Weare and Lima Steal the Surfing Spotlight

David Weare flew in from South Africa, wanting a respectable finish in a contest he could not afford to miss if he hopes to realize his goal of reaching next year’s elite World Championship Tour.

Silvana Lima came from Brazil with a similar objective: Take whatever points she might earn and move on in what’s a long and grueling qualifying-series schedule.

But on a summerlike Saturday afternoon in which the men’s Body Glove Surfbout and women’s SG Lower Pro were run from the quarterfinals to completion in ideal three- to five-foot waves, it was these two who emerged as unlikely stars among surfing’s jet set.

A combined field of 240 surfers from nearly a dozen countries participated in the five-day contests at Lower Trestles in San Clemente, including many of the world’s top-rated surfers, such as perennial WCT athletes Taylor Knox, C.J. Hobgood and Damien Hobgood, Sofia Mulanovich, Rochelle Ballard and Megan Abubo.

To outlast such luminaries felt like a dream, said Lima, 20, who dominated a final heat that included WCT rookie and Billabong teammate Rebecca Woods, who finished second.

Lima, whose two-wave score total of 18.34 was higher than Weare’s, was greeted at water’s edge by friends who draped her nation’s flag around her shoulders.

Weare, 24, who was pitted against WCT veteran Pat O’Connell, Rob Machado and Australia’s Adrian Buchan, was nearly as dominant. The South African, ranked 27th on the World Qualifying Series Tour, paddled into prime position early and posted scores of 9.23 and 7.83 for a combined 17.06, using a series of snapping lip turns, tail-sliding cutbacks and floaters.

He could not improve on those scores for the remainder of the 30-minute heat, but he didn’t need to. Buchan posted a late score of 9.13 but came up short with a total of 16.90 points. O’Connell was third.

“The vibe out there was just amazing,” said Weare, who acknowledged feeling nervous as the clock ticked down. “This is probably one of the most rippable waves on Earth. I can’t say much more than that.”

If there was a consolation for the rest of the field it was the quality of surf, thanks to a late-season southwesterly swell that for the final three days delivered set after set of large, peeling rights and lefts over the legendary point break north of the San Onofre nuclear generating station.

On Saturday, the warmest of the five days, a crowd estimated at nearly 2,000 gathered to witness a rare showing of top-caliber surfing from a Southern California beach, what with so many contests occurring in foreign waters.

The image few will forget is that of Tim Curran soaring above the lip in a dazzling aerial maneuver in which the Oxnard surfer fell about 10 feet and somehow remained on his board, earning a perfect 10 in his quarterfinal heat.

Then there was Carissa Moore, the 12-year-old from Hawaii, seeking the comfort of her father’s arms after being eliminated in the quarterfinals, two days after outscoring No. 1-ranked Mulanovich and two other tour veterans in a first-round heat.

Other surfers suggested it was both easy and hard to feel sorry for a shy little girl who is a dynamo on a surfboard. Reasoned Mulanovich: “She’s so good. She can beat anybody. She beat me. What else can I say?”