WET AND WILD WITH ROCKIN’ FIG:Longboard Pro-Am here this weekend

Huntington Beach is hosting the first Surf City U.S.A. Longboard Pro-Am this week, featuring the Guy Takayama Pro Noseriding Series and the International Tandem Surfing Assn. World Tandem Tour as well. Organizers hope to make it an annual event.

The Huntington Beach Pier will be the site of the competition, which starts on Friday and goes till Sunday’s finals.

The pros who will start on Friday include big names like: king of the noseriders Josh Baxter; last year’s U.S. Open winner Dodger Kremel; three-time world champ Colin McPhillips; Huntington Beach’s Josh Mohr, a several-time U.S. Open finalist; the stylist Taylor Jensen; and hot locals Rocky McKinnon, Justin Hugron and Kelly Kraushaar. The amateurs will compete on Saturday in all age brackets. The fun will include hot tandem surfers like Wendy Lynn and Caleb Wilborn, and Bear Wozniak and partner.

There will be heats featuring legends like ‘60s world champ David Nuuhiwa; classic old schooler Paul Strauch; Mr. Turbo Tunnel fin designer and shaper Bob “the Greek” Bolen; and the timeless Bill Fury.

And there’ll be women’s classics, too, like the West Coast’s first shredder, Long Beach’s Jericho Poppler and Hawaiian big-wave standout Linda Benson. There’s also a big party planned at Duke’s later in the afternoon.

Sunday will be pretty much the final day for all the divisions, so the action should be hot and heavy. And there’s going to be a a trade show on the sand with killer stuff to check out, giveaways for the groms and live music. Thirty-two of the top pros and 15 West Coast longboard clubs with more than 300 surfers will be vying for trophies. From ages 10 to the 70s, they will compete for more than $15,000 in prizes and giveaways. The Figster, M.D. and some guest emcees will give you the play-by-play and some cool music, so come on down!

Over in Australia, they just finished off the world championship tour’s Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach in some fun 2- to 4-foot surf. Aussie Taj Burrow was the big winner. Burrow had his hands full, though, with three-time world champ Andy Irons leading most of the way. But in the final two minutes, Burrow was in position for the biggest set to come in and tore it apart with huge slashing top turns all the way to the inside to score a 9.0 ride and seal the deal. The U.S.A.’s Kelly Slater lost in the quarter-finals.

That’s it for now. Fig, over and out.