves as you can get for a contest, and everyone was really respectful. People have been cleaning up after themselves and not being too crazy, but really enjoying themselves.

There weren’t too many challenges. Everyone was incredibly respectful. I thought that was a really nice part of it. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the contest.

Our main issue is to watch the water, and we didn’t see hardly anyone in the water, because it’s been such a good contest with such good waves, swimmers didn’t really go in the water. And even the nearby surfers didn’t really go into the contest area, even though it wasn’t a closed contest area.

Overall, you couldn’t have asked for a more respectful crowd of spectators and surfers.

Joe Turpel, Surf Commentator who worked the live web broadcast for most of the event

It was incredible. I first started hearing about San Francisco as a stop on the tour and I was really excited about it. I’ve been up here a few times and have actually gotten pretty good waves, so I knew there was potential to score, but obviously with a window and waiting period, you never know what you’re going to get.

Next thing you know, we were looking at the charts and seeing swell, and so wondering if the wind was going to cooperate, and I even think this final day was probably the best day of the waiting period. Everything came together and stayed glassy throughout.

There was that little bit of wind that came through that actually worked in favor of Gabriel Medina for his airs, and it went out of Parko’s favor because he was hunting the barrel on rights, sticking to that smooth approach that Park is known for. I think the clash of seeing Medina vs. Parko in the final was epic, and exactly what you want to see these days. It’s the young guard vs. the old guard, and I think it was a success.

Rebecca Wunderlick, 5th grade science and math teacher in Larkspur

We’ve been studying oceanography and the trash gyres, and have studied Annie Leonard’s “Story of Stuff,” and are focused as a class moving toward a sustainable future. Our next unit is actually on weather forecasting and predicting the weather.

I’m a surfer myself. In the past we’ve gone to Mavericks after predicting big swells in the winter, but this contest is closer and has easier access for a student in a wheelchair, and since we just ended the unit on oceanography and are moving into a unit on the weather, it just seemed like good timing.

So it was a perfect sync and got all the parents on board within a 12-hour period, when I heard last night that the final day of the contest would be today, so I got on-call drivers and community support, and we’re getting a behind the scenes view of the sustainable component of the surf contest, and then we’ll go watch the surfers.

The Working Life

Security Guard from Contemporary Services Corporation (company policy prohibits employees from giving their names to the press)

The people here have been great. We have 22 on staff when the event runs, and a night patrol when it’s off, so we have been on 24-hour patrol.

And all in all, it’s been an awesome event. Very few problems. No drug or alcohol issues. We did have a bit of graffiti in the first few nights, and have had to chase away some vendors who are handing out unpermitted flyers, because most flyers turn into litter, but otherwise it’s great.

Mark Cunningham, lifeguard and bodysurfer on Oahu’s North Shore

I want to salute the lifeguards who have to keep an eye on this thing. What an incredible stretch of coastline and responsibility to guard this, it has to be one of the most challenging stretches of beach to keep an eye on, and make a rescue to help someone.

Swimming through that shorebreak was brutal on just a so-so day at Ocean Beach, so hats off to all the lifeguards and all the surfers, and I want to thank everyone for such a warm welcome. Everyone was so welcoming and stoking.

Angela Habashy, reporter for the Australian Associated Press

I’m here to cover the Rip Curl Pro Search for the Australian Associated Press, which basically supplies all of Australian media.

Surfing is huge in Australia, but I don’t typically cover it. I typically cover any sport — soccer, tennis, rugby league. I’ve been here about a week, and it’s all gone great. We’ve had great weather, we’ve had a good contest with big crowds and two crownings of the world title, so it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for anyone who was here to witness it.

I love San Francisco and Ocean Beach, and haven’t yet gone to see everything I want to, but if this wraps up today then I’ll have a few days to go out and play, so I’m definitely looking forward to seeing as much as I can. I’ve been to a few bars and have visited Fisherman’s Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge, and the rest of it, and I’m absolutely loving the city.

Robert Barcelona, cameraman for the gib camera in the middle of the contest

I got a call from Transition Productions to work the gib at the Rip Cur Pro Search. I don’t do the surf circuit, but I work the gib all the time. I own the gib so I do it all over, and work on a ton of reality shows and local productions.

This is my first surfing contest, and it’s been great. I live in the East Bay, and as they came up they found a guy who owned a gib locally, so I got the call. I’m really surprised at the weather. We had a couple days of rain, but otherwise the weather has been great. We also had really nice tubes. It’s been early mornings and a lot of work, very hands-on all day, but it definitely beats working in an office.

Marty Magnusen, local surfer who placed 2nd in the Locals Expression Session and an employee of the contest who worked in the main tent, handing out jerseys to the professional surfers as they went to their heats

I got the job I got because I got a call from the local Rip Curl rep, Adam Stone. He recommended that I be the guy, and I think it has to do with the fact that I’ve been living here for 31 years, and never leave, and surf every single day here. It was a complete honor to get work like that.

I didn’t realize how serious these guys are. They take this sport in a very serious way. There’s trainers involved, and stretching, and I’m sitting here thinking, “It’s just surfing.”

You know, I’ve never seen a contest in my life, so it’s all kind of like I was watching it on TV. It was so real in front of my face, but also so surreal. You get to the point where you get so desensitized after seeing all these professional surfers every day,  that you just end up feeling like you’re watching a webcast. It was pretty cool, and it’ll probably settle in a little later.

Buffy Maguire, owner of Java Beach Café, which had a coffee stand in the contest parking lot

It was unusual in the coffee shack because it was a different flow, where we had to set up and break down, but it was so wonderful to hear everybody’s feedback. We saw our local customers and our neighbors, and then we got to meet all sorts of people from all over the world. The coffee cart was like the great equalizer, because everyone needed their coffee, whether they were a pro surfer or a neighbor coming out to watch.

The positive experience of this was getting to be part of something new, and that highlights Ocean Beach in a way that we all know it anyway, but for an international platform. In terms of business, this is the first time we’ve ever done a mobile unit, so there were some lessons we got to learn from it, but it was more about being part of it than it being a lucrative endeavor.

Kyle Parsons, president of Indosole

The contest has been great networking for intra-industry involvement. It’s sort of a who’s-who for the industry, because people from all over the world that are involved in the surf industry are here on the beach, hanging out. So it’s been great exposure for my company, Indosole, in terms of networking, but also introducing the product to people on the beach, doing the grass roots marketing thing.

We participated at the Surfrider party at Mezzanine, the Bali Hifi party on Wednesday, and then we did a fashion show with San Franpsycho on Saturday night at the Surfbreak Rentals party, and I gotta say, I’m exhausted. It’s bittersweet that this is the final day, because on what hand it’s been amazing, but also grueling and exhausting to be out partying every night, and then up early networking.

Sustainability and Natural Impact

Michael Stewart of Sustainable Surf, a company hired by Rip Curl to make the contest as green as possible.

The week has been amazing. It’s been a great learning experience in how to put together an overall strategy to make this a greener, more sustainable event. It’s been a real eye-opener in terms of all the components that you have to manage at the same time. It’s not something you can just do piecemeal, and say, “Oh, I’ll throw up a recycling bin and call it good.” Everything has to be really thought out and thought through, and really working in conjunction with each other. In that regard, it’s been great, and we’re on track with all the goals that we set up. We’re at 90.3 percent waste reduction, so we met that.

For next time, we realized how much of our waste was derived from plastic bags and films surrounding food, so coming up with different ways to do that will be key. Not to say that I think there will be another Rip Curl Pro Search here, but there may be another contest, and we hope for Sustainable Surf in the future to work on surf contests as part of what we do, wherever they actually occur.

Being green and sustainable a lot about having fun as well, and I’ve had a really fun week this week. We had a great time at the Surfrider Party, and had Green Day show up, and have had cool stuff like a bicycle and skateboard valet service provided by the SF Bicycle Coalition. It’s probably the first skateboard valet service that I’ve ever heard of at an event. That’s all part of the comprehensive strategy, and hoping to get people to consider green transportation to help people get out of their cars, in order to come down here to have a good time.

Michael Siminitus, of Waste Busters, an East Bay company hired by Rip Curl to achieve the goal of 90% waste reduction for the contest

I’m the owner and operator of Waste Busters. They’re really making a strong effort to support San Francisco’s zero-waste goal.

We’ve been really impressed. It was a new thing to a lot of people from an international audience to sort out food waste and compostables, and I’ve seen them improve. There’s less contamination in the bins, and people seem happy to have that type of service. People from all over the country are sharing that they seem really impressed with San Francisco’s zero-waste initiative.

During the day, I set out cans on event days, and service bins that fill up with compostables and recycleables, and then sort out every bin by hand to maximize diversion and prevent contamination to compost.

We’ve been getting on Craigslist a lot and donating scrap materials and re-usable items quite a bit. In fact, a lot of the stage structure is going to get donated to some San Francisco nonprofits. We also give tours of our trash-sorting facilities to a lot of different groups.

It’s been a really positive experience, and one of the highest-diversion events that we’ve had. Right now we’re at over 90 percent, which was the goal we set for the event, and once we donate all this lumber from the stage it will end up way over 90 percent. I like counting it out bin by bin, and I’ve been doing daily diversion totals. We dropped below 90 percent for a bit and were at 89.66 percent, but we came back strong

George Durgerian, park ranger for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area

I think it’s gone very well. The Rip Curl folks have adhered to the terms of the permit and have done everything that we asked as far as waste management and cleaning up the beach, and having their security people here to reduce the amount of trouble we might have at night.

They’ve stayed within the footprint that they said they would, and have been responsive to any of the concerns that we’ve had regarding safety issues. They kept their cables covered up, and haven’t had any impact on wildlife. We’ve been really happy with them.

We banned the use of jet skis to give surfers a lift back into the waves, but the jet skis were only going to be used if we reached over 10 feet in wave size. We never got to that size in this contest, so it’s almost a moot point to discuss the issue of the jet skis. I know it was a big time issue in the lead-up to not permit jet skis, but in the end it turned into a moot point anyway.

Local Reaction

Marcus Sanders, editor-in-chief for Surfline.com, official surf forecaster for the contest

It was surprising how well it was received by most people. I think even the crustiest local guys who I thought would maybe be kind of over it are all out there super stoked. Some people weren’t too happy with some of the pro surfers going out to Fort Point, but the contest itself, seeing guys out there — on a day like today, there would normally be a million people out surfing, but instead they’re all watching, which I think is a big success for pro surfing.

This isn’t some stupid California contest, but it’s the best in the world. So you kind of gotta at some point just like it. Since for me, I’ve been kind of involved, since Surfline does the official forecasting for the event, and I’ve been covering it every day, so it’s been a pleasant surprise that people were into it.

William Hood, Ocean Beach lifeguard

There are certainly some older guys who had a little bit of issues of having a huge pro contest coming here, and I think there are still some people who have some feelings about it, but overall it was incredible. I think they did a good job, I really do.

Joe Turpel, Surf Commentator

It was great to have the contest in the city. The one thing I was wondering about was how the locals were going to react, and they were pretty receptive of the whole thing. I hear there were some people who didn’t want us to come here, but every time that we were leaving the beach, everyone was like, “Hey man, you guys got a great day, I hope you all score tomorrow, too.”

Being in the big city shows a different side of surf culture. You don’t always need to be looking for a pair of trunks to go to some tropical island. You can instead come to a place like this and watch the local guys surf, and see how proud they are to surf where they surf and where they come from. It’s a big part of getting that different element.

Marty Magnusen, local surfer, contest employee

Truth is, I think one of the cool things about San Francisco is the reaction to the pros. We grew up with pro skateboarders, and not pro surfers, so even the crowd here is kind of like, “This is new to us.”

This is probably the one place where all these surfers go mostly unrecognized and aren’t that famous. So I think it brings the whole thing to a more intimate level. We’re all just here surfing.

Kelly Slater

Mark Cunningham, North Shore lifeguard and bodysurfer

Kelly’s win? It was incredible. That was part of the reason for me to be here, we had a feeling that it was going to possibly happen here and I didn’t want to miss it

I felt the vibe and the energy last year when he won Number 10, and I didn’t want to miss that again, and sure enough — and his whole attitude and reaction to the scoring mix-up? What a gentleman, ambassador and champion. I’m honored to call Kelly a friend, not just because he’s a world champion but because he’s such an incredible gentleman

Security Guard from Contemporary Services Corporation

We escorted all of the athletes in and out of the water, and a few get more crowd excitement than others. Obviously Kelly Slater got a lot of crowd, but also guys like Mick Fanning and Owen Wright had a lot of fans as well

Angela Habashy, reporter for the Australian Associated Press

It was kind of crazy to me to talk to some people and to hear that they didn’t know who Kelly Slater is. I can understand not knowing all the guys, but Kelly Slater? Maybe I talked to the wrong locals, but surfing definitely plays a much bigger role in culture in Australia.

Local Contests

Marty Magnusen, local surfer, contest employee

As for the Expression Session, none of us have ever had to surf under pressure before. It’s not that there’s pressure, but you can’t control your heartrate when you’re not used to something with that many people.

We’ve never even experienced anything close to that, or even seen a jersey in my life. You think you could just go out and surf the way you want to, but your wegs are wobbly and seeing people at the beach and hearing the announcement, so the nerves are firing.

It’s almost an accomplishment to get over your own nerves in the first place. But then I actually got a couple waves, and never really rode that board before, so I didn’t really know how it would respond, but it turned out good.

I got a bunch of good waves and got second out of a bunch of guys who are my heroes and are great surfers, so going straight from work where my legs are stiff from sitting in a chair working all day, to then go out and get a few waves in front of everybody, I’ll take it. One of the cooler things I’ve probably done before.

Mark Cunningham, North Shore lifeguard and bodysurfer

I think it’s incredible to have this, and I see it when it comes to Hawaii and was fortunate enough to attend the Rip Curl Pro Search when it was in Puerto Rico last year, and I think it’s incredible. How cool to see the world’s best surfers in your backyard. I love it when it comes to Hawaii.

The bodysurf contest was so fun. I was absolutely blown away by the turnout and the enthusiasm, and the lack of seriousness involved in the whole thing.

I think it captured the essence of bodysurfing perfectly, so I want to thank Danny Hess and all the locals who helped organize the San Francisco Bodysurf Classic. I was honored to be there, winning was total gravy, and I don’t know how great a job the judges did considering that half the contestants were losing their caps, but I was stoked to be there for a great gathering of the tribe in Northern California.

George Durgerian, park ranger for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area

The only issue we had was people got together and had a bodysurfing competition at Lincoln [Way], and the problem we have with that is that Rip Curl has been great at keeping out of the wildlife area, but those guys just came up right in the middle of where the plovers happen to be right now, as they’re on their way up north along the beach.

We believe that there was some disruption there, for sure, and we’re disappointed with that. We all believe that surfing and bodysurfing are very low-impact sports, but even then we try to keep them out of the plover areas. We want them to come back, and we welcome bodysurfing competitions, and we’re happy to have them, but we want to go through the parks service to make sure that they don’t disrupt the wildlife

They did not seek a permit, and we would not have permitted them anyway, because we never issue permits for anything down at that part of the beach.

Return to Normalcy

Buffy Maguire, Java Beach Café

It was really wonderful to feel the buzz of Ocean Beach like that. It was an exciting thing to be a part of, and we knew from the beginning that we wanted to be a part of it.

We thought it was exciting, and they pulled it off really well. It was wonderful to see Ocean Beach transform, and it’ll be nice to see it go back as well, but it was a nice festival of sorts. And then we can all appreciate our normal life out here once again.

Marty Magnusen, local surfer, contest employee

I was born and raised here, and I’m 100 percent happy that it came here. I think the older guys who I look up to, and who I was kind of raised by over at Kelly’s Cove, they seem to be pretty stoked too, and happy.

I have no doubt in my mind that in a week or two, once the circus leaves, everything will go back to normal, and we’ll be back to hanging out and doing what we do. And we’ll have these great memories to remind us of this unique experience.

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And what about you? Did you go down to watch the contest? We’d love to hear comments from our readers about their experiences of the Rip Curl Pro Search, so feel free to share.