WELLFLEET — Carl Breivogel, a 73-year-old surfer, has been participating in the Cape Cod Oldtimers Longboard Classic since the 1990s. Standing on the dune at White Crest Beach on Sunday, rather than competing on the waves — Tropical Storm Henri meant that part was postponed — Breivogel recalled another storm that affected the Classic.
“In 1999, a hurricane stalled off the coast,” Breivogel said. “The air was dead calm, and the edge of the cloud bank was on the southeast horizon. The hurricane was like a wave machine, pumping wave after wave. Some people thought the surf was too big.”
When Mike Houghton, the late co-founder of the event, was asked that day whether the competition should be called off, Houghton replied, “If we canceled because it was too big, we’d be laughed off the Cape.”
Breivogel won the competition that year, and his daughter, Carrie, placed second.
This year, the contest planned for Sunday at White Crest was postponed due to the hurricane-downgraded-to-tropical-storm that veered inland. With the southerly winds, the waves flattened and could not be surfed.
But that didn’t keep some 50 people from gathering at the beach to celebrate the day. There was a barbecue and lots of good cheer among would-be contestants from near and far. Herb Olson made the trip from Connecticut for the occasion. Ron Cronk, who came down from Maine, said he’s been surfing the Cape since 1966. When oldtimers gather, the two agreed, it’s always “as if no time has passed at all.”
The contest will be rescheduled for sometime after Labor Day, according to this year’s organizer, Jamie Demetri. Demetri, who serves on the Eastham Select Board and is co-owner of Pump House Surf Shop in Orleans, stepped up to pull the event together after Houghton died in July. She wanted to make sure the Oldtimers would continue and, Demetri said, Houghton gave her “lots of tips.”
The fact that the event is being run by a woman is something that Houghton had always wanted to happen, said co-founder Kevin Foley. Demetri said the surfing crowd thinks that’s just fine. “Everyone looks at me as an equal, not like ‘a woman running the event,’ ” she said.
Houghton and Foley started the contest maybe more, maybe less, than 50 years ago. It was sometime after they opened Jasper’s Surf Shop in South Eastham, and it was just a way to have some fun with friends and shop staff at the time.
“It had to be after 1970,” Foley said last week as he geared up for Sunday’s gathering. The date of the first official Oldtimers Classic, according to this year’s T-shirt, was 1974.
“It’ll be sad that Mike’s not there,” Foley mused. “I don’t think he ever missed one.”
In the late 1960s and early ’70s, Foley said, surf culture was pretty much entirely based in California — few people surfed the Outer Cape.
One year, Foley, on his way to ski at Waterville Valley in New Hampshire, stopped in at a convention-like event for surfers in Boston. There, he met Jim Jenks, a Californian who was representing Hansen Surfboards but later went on to start his own brand, Ocean Pacific.
Jenks ended up joining Foley on his ski trip, where surfing was their big topic of conversation. Jenks told Foley about a surf competition he had started on the West Coast.
“That’s what gave me the idea,” Foley said. It was named “Oldtimers” because, even back then, he and his friends felt they were the originals. “There weren’t a lot of people in their 20s surfing on Cape Cod in those days,” Foley said.
The first contest was held at Coast Guard Beach in Eastham. Foley and Houghton made T-shirts and a trophy for the event. They charged contestants a few dollars to enter.
“We just wanted to make enough money to buy beer and that was it,” Foley said.
Over the years, Houghton, along with some of the other original Jasper’s crew, kept the Classic going as a fundraiser for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Cape Cod & the Islands. A portion of the proceeds have also been used to maintain the Kenney Norton Scholarship Fund — named for another of the contest’s original organizers.
The surfers who hung out at Jasper’s back then are now in their 70s, and some still compete. The day draws younger people, too, though surfers must be 21 or older to enter. No wetsuits or straps are allowed, and surfers must use a board that measures nine feet or longer.
There will be 11 heats in this year’s contest, most for designated age groups. There are a couple of lifeguard heats for current and retired guards, as well as one for the Pump House staff.
The Classic has “a true cult following,” said Matt Rivers, a surfer who runs Pump House with Demetri. “People come back to the Cape from around the country and world. It’s a gathering, not just a contest.”
Staff writer Tom Recchio contributed reporting for this story.
