Who will win? All will be revealed come June!!!
Hometown Huck
Life At Sea’s Tim Ward Offers $$$ to the biggest boost!!
By Neal Kearney
Surf progression is fueled by many things: organized competition, bitter rivalries, cross-training, and a deep pool of iconic influencers and paradigm shifters. Borderline mythical Earth-shakers, from the Duke to Dane, continually redefine the way we look at riding waves. Add in the continual evolution of surfboard and wetsuit design, advent of life saving safety vests and the utilization of jet-ski assistance, and you’ve got some strong forces propelling advancement.
How else can the limits be stretched? In the name of progression, Santa Cruz-based artist Tim Ward and his “Life At Sea” brand, are offering a $15,000 purse for their best-maneuver-caught-on-video competition called “Hometown Huck”. Waged between local Santa Cruz surfers and their respective filmers, this contest awards a honking hunk of cheddar to the craziest display of gravitational gymnastics.
A full $10k of that purse goes to 1st Place, and prize money has a partial split to the winning filmers. Bitchin’! The window started in 2017 and will end on May 31st of this year. With less than a month remaining to submit entries, this is a clarion call to all local punters to utilize the remaining days concentrating on corking out and submitting their clips before time runs out!
Monsieur Ward
Life At Sea is a Santa Cruz influenced line of stickers, patches, keychains, and more. Most visible locally, are the Monarch, Octopi, Mermaid, Shark, Poppies and other local flora-and-fauna bumper stickers. They are everywhere! Straight from the ever-inspired and creative Ward, the newest designs include a line of Surf Rat, Anchor, Black Flag, and other nautically themed designs.
Now, along with going global with various designs customized for many locales, the brand has donated nearly $50,000 to ocean cleanup and preservation so far, as well as donating toward our local Monarch Sanctuary at Natural Bridges. A portion of every Life At Sea purchase goes toward these honorable causes–which is fuckin’ dope!
Ward’s iconic TR Productions logo
Ward is noted for his cartoon strips in the dearly departed Transworld Surf, as well as designing globally recognized graphics for brands like O’Neill and the Monterey Marine Research Vessel. He is also a stylish surfer, deep thinker, and great friend. With the Hometown Huck contest, Ward and Life at Sea are offering up $10K to the local Santa Cruz surfer who captures themselves launching the craziest air during the contest window, which started in 2017 and will end on May 31st, 2018.
This kinda aerial competition isn’t unprecedented. In 2008, Volcom announced they would award a ten-grand purse for a completed kickflip on a surfboard caught on tape, fueled in large part by team rider Ozzy Wright’s obsession and near-makes.
Zoltan Torkos, local Santa Cruz surfer and magician, sent Volcom an entry of him landing a, to be fair, “credit card”, kickflip. Volcom said no dice. Not above the lip, a condition clearly stated in the rules. The internet didn’t agree, and the Youth Against Establishment caved to public pressure ultimately awarding Torkos the cash.
The “Hometown Huck”, is basically the same idea, just on a local level and without restrictions on any particular type of air; much like the 50K payout won by Dusty Payne in 2008’s Kustom Airstrike campaign. Also, this aint’ no corpo publicity stunt, just a creative individual trying to pump out some flair and froth in a dying, core surf scene.
I recently chatted with Ward about his passion project and here’s what he had to say…
Ward Floats the Boat
You’ve been fortunate to have such success with your Life At Sea bumper stickers over the past decade or so. Is this contest a way of bringing back the creativity that Santa Cruz surfers have long been known for?
Great question. I was just thinking the other day, that Santa Cruz has pretty much invented the air, more than once. Kevin Reed in the very beginning, on a single-fin no less. Then Ratboy many years later, in an amphitheater setting at the (Steamer) Lane, when he split the peak with Slater and stole the show with an epic, futuristic Backside 360. Both KR and Ratboy were mag covers. I love the fact that Santa Cruz has such a prominent role in progressive surfing.
Ratty smokes Slates with the “Air Heard Around the World”
When/how did you decide to pursue this competition? Were there any specific inspiration or “Eureka!” moments in the brainstorming process?
Honestly, I feel fortunate to have had some of my art take off the way it has, and I simply came from a wave-sketching grommet-hood. The words, “Hometown Huck”, recently hit me as an event name, combined with a mental image of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn surfing on a fence post . That was it- I wanted to do something new, to give back to SC surf roots, and the Huck Finn idea/image was pretty damn fun.
The Wily Bastard himself, Huckleberry Finn
What kinds of moves are you personally hoping to see? A twist on an old favorite, or one that you’ve never seen or knew existed?
It would be awesome to see a backflip in contention, but I have no preference. Any burly move is a burly move. If you rotate, great, but if you do a huge straight air, great!
Without being too intrusive, how did you come up with the prize money. 10K is a considerable chunk o’ cheese!
The dough comes from the Life At Sea brand sticker/decal sales all over California, Florida, now in Hawaii and beyond. The purse was originally $5k, with a two-month shooting period, last summer (2017). That year was very flat, so I extended the window to an entire year–combining the money from that initial attempt with that of this year, 2018.
Noah “Waggy” Wegrich
Who are some of the local surfers whose entries you are excited to see? Any solid entries so far?
I’m not one of the Huck judges, so I’ll just give my own personal viewpoint and nothing else. The standout to me, with just weeks remaining are: Waggy (Noah Wegrich) with a huge frontside straight air and Shaun Burns with a frontside full rotor. And if we’re being honest, the actual skill and dedication required to stick the kickflips Zoltan (Torkos) does, who knows who will be in the money.
Who makes the call for the winner, and what goes into the final decision?
The judges are Shawn Dollar, Bud Freitas and Kalu Coletta. Each will independently select their own top picks, which will then be merged for the final math.
The “real” Santa Cruz is a distant memory, sadly. Is this an effort to shake up local rivalries and bring back the “core” or “nonconformist” reputation SC is known for?
I’d say it’s simply the result of an appreciation of progressive surfing- which does have a high degree of non-conformity. It’s purely for fun and for stoking some people out though…that’s it! Most of these #hometownhuck clips can be found on my Instagram @timwardart as well as Dave Nelson’s @nellysmagicmoments
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