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Mostly Cloudy 'Good vibes' at Moku Longboard Classic
Moku Surf Shop held its second annual Longboard Classic last Saturday, a contest that organizer and surf shop owner Kevin Sime said is designed to celebrate the often overlooked sport of longboard surfing.
Eighty competitors, ranging in age from nine to 65, took to the beach at Long Beach Road on the morning of Sept. 19 to catch a wave and share in the good vibes.
“This is a real local thing, everybody down there knows each other,” Sime said. “People were telling me up and down the beach it was one of the best times they ever had.”
Moku Surf Shop, at 879 W. Beech St., opened in 2013 and is the only Hawaiian-style shop in the New York metropolitan area. Sime said it carries a large selection of classic and performance style long and short boards, fishes and hybrids, along with clothing and accessories.
The surf contest was broken up into several divisions: men and women, boys and girl, and a “legends” division for men over the age of 44. Each was scored by classic contest criteria such as nose rides, hanging ten, cheater fives; drop knee turns, longest ride and more. Sime said the longboard style is more of a throwback to classic surfing in the 1960s and that most major surf competitions these days no longer cater to this particular subset of the sport.
“Long Beach is a longboard city, but there’s no events for these guys,” Sime explained. He added that his contest attracts almost entirely local surfers with few out of towners coming to compete.
Elliot Erb won the junior men’s competition and Summer Ejnes topped the junior women’s division. Chris Koerner took home first in the men’s open and Sam Faronjy won the women’s open.
Charlie Bernowich, an eight-time New York state surfing champion, won the legends contest for the second year in a row. He praised the Moku competition for its emphasis on camaraderie and for the opportunity to see some younger surfers attempting the longboard style.
“Everybody is there for each other,” Bernowich said. “In the world of surfing today, it’s kind of dog-eat-dog out there. This was definitely a different kind of vibe.”
