Surfing The Loop

It was in the late 1960s when Duke Boyd, one of the founders of Hang Ten and always an idea man, enlisted George Downing to help create a surfing competition called the Hang Ten American Pro. The idea was to create a subjective judging system by setting a point value for each possible maneuver, so that a scorer for each rider just had to call out the maneuvers as the surfer performed them: late drop, bottom turn, cut back, kick out, etc. One maneuver they hoped to stimulate was still theoretical at that time: carving a complete loop on the wave face. This photo print with an overlaid loop was used to define the maneuver to competitors. The event promoters even considered selling a sponsorship for this maneuver that would attach the company’s name to it. Thus, this could have become the McDonald’s Loop. In the end, the system lost steam as surfing is more about style and fluidity and not entirely about linking maneuvers, but Hang Ten put up the money and an event was held at Sunset Beach using that scoring. It was an interesting experiment at a time when surfing was fast changing.

This is a repost from The Surfer's Journal.  Visit http://www.surfersjournal.com/ to see more.

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Write by: Dj Eviena - Monday, February 18, 2013