Swami’s Surf Contest Controversy
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January 11, 2010 • Taylor Olson
Filed under News
The Swami’s Surfing Association is looking for 10,000 people to sign an online petition to ban surf contests at Swami’s Beach.
Lately Swami’s has been surrounded by controversy. The Swami’s Surfing Association and Linda Benson, chairman of the Women’s World Long-board Championship since 2005, and her supporters, are in a petition war over the idea of holding the Women’s World Long-board Championships (WWLC) at Swami’s in 2010.
Swami’s beach hasn’t hosted a surf contest since 1967 and is regarded as a no contest zone by many locals because of its association with the Self Realization Fellowship and marine life. Linda Benson, five time U.S. Champion, International Surfing Hall of Fame member, and Cardiff resident, would like to make an exception to this policy and host the WWLC, which has been hosted in Biarritz, France for the last four years.
The Women’s World Long-board Championships, which started in 1999, is an opportunity for women long boarders around the world to get together and compete. This contest’s location in France is a financial burden to many of the women longboarders. They want to decrease travel distance by bringing the contest back to the states. Benson proposed the idea of hosting the event at Swami’s because of its great wave and proximity to downtown Encinitas.
“It would be really nice to think of the women long-boarders,” Benson, said alluding to the fact that so many surf contests for women long-boarders are hosted at bad breaks.
Benson believes Swamis is the ideal location for the contest because the women would be able to surf in the contest and then hang out together afterward.
She believes hosting the contest at Swamis would renew the spirit of friendship and the “joyous camaraderie” that are associated with women’s long-boarding. She hopes to involve the community in the four day event by having a surf festival on lower K Street with art and photography, and possibly surf movies at La Paloma along with a concert at Moonlight Beach on the Saturday of the contest.
“We want the community to come out and enjoy the contest and then go out to the festival,” Benson, said.
The Swamis Surfing Association fears this contest will open up Swami’s to other contests and damage the fragile eco-system of the spot. As well as the impact the crowds and competitors will have on the reefs and the peaceful mood of the area.
Though they don’t have anything against the WWLC they believe Swami’s is the wrong spot for such an event because of the lack of parking, the railroad tracks, the traffic the event will cause, and the lack of facilities.
“Swami’s needs to remain a spot that is pure to surfing,” Larry Graff, Swami’s Surfing Association Member, said.
Members of the association started a petition to ban surf contests at Swami’s. They want Benson to pick another location. Members of the association feel the idea of hosting a beach clean up the day after the contest and starting a Swami’s Association with contest profits are just attempts to cover up “reprehensible motives”. Some members claim Benson and supporters are only doing this contest to make a quick buck.
“It’s a contradiction. Destroying something than fixing it, doesn’t make since,” Graff, said.
Benson and contest supporters claim the contest will not be disruptive because of their intentions to keep it small and “garden-like.” They plan to keep parking out of the Swami’s parking lot by having a shuttle from K-street, and that the parking will be no worse than Swami’s on a day when the waves are ten feet. They also plan to hold the qualifiers at Moonlight beach to lower their impact on the reef and to minimize their time at Swami’s.
Other attempts to minimize their impact and avoid criticism include volunteers to encourage the crowds to stay off the reefs and away from the cliffs and to have boat announcers out in the water with the surfers to relay their scores to them, so the speakers don’t have to be as loud from the beach.
Contest supporters believe that the contest is small enough that it will not be harmful to Swamis and that it could actually be beneficial, because they hope to educate people about the reefs and the damage they cause by walking on it with the funds they receive from selling raffle tickets.
They also hope to make enough money to have permanent signs put up, warning visitors to stay off the reefs.
Benson explained that it takes money to set a contest up, so they aren’t sure how much they will make, but if they can’t come up with the funds themselves they will work with Coastal Keeper or The Surfrider Foundation to give back to Swami’s. She explains that the city wants this event to happen and that the event is backed by The Downtown Encinitas Merchant Association (DEMA). Yet opponents of the contest feel contest supporters just don’t understand.
“A lot of people who don’t support this contest are doctors or lawyers, and members of this community. The people who do support this contest either don’t surf or don’t surf at Swami’s. They don’t understand that it’s not the right location,” Graff, said.
Both parties agree that Swami’s is a magnificent wave and that the beach is special. However one party thinks the contest would be a commercialization of Swami’s and the selling of the Swami’s image, while the other views it as an event beneficial to the beach and the community.
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