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Surf community excited for removal of competition ban

Youth contests have been affected by state edict created primarily for pro events

Since a Jan. 5 edict from the governor's office halting all surf meets in the state -- professional and amateur -- youth surfers have had to travel to find the competition they love.

That appears to be on the brink of changing after a friendly protest Tuesday at Lahaina Harbor by the surf community and Maui County Mayor Michael Victorino mentioning the subject at his Tuesday press conference.

"There's been some questions about youth surfing competitions -- we allowed them for many months last summer," Victorino said. "And unfortunately with schools down due to the governor's orders ... the Department of Land and Natural Resources has not been allowing county surf meets not only in this county but throughout the state.

"I have been in discussion with Governor (David) Ige on this matter along with other mayors and he is planning an announcement to clarify the state's guidelines for youth ocean sports, including surf competition. So stay tuned ladies and gentlemen -- we will start up surf competitions and other ocean sports very shortly."

That was welcome news to the Maui surfing community, from competition organizers to parents of young surfers, to the competitors themselves.

"I'm stoked for the kids," longtime Maui surf contest organizer Kim Ball said Wednesday. "We do have permits in for the 27th annual Pohai Na Keiki Nalu for June 12th at Launiupoko and we're praying that it'll happen."

Ball said the governor's ruling to throw all surf competitions under the ban was probably not the intended outcome. Youth surf meets draw only a few spectators to beaches while the pro events draw thousands, meaning that COVID-19 concerns are much more prevalent at the professional competitions.

"I think when the governor made that proclamation on January 5th that was really for the World Surf League pro events on the North Shore (of Oahu), but by using such a wide brush it covered us too, and probably unknowingly to him," Ball said. "I don't know why you'd want to eliminate ocean sports activities and allow land activities."

Justin Prouty is the owner of Minit Medical and has been working with Maui County on COVID protocols for several months. He is also the father of standout 9-year-old surfer Ryder Prouty.

"We've been in the middle of COVID, deep into the COVID situation during all the testing in conjunction with the county and we really see where all the positives come from and have a pretty good understanding of COVID spread and how it works," Justin Prouty said. "In the fall, in conjunction with the county -- the mayor was super helpful -- and we were able with very strict protocols run two of the (Hawaii Surfing Association) events.

"The contests were amazing, they went really well. They were safe and under control and we were really pleased with the results."

Prouty pointed to a positive test that came from one of the WSL events as the reason for the ban.

"It was not really at the event, but through their process, that's when the governor put the halt on all surfing activity," he said. "I'm not sure if he understood that it would affect the kids or not, but it did."

The Proutys traveled to Huntington Beach, Calif., for a contest two weeks ago and Justin Prouty took a video that caught the eye of the Hawaii surf community, including Kahea Hart, an HSA official and surf coach on Oahu.

"I made a video showing four kids surfing in the water at a relatively empty (beach) -- they just don't have that many spectators," he said. "The beach can tend to be less crowded with the event than it is normally. So I posted that video and Kahea Hart got that video on Oahu and made a video of his own and had 70,000 views and it snowballed from there.

"The lieutenant governor stepped in and said, 'Yeah, this is silly, it doesn't make sense.' (U.S. Sen.) Brian Schatz jumped in too, the mayors on both islands did too. It was just a matter of getting the governor to change what he's put in place."

That change of heart from Ige could be announced as soon as today, Ball and Prouty said.

Maui professional surfer Ian Walsh is hopeful to hold his Menehune Mayhem meet on June 5-6 at Hookipa.

"Allegedly the governor is supposed to make an announcement hopefully (today) that we can resume these events," Prouty said. "To be honest, looking back on this I wish Kahea and I would have sort of ... we've been talking about this for months, but we didn't want to step on toes. We probably ... should've acted sooner and figured out that it's disconnected and tried to solve it as a community faster, but you see the groundswell of support now and it's amazing.

"It's a lot easier to do now that we've got the vaccinations in place -- it just makes sense now. We just have to move forward."

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.