Earlier this month, the first-ever digital surf contest wrapped up. The Trace Up / Stack Up competition eliminated judging subjectivity by recording data from a handful of groms worldwide via the Trace Action Sports Tracker, then comparing the results in a variety of different subcategories. After the month-long competition period, the results are in. And the kids put up some big numbers.
Huntington Beach’s Griffin Foy beat out the competitors in the wave count category. Photo: @griffin_foy
Huntington Beach’s own Griffin Foy rode the most waves from December 1st – January 1st, mostly on the southside of the HB pier, with a grand total of 1,234 waves. He also logged the most number of the turns with a staggering 1669 turns – to put that in perspective, that’s an average of 56 turns a day.
Santa Cruz ripper Sam Coffey led the distance traveled category. Photo: Photo: @samcoffey9
Sam Coffey of Santa Cruz won the “Most Distance Surfed” category, even though he caught less waves than Foy. But Coffey’s homespot, Steamer Lane, worked to his advantage and he was able to rack up 52.6 miles. His longest wave being a 781 yard thigh-burner from The Slot to Cowells. That’s a wave spanning further than the length of seven football fields…pretty amazing.
San Clemente’s Kade Matson dipping his rail. Photo: @kadematson
San Clemente grom Kade Matson logged a whopper of a turn at his local T-Street, which came in at 302 degrees, and easily won him the “Biggest Turn” category. The highest speed came in as a tie between Brodi Sale and Sam Coffey at 33.5 mph. Interestingly enough, the two waves with the top speed were from the same swell – Brodi caught his 33.5 mph wave at V-Land, and a couple days later, Sam caught a giant bomb at Middle Peak, clocking in at 33.5 mph as well.
After the month-long contest, the top six surfers congregated in Huntington Beach for a heat. Before the final of last week’s Shoe City Pro, the highest scoring groms – Jackson Butler, Dimitri Poulos, Kade Matson, Sam Coffey, and Griffin Foy – took to the water to be scored in a untraditional competitive format. Instead of being judged on the 10-point scale for top two waves, they used the data picked up from the Trace Trackers to determine a winner in the following categories: Top Speed, Most Turns, Longest Wave, Highest Air, and Biggest Turn. In the end it was a tie between Butler, who locked in the biggest turn at 247 degrees, and Matson, who squeezed in seven turns on one wave. The two groms went home $500 richer. Not bad for a month of surfing.
