Winter surf competitors enjoy unseasonably warm weather, nice waves
By Lorne Chambers | Editor
It has been an unseasonably mild winter here on Folly. But that doesn’t mean the water isn’t chilly. Wetsuit or not, jumping in 60-degree surf doesn’t feel good … until you catch that first wave.
The sixth annual Icebox Open was held Saturday, Feb. 25 at the Washout and several dozen guys, girls, and groms came out to compete for a chance to win some cash money. The cool early morning fog burned off pretty quick and the sun warmed things up back on shore. But as the quarterfinals and semifinals raged on, the competition got burning hot out on the water.
Six years ago in the middle of winter, local surfers Bates Hagood, Blue Spivey, and J. Demeranville were bored. Folly was quiet and cold, as Hagood recalls. “We were just trying to figure out some way to get hard core surfers into a contest setting when it was cold as hell,” he says.
So the Icebox Open was hatched out of the idea that, if there are good waves, thee are a lot of surfers in the area who will surf in frigid conditions. The three friends decided they should have a contest to “honor the guys, girls, and groms who charge it when most people are sitting by the fire with the heat on in their house,” says Haygood, who manages Ocean Surf Shop, which sponsors the Icebox Open every year.
“You have to be pretty brave to put on a wet, cold suit to surf all of your heats. It weeds some fair-weather surfers out of the pack, which is what we wanted, to honor the guys, girls, and kids that paddle out in good surf even when conditions are cold,” says Hagood.
But the colder weather isn’t what’s made the Icebox a great competition. It’s the fact that Hagood and friends created a contest in the winter with a 4-6-week call period, where they could call it for the weekend with the best conditions, as far as the size of the surf. According to Hagood, a lot of contests are held in small surf in the area for obvious reasons, but he wanted to create a contest where there was a call period to maximize the waves.
“This has made it super tricky to set up and organize. But mostly we have been lucky and scored some south swells,” says Hagood. “We also wanted to have cash prizes, which at the time, was not really done in most contests. I feel like that’s changed some since we did the Icebox, with various surf contests now offering cash in pro-divisions.”
This year, there was some serious competition with waist-to-chest high southeast ground swell. “Started out clean, but started to get choppy later in the morning,” says Hagood. “There were some good waves to be had.”
In the end a pro surfer named Tristan Thompson from Jacksonville Beach, Fla. took the top prize in the men’s division, followed by Erik Kirby, Eros Exarhou, and Charlie Guss respectively. In the women’s competition, local legend Kristin Tanner took first place, with Sylvia Windham, Rose Windham, and Veronica Bishop taking second, third, and fourth place respectively.
For the groms, another local legend, Griffin Jackson took first place with Jimmy Thompson, Jasper Millis, and Alex Broderick coming in behind him in that order.
Folly has really embraced the Icebox Open. “We have great sponsors who contribute to the local surf community: the Tides Hotel, Carolina Surf Brand, Golds Gym, Pier 101, Blu, Myatt Air Conditioning, Fate Sailing Charters, Airmos Tents, The Washout Beach Eats & Drinks,” says Hagood. “By supporting the contest, these businesses get people stoked for surfing at a time of year that is usually pretty dead.”
