It was a very close heat. The judges had their hands full and the conditions didn’t allow for an obvious winner. Despite the poor conditions, the pros demonstrated how to raise the level of riding with a plethora tech tricks. Brad Domke finished 2nd by pulling off a 540 shuv it, bigger spin, as well as many other knee bending tricks. Right there behind Brad was California transplant Woody Harris, who earned his 3rd place by doing several tricks out to waves. Rounding out the top four was Bill Bryan. Bill mixed his heat performance up with switch, fakie, and regular stance rides that left the judges and spectators stunned.

Photos to follow soon.

Results:

Corbin Dull - 1st
Brad Domke - 2nd
Woody Harris - 3rd
Bill Bryan - 4th

Semi Final action is expected to start Sunday. The 8 remaining pros are hoping that swell will pick up, but the forecast is not looking promising. Stay tuned for full write up and results.

Quick Results:
Quarterfinal 1
Woody Harris 1st
Dave Armstrong 2nd
Brandon Rothe 3rd
Benji Lucas 4th

Quarterfinal 2
Stephen Bradford 1st
Aaron Astin 2nd
Chris Marciniak 3rd
Pete Anderson 4th

Quarterfinal 3
Bill Bryan 1st
Brad Domke 2nd
Paulo Prietto 3rd
Dave Scott 4th

Quarterfinal 4
Auatin Bleiweiss 1st
Corbin Dull 2nd
Dion Davis 3rd
Brandon Sears 4th

Vilano Beach is a tiny beach town located on the northeast coast of Florida. The town is just a couple miles north of St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States. Situated on the north side of St. Augustine inlet, this little community started as a fishing village in the 1920’s. Up until 1995, you still had to take the original rickety drawbridge across the Tolomato River to get to Vilano Beach. In the past ten years, the area has grown into a little beach town with a budding tourist industry.

Vilano Beach is visited by people for one of three reasons mainly: to fish, to escape the crowded beaches of St. Augustine or to ride waves. Over the past decade, more and more skimboarders, surfers and bodyboarders have been finding their way to this beach for the amazing waves and unique atmosphere. The St. Augustine Inlet creates strong currents on the main beach access, making the water very deep right up to the steep coquina slopes, which is made up mostly of a mixture of ground down rocks, seashells and sand. Vilano beach is somewhat of an unintentional secret escape, meaning that unless you are actually looking for it, you would probably drive by and never know you were there.

Type of wave

Vilano is known for heavy A-frame waves and long lines from the south. The beach and waves are very rare for a break in Florida. The beach is very deep close to shore year-round, although still subject to changes from big storms, hurricanes, swells, etc. There are several spots in Vilano, but the most famous spot is Vilano Beach Access - the main beach access in the town. Also, you can actually drive your cars out onto the beach year-round, although it does close early in the summer because of turtle nests.

Vilano is a unique wave in Florida for a couple reasons. First, it is one of the most powerful shorebreaks in Florida. Through years and years of currents, tides, and storms moving the sand onto the beach in addition to the adjacent inlet, there are almost no outside sandbars. This allows any primary swell in the ocean to maintain its power and speed all the way to beach. Most other break have sandbars - whether they are 30 ft or 500ft out - that detract from the primary swell energy, and that energy is weakened by each sandbar the swell encounters.

When the beaches are perfectly formed, the beach is usually very steep - about 30 to 40 degree slope or so. The currents created by the inlet errode a very smooth transition from the slope of the beach into the water. The ocean floor itself at the shoreline is smooth and flat, which allows for waves to roll in cleanly and open up. The currents create certain variations in the sandbars that create an A-framing wave. This is not because of the tiny jetty on the main beach, but simply because of a combination of ocean floor contours and swell direction and winds (see more in Physics article). The break is best known for hollow A-frame barrels and

Food

Being a small town, there’s not a whole lot of variety in Vilano Beach. Toucan Terry’s is located on the northeast corner of the town main intersection and is within easy walking distance. Their menu has a wide selection of tasty and decently-priced food, like quesadillas, burgers, wraps, nachos, hot dogs, wings and fish tacos. Make sure you say hi to the owner, Terry, who usually has a good joke or two up his sleeve to tell customers.

Just 100 yards north or so is Benito’s Pizza, a local restaurant specializing in Italian food and –you guessed it – pizza. Their specials change year round, but the food is always good and the beer nice and cold. Other than that, there is a BP about half a mile north of Vilano Rd. to get some refreshments. For fancier fare, you can try The Reef restaurant or Caps waterfront restaurant. Both have good food, but are a little too pricey for most skimboarders on a budget. You can also go into St. Augustine for a greater choice in restaurants and food.

Lodging

There are four main hotels in Vilano Beach: Hampton Inn and Suites, Ocean Blue Motel, The Ocean Blue motel II, and the Magic Beach Motel. The nicest (and most expensive) is the Hampton Inn and Suites. This hotel is located on the Southeast corner of the town’s main intersection, right across from Toucan Terry’s. It has regular rooms as well as suites with ocean views, and a pool and a much need hot tub for those long days in the water.

The Ocean Blue Motel is next to the main beach access and has probably the best view in Vilano beach. It’s a little less expensive than the Hampton, but just as comfortable and close to the beach. The Ocean Blue Motel II is the exact same, except it is located just south of the Hampton Inn. The Ocean Blue II has a pool to relax in as well. The Magic Beach motel is located next to the Ocean Blue Motel on Vilano Rd. It also has a pool, but I’d recommend one of the other three hotels (or just somewhere else in general) than staying at the Magic Beach Motel

Nightlife

Basically, there isn’t much of one in Vilano Beach. Just drive over the bridge and head into downtown St. Augustine for some things to do at night. There are ghost tours and nighttime graveyard walks for the family, as well as an eclectic bar scene for some more adult fun. I’d suggest A1A Aleworks for the delicious food, great local beer and a nice showcase of the local talent. If you happen to be in town for the first Friday of the month, definitely check out the Art Walk, where all the local museums and art galleries open for free and provide free snacks and beverages.

Locals

There are really only a handful of true, live-on-the-beach skimboard locals at Vilano, but there are others that are at the beach almost daily from St. Augustine and Jacksonville. Everyone who skims Vilano on a regular basis knows each other, so if you’re not from around their, they’ll know. Most of the time, the locals skimboarders are more than happy to share waves with visitors. However, there is a line-up on the beach, especially when the waves are good. The local skimboarders will usually take the choicer sets, but as long as you are observant, respectful and - MOST IMPORTANTLY - don’t hit any of the tourists or other skimboarders, you’ll get plenty of good waves and board claps.

See ya on the slopes! – Tad Mask

Stay tuned for a full write up and photos in the next issue.

Lexi Hutchings was anxious to check out the river conditions the next morning, so we all packed in the car early and headed out. The river was pretty high leaving only a few spots that would be any good for riding. Some quick work was done to flatten out some sandbars to make those spots as good as possible.

For those that have never been to a flatland competition, they are usually broken up into two segments – with and without rails. In the first heat for the pro’s (w/o rails), Brent Lippencott (Sac.) and Isaac Thomas were matched up really well. Matt Ratoni (Sac.), Peter Hodgins (Sac.), and Zack Hooker all stood out in the second heat – Matt seemed to be on really on. Peter pulled a back flip, a Utah favorite, and that picture ended up in the local paper. Utah LOVES the back flip (and other cheesy standard Utah tricks of yesteryear)!

The rails segment seemed to divide the boys from the men. In the first heat Brent and Isaac were still killing it. In the second heat Peter, Matt, and Zack were the stand-outs again. One of the locals, Dillon, really got jacked up on the up-and-down rail. After his crash you couldn’t really tell what happened, but Dillon wasn’t moving away from the box and it looked like he was tugging on one the PVC pipes. Turns out his finger somehow got stuck in the rail and the screw that held the pipe on the box was instead holding his finger. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a screwdriver and 11 stitches… hopefully he’ll get some feeling back in that finger! (Search YouTube to see the gnarly footage.)

When the finals came around, we saw some major flaws in the judging system. In every comp you will always have complaints and issues with judging, but in this case the judging flaws became very apparent.

The final heat included Brent, Matt, Isaac, Zack and Mike “Skim” Louie. Lexi Hutchings, winner of the women’s division, was also included in the finals. Not to take away from any of these riders but everyone was surprised that Peter Hodgins didn’t make it. He landed some pretty big stuff and was very consistent throughout the comp. Isaac and Matt were definitely the standouts in the final heat. They both landed just about everything in every combo you could imagine. They were both also the only ones to land the s-rail. The two riders definitely looked unbeatable – it would be a toss up which one would claim first. Isaac ended up with first, but Matt didn’t even make it in the top three! This was pretty awkward for all the riders and was by far the biggest disappointment in the judging.

The Virgin River is a great skim spot, but the comp itself has some issues. Besides shortfalls in the judging department, the less-than-mediocre rails are definitely another issue that the comp needs to confront. The rails come from local riders and some local shops, but nobody is really taking the lead to get competition-quality rails for the riders.
FINAL RESULTS:

Pro

1st place: Isaac Thomas
2nd place: Zack “Slash” Hooker
3rd place: Mike “Skim” Louie

16-18:

1st place: Blake Zimmerman

13-15:

1st place: Tyson Hubbard

Women’s

1st place: Lexi Hutchings

After the contest on Sunday, be sure to hit up the Out The Back Wrap Up Party @ 7 Degrees in Laguna Beach (Laguna Canyon) which will feature Live music, Video montages, Awards ceremony, and 10th St. Bros. video premiere 7pm – 11pm Sunday July 27, 2008. Don’t miss out.

The conditions were challenging with the presence of hurricane Bertha offshore, however there were still good waves to be had if you could make it over the dead water. Look for expanded coverage in the next issue of Skimboarder Magazine.

The Top Six:

1. Brandon Rothe
2. Paulo Prietto
3. Morgan Just
4. Brad Domke
5. Bill Bryan
6. Jason Wilson

1. Bill Bryan 2900 Points
2. Morgan Just 2556 Points
3. Paulo Prietto 1909 Points
4. Brandon Sears 1815 Points
5. James Lovett 1522 Points
6. Brandon Rothe 1462 Points
7. Stephen Bradford 1307 Points
8. Woody Harris 1307 Points
9. Brad Domke 1222 Points
10. Chris Marciniack 1071 Points
11. Corbin Dull 938 Points
12. Toby Lehman 818 Points
13. Scott Flores 810 Points
14. Joey Vavala 716 Points
15. John Howell 657 Points
16. Grady Archbold 651 Points
17. Dominic Prietto 590 Points
18. Mathieu Thibaud 578 Points
19. Sam Stinnett 522 Points
20. Teddy Vlasis 478 Points

For a full list of the results please visit the United Skim Tour home page.

With the swell up, this will most likely be a very fun and exciting event.  So far this year, the UST contests have scored with good contest conditions.  Cabo started things off with a bang with excellent conditions at Lover’s Beach.  Soon thereafter, Dewey Beach showed the contestants how the east coast is done right with off shore winds and clean waves all day long.  New Jersey is the only exception so far, but even Barnegat had glimpses of glory.

This year the UST race couldn’t been much closer.  Beaker has a strong lead with two firsts and a second place.  Morgan Just is looking ripe this year nipping closely at Beaker’s tail with Paulo Prietto in striking distance behind.  It will definitely be exciting to see the action unfold.  Stay posted for news and highlights!