ALO Honors Surfing’s Salad Days With 15th Annual Longboard Classic

By Jon Coen | on August 09, 2023

The Alliance for a Living Ocean LBI Longboard Classic returns for its 15th year on Saturday. (Photo by Kyle Gronostajski)

The first time anyone surfed on LBI was the 1940s. By the time the 1950s came around, surfers rode the first foam and fiberglass boards. There was only a small core of them. Their summertime lifestyle of clamming when the tide was low in the bay and surfing a few hours later when it was low on the ocean would be something of a prototype for the surf culture to come.

The 1960s surf boom would change everything. Ushered in by the lifestyle associated with the “beach blanket bingo” Hollywood movies, it became part of the fabric of life on every coastline in America. Long Beach Island was no different. Surf shops brought boards from California and sold them to anyone who wanted to feel that glide (and others who just enjoyed the attention it drew tied to the roof of their cars). The board labels and shops would build teams of riders. Surfers developed their skills, and the sport enjoyed dramatic growth.

The first Long Beach Island Surfing Championships were held in 1964. In September 1965, Surf City hosted the event and another in the spring of ’66. The LBI Jaycees organized an Island contest in Beach Haven in 1967. Each year, the events grew and now have become part of our local lore. That time has become surfing’s “salad days,” forever remembered and recycled through surf culture again and again. It’s the period in surfing that Alliance for a Living Ocean looked to celebrate when it first came up with the ALO LBI Longboard Classic in 2009 and the style of surfing that it will highlight this Saturday at the 15th annual event at 68th Street in Brant Beach.

Mitchell Gaudioso, who won this event in 2020 and 2021, returns to win back his title. (Photo by Kyle Gronostajski)

Alliance for a Living Ocean, based in Ship Bottom, has been a leading environmental nonprofit at the Jersey Shore since its inception in 1988, with the mission of “safeguarding our shores for future generations.”

“Folks can expect some incredible longboarding, fun local bands, great food from Agnello’s, and the beach bar will feature NJ Beer Co. this year,” said Casey Deacon, board president of ALO.

Deacon has become a dependable go-to for local events over the past five years, not only running the Classic, but volunteering as beach marshal for Jetty’s Clam Jam and Coquina Jam.

The rules of the Classic state surfers must ride original pre-1967 longboards that are 3 feet longer than the competitor is tall. These boards, considered useless relics by the 1970s, have become prized items and family heirlooms, enjoyed each year for the Classic.

The competition includes divisions for Men, Women, Kids and the much-loved Tandem.

Randy and Iris Townsend won the coveted Tandem Division in 2022. (Photo Courtesy ALO)

Noah DeSimone of Beach Haven West won the kids division last year. Killian Todd won in 2020 and 2021. But the two will not go head to head this year. Though Todd is still eligible to win back his title, he is choosing to surf the Men’s, after a radical growth spurt.

DeSimone has only gotten better since last August and was recently named as an ambassador for the locally based surf and lifestyle company Jetty.

“I surfed the ALO contest last year for the first time, and that got me interested in long boarding,” said DeSimone, “I really worked on it last winter and spring. I know a lot of people only take out their longboard on the crappy days, but I really like to take it out on those waist- to chest-high days when it’s really clean and figure out my longboarding a little more.”

The Men’s Division is always impressive in the late rounds. Former champ Jimmy Naplacic of Ocean City will return to defend his crown while Manasquan’s Jamie Contreras seeks to recapture a title he once held. But there’s a very good chance an LBI surfer could take it this year among the talented group of local former champs Mike Melega of Beach Haven, Mitchell Gaudioso of Surf City and Kyle Schiebner of Chatsworth.

It’s been easy to see the level of surfing rising in the Women’s Division these last several years. Last year Sophie Beyer of Surf City and Krystal Aguilar of Ship Bottom took first and second respectively, giving them great momentum building into this event.

In between heats, the kids (those competing and not) will have plenty to do as well, with this year’s ALO Scavenger Hunt.

“The scavenger hunt is a fun kids activity combining commonly found items in nature as well as common plastic items,” Deacon said. “Participants will have 20 minutes to locate the items in a tic-tac-toe style board by crossing off three in a row, column or across. Winners will receive a swag bag of sustainable items.”

Competitors bonding after a heat in 2022. Photo by Lindsey Shugarâs.

The Classic has become ALO’s biggest fundraiser of the year. Fundraising often means auctioning off donated items, which poses a conundrum to this organization, which eschews unneeded products and plastic.

This year, however, the raffle items will include a Ghost Board, LowTides Beach Chair and a wallet of local gift cards. The Ghost Board is a resin, see-through skateboard with a seascape design, by artist Grace Bell of Moorehead City, N.C. The LowTides Chair is a Thomas Paul Dune design, made of aluminum and also upcycled plastics reclaimed from the ocean.

This event requires substantial support from sponsors, specifically the ones who have donated for multiple years. ALO is doing its best not to throw away signage or event jerseys and print new ones, an example of its commitment to the environment. ALO also recently revamped the tiers of its memberships and will be signing up new members on the beach at the Classic.

“We thank our local community for the unwavering support,” said Deacon. “We couldn’t pull this off without our sponsors and donors. Special shout-out to our repeat sponsors – the Tide Table Group, South-End Surf ’N Paddle, Drift Bar, Sink ’R Swim, Wally’s and Equity Prime Mortgage, who select the same sponsorships every year and help us to further our mission of keeping our environmental impact low.”

The event will feature food on the beach, live bands, fresh water to refill water bottles and a sponsor village of tents and tables. Alternate side of the street parking rules are suspended from 65th to 72nd streets on the day of the event to make parking easier. Contestants must show up in person to register between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. Attendance to the beach is free that day for all.

— Jon Coen

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