Oilers shred in Africa and have proof

RICK FIGNETTI

It’s a big night tonight for the Huntington Beach High School Surf

Team, which is premiering a video of its trip to South Africa at 7

p.m. in the school’s auditorium.

Admission is free, but a D-Baugh surfboard will be raffled off to

raise some money for the team. Every year, the surf team goes on a

different cultural exchange surf trip, with head coach Andy Verdone

and assistant coach Barry Deffenbaugh leading the way. Some team

members that went on this year’s excursion were Brian “Rhino”

Paullins, who has some killer barrels in the movie, Chase Newsom and

Chris Waring bust some mean airs, plus other shredders Ian Ekberg,

Matt Taylor, Tommy Elms and Todd Williams all get some great footage.

The journey started out in Cape Town, they checked out Victoria

Bay and ended up a Jeffreys Bay, which was the highlight of the trip,

and where a lot of the footage was shot. It has some size in it too,

as the surf got as big as 8 to 15 feet. They got lucky and stayed

right at Super Tubes on the point and charged it every day.

Deffenbaugh was nursing a bad back and had to pick and choose his

surf sessions to save himself. Head coach and cameraman Verdone said

his partner stole the show on the big day, riding his 7-foot-4 gun

through some of the best barrels, floaters and carves he’s seen there

-- even after seeing top pros like Taj Burrow, Taylor Knox, Derek

Hind and legend Miki Dora ripping there.

So come join the fun tonight with the high school surf team’s

Summer Surf Trip 2003, destination J-Bay. The movie was put together,

produced and edited by Surf City local Steve Martin and features some

hot tracks from the Beastie Boys, Audioslave, Kottonmouth Kings, the

Gorillaz and Beck. It’ll run almost a hour, and is not for sale

anywhere, so this could be your only chance to see the Oiler squad

killing it.

Over in Australia, they just finished up the invite-only Billabong

Junior World Championships. It was Brazil’s 16-year-old, Adriano De

Souza, from Sao Paulo, taking top honors. Aussie shredder Shaun

Cansdell was runner- up and Hawaiians Daniel Jones and Sean Moody

finished up equal third.

Former winners of the event include current world champ Andy Irons

in ’98 and Joel Parkinson in ’99 and ‘01, so big things are expected

from these new-school juniors in the future.

The surf’s still been firin’ at our local beaches, with some

sizable sets, though you’ve had to pick and choose between some of

those big walls. I’ve seen a few busted boards, as Mother Nature has

been claiming a couple. Hopefully, it’s not yours.

See ya. Fig over and out.

* RICK FIGNETTI is an eight-time West Coast champion, has

announced the U.S. Open of Surfing the last nine years and has been

the KROQ-FM surfologist for the last 17 years, doing morning surf

reports. He owns a surf shop on Main Street. You can reach him at

(714) 536-1058.