WET ‘N’ WILD WITH ROCKIN’ FIG:

The Northside of the Huntington Beach Pier saw the classic R.C. Katin Team Challenge presented by Jack’s Surf Shop go big time.

A fun northwest swell hit last weekend setting up surf in the 3- to 5-foot zone, giving contestable, rippable lined up rights peeling to the pier. Some big ripping was seen going on, from the first heat with one of H.B.’s finest, Brett Simpson, surfing for Hurley along with Rob Machado, who just got back from Indo.

Other hot locals were Shaun Ward surfing for Jacks, Micah Byrne, for a new skate brand, throwing some water, as Ventura’s Adam Virs and Florida’s Eric Geiselman were also pulling some cheer for the Fox team. Another pier local Quinn McCrystal represented Quiksilver, while Seal Beach’s Chris Waring and San Clemente’s Mike Losness surfed for Reef.

A former alumni member, Jeff Deffenbaugh, surfed for Huntington Beach High School and East Coast ripper Hunter Heverly surfed it up for Katin.

And even little Kanoa Igarashi slashed a few for the Pac Sun Team to name a few. Some former winners — the “Ambassador” South African Shaun Tomson, Tom Curren, who took the win as an amateur and pro, the “Rubber Man” Larry Bertleman twin finning to victory one year, and can’t forget about Hawaii’s Michael Ho picking off some bombs, back in the day. No results as of press time yet; stay tuned.

Over in Florida, the first w.q.s. event of 2009 has concluded — the four-star O’Neill Sebastion Inlet Pro. The overall points winner on the w.q.s. from Oxnard, Nathaniel Curran started off where he left off — taking the win. Curran found a few runners down the beach, slashing some turns, punting some airs flawlessly to the likes of the crowd. Hot on his heels was Aaron Cormican, who almost pulled a big air named after him, a Gorkin Flip, beside some other nice turns, to place second. Third was up-and-coming Floridian Blake Jones, who landed a nice reverse air, just back from Oz from the world junior championships. And rounding out the top four spots was veteran Cory Lopez, who was going off too. Huntington Beach’s Peter Townend did the announcing and at the end told spectators they’d just witnessed one of the finest displays of high performance small wave surfing in competitive history.

The surf in Hawaii was big enough to hold the Quiksilver big wave Eddie contest, 25 feet, but conditions were thrashed with heavy winds, so it’s still on hold for mo betta days and up north here in Cali, Mavericks broke, but was deemed not big enough to hold the event.

Well, that’s it for now, Fig over and out.

RICK FIGNETTI is a 10-time West Coast champion and a longtime KROQ-FM surfologist. He owns a surf shop on Main Street. You can reach him at (714) 536-1058.