This year’s Fest is already underway for the weekend. Reports of big conditions. Competitors are dropping down 10-15’ wavefaces… COWABUNGA!!!
https://www.santacruzpaddlefest.com/
Videos should be popping up in YouTube soon.
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I’ve seen a few on facebook, some still photos look like pretty good waves this weekend.
@Peter-CA, looks like your friend made it to Cowells Beach (intermediate break) at Santa Cruz. Good for her! Noticed that she has really been picking up and posting quite a bit of longboat surfing and surf kayak riding in the past couple of years:
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Enthusiastic doesn’t cover her energy. She has also been getting into white water paddling, from what I hear.
Hopefully those boardies around her are part of the competition.
Makes sense that “white water” is in her engagement. A lot of “rough water” paddlers will incorporate some level of white water paddling in their repetoire. White water experience is particularly useful and transferable to dealing with tidal races and currents.
The boardies (unless SUPers) are not part of the competition. Probably the local contingent. The boardies largely tolerate the surf kayakers and water-skiers on the Santa Cruz break during the annual Santa Cruz Paddle Fest. Doesn’t stop them from “dropping in”, even in the middle of a heat.
I witnessed dropping in by boardies in all three of the years I participated in the Fest. 
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She has got this big smile at the end, I guess that is why ya’ll do it.
I’m pretty sure I met her a few years ago in San Diego when she was with some old friends from the San Diego Kayak club; could be wrong there are lot of Jenny Zhangs in start ups in tech, biotech and at the Universities. here. It’s nice to see young women taking on the sport. I don’t know if Lucy O. is still paddle surfing but she seemed very gung-ho when I met her. She’s probably pretty busy with her research at Stanford.
I haven’t done the. Ventura Contest for many years but there was a dedicated group of boardies who tried every year to interfere badly with the competition. The boardies at the B-site at Cowells weren’t very agressive when I was there, but that was long ago too.
It’s probably her. My YouTube algorithm sends a lot of surf kayaking videos my way. I think one of her surf videos of a SoCal session popped up in my feed two years ago. I noticed her recent videos have largely been in the Bay area. I thought she was just doing a bunch of “surfaris” up to the NorCal coast.
Anyway, I agree. It’s nice to see more gender diversity in the sport. East coast surf kayakers are still few and, unfortunately, mostly grisly old dudes like me.
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@SeaDart - pretty sure it is the same person. I remember hearing that she spent a few years in SoCal before returning back to the Bay Area.
Surprised by the lack of videos posted on YouTube. Found this one on Facebook. Jeeze, those waves look pretty epic for the comp:
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JZ posted another video of round 1 women’s comp at Cowells:
Curious whether this intermediate class comp since it’s at the smaller Cowells rather than the prime point break at Steamers Lane. If this is the advanced women comp, they should be surfing the bigger waves at Steamers too…
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And another:
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A very nice and NEEDED move:
Well done. Better to damage the kayak than the body!
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Anybody’s fault or unavoidable as Kayak Surfing ethics go?
There are a bunch of photos (I know, old school) on the faebook page
As “surf etiquette” goes, no one is at fault here. A surfer (board of kayak) will get caught going over, or get dumped on by a breaking wave lip at some point while surfing and lose control as a result. It is the responsibility of the surfer paddling out to anticipate that possibility and be ready to protect him/herself against harm. Safety and etiquette require the person paddling out to go behind (or opposite of the direction of) the wave surfer. Since the surfer on a wave is always trying to surf in front of the wave pocket and peel, the person paddling out will usually have to paddle into and eat the foam pile. However, where the wave surfer is flipped or caught in the breaking lip and foam pile, the person paddling out needs to protect himself by duckdiving under (possible with short board) or just “turtling” (flipping) over with a longboat. For a waveskier or kayaker, the best move is to self capsize and then roll back up when danger has passed. Rolling is an important, if not essential skill, to have as a surf kayaker.
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Is that what this Kayaker did, “ Self Capsize” and roll back up? Can a case be made that the Kayaker paddling out got too close to the Surfer and was not prepared for the possibility of the Surfer falling?
Yes. I’ve seen some her other surf videos. She’s relatively new to surf kayaking, but she comes to it with a strong set of rolling skills that has been tested in rough water conditions.
I don’t see a “case” to be made. The situation “just is”. The waves were big enough to occlude sight of what was happening on the other side of the next two or three waves in front. On reviewing the video, the surf kayaker (and jetski rescuers) in front did not come into view until JZ was about 2 waves back. As she went over the one remaining wave, the other surf paddler can be seen trying to paddle over the lip of the oncoming but failed. Instead, she got caught by the breaking wave and foam pile and pushed back towards JZ. With waves that size, I would guess the kayaker was being pushed at a minimal speed of 20-25 MPH. At that speed, the gap between the two closed really fast, probably around 6-8 seconds. JZ made a quick decisive move that is only possible with a combat roll fully ingrained in her skills repetoire.
That’s my take on it.
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If that is the case, with things happening that fast, 20-25 mph, with tough site lines, thst girl is darned good and very instinctive, made the right move in a split of a second AND recovered from it.
The surf zone develops, expands, deepens and challenges one’s skills. At the very best, actions/reactions happen at perception, without thought (“no mind”), because these are ingrained into the body. Thinking would just slow things down. At the 24 second point of this video, you’ll see another example. The video was slowed down so the actual event happened in mere seconds.
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