Santa Cruz Longboard Union (SCLU) took first place at the 38th annual Memorial Day Club Invitational the longest-running longboard surf contest on the West Coast at Steamer Lane on Saturday and Sunday.
Event organizer Aylana Zanville participated in the first Women on Waves contest in 1996, when she was a teenager. Growing up, she said there were very few female surfers in Santa Cruz.
When Santa Cruz's only big surf industry company, O'Neill Wetsuits, put on an event in October that for the first time included females, it could've been a happy story of progress at last. Instead it "came off wrong," according to many who followed it closely, and the company has said very little about it. Others, though, had much to say.
With the concurrent arrival of fall and the season's first northwest swell, which brought large waves to Santa Cruz's world-famous stretch of coastline this past week, it's the perfect time to consider being part of the action in the water. Whether you're brand new to it or just need to scrape off some rust, Lookout has your complete guide to finding the stoke.