WELLFLEET — Swells from the aftermath of Hurricane Ernesto and an eerie fog mixed with drifting smoke from Canada’s wildfires enveloped White Crest Beach on Aug. 18 as hundreds of undeterred surfers and fans made the pilgrimage down the dune for the 50th annual Cape Cod Oldtimers Longboard Classic.
Kids and dogs played tag with the surf. Friends passed around beers or ladled a legendary rum-laden brew called Willy’s Wipeout from a plastic bucket into tiny cups. The waves were bigger than they had been in recent memory, and for more than three hours, revelers camped out on the sand as 12 heats of surfers successively braved the shore break and tried to catch one. The lingo used to describe these attempts included “creamed,” “flushed,” “thrashed.” From the shore, the scene slowly revealed to newcomers that the Oldtimers is less a competition and more a celebration of life and its constantly changing conditions.
Scott Brookshire, a participant known among friends in the Outer Cape surf community as Icky, surveyed the scene from a post near the lifeguard’s tower where the announcers had set up shop. “It’s just 200 or 300 of your best friends hanging out on a beach, watching people try to surf for the first time in a long time,” he said.
Brookshire is what you might call an old-time oldtimer: a friend of Mike Houghton, the event’s co-founder. Houghton, who opened the now-shuttered Jasper’s Surf Shop in Eastham in 1967 and died in 2021, started the longboard gathering with his friend Kevin “Foggy” Foley “maybe more, maybe less, than 50 years ago,” Ryan Fitzgerald reported in these pages in 2021. “It had to be after 1970,” Foley said at the time.
Surfers lined up in front of their longboards by the guard tower for a photograph, then, just after 5 p.m., surfing commenced, with surfers sorted by age, gender, and team affiliation. There were “Kittens” and “Cougars” and “Yuppies” and “Puppies.” There were teams called “Jurassic” and “Team Fat.” There were lifeguards, old and new, and a contingent from the Pump House Surf Shop in Orleans, whose co-owner Jamie Demetri has kept the event running since Houghton died.
Eastham resident Brian Voke Sr. has been surfing the classic since he was 21, the youngest one can be to qualify for the event. This year, he competed in the second heat, “Social Security,” for men between 62 and 69, even though he said he’s “not collecting.”
“This is the only sport that makes you feel like you’re 12 years old again,” he said.
The Longboard Classic runs in the blood. Voke’s sons now compete, too. And Jenny Leyton of Eastham, who surfed with the “Kittens” — women between 21 and 29 — said her mom and her uncles all compete: “It’s a family affair.”
Before each heat, the crowd gathered around the lineup, awaiting the familiar air-horn starting blast. At the sound, surfers turned and approached the crush, which battered bodies and boards.
“It wasn’t dangerous, but I got thrashed,” said Jeff Oakes of Brewster, competing in the “Oldtimers” category, the one for men from 51 to 60. He had a bleeding cut on his shoulder.
At least one longboard was sacrificed to the waves. A vintage blue-and-white board hit the beach and cracked horizontally down the middle, eliciting gasps from the crowd. Its owner rose from the water, hoisted the martyred board above his head, and carried it back to shore.
Along the beach, surfers sported themed costumes. Lifeguards from Eastham’s Coast Guard Beach surfed in business casual button-down shirts and ties. Others wore hippie-style flowered headbands.
Emily Viprino, a first-time competitor from Eastham who started surfing this summer, had her own look. “I figure if you can’t surf well, then you have to surf fabulously,” she said. Inspired by the idea of surf and turf, she and her father-in-law arrived dressed as a cow and lobster.
Viprino didn’t let the rough conditions or her lack of experience spoil her fun. “This was my tenth day ever surfing, but I had the time of my life,” she said.
Four taps of the air horns announced the last ride for each heat. In heat seven, one of the “Yuppies,” a guy somewhere between 30 and 49, rode a wave in to shore, high-fiving the Independent’s art director, Chris Kelly, who was bobbing in the water post-wipeout.
Veda Cropper, visiting Wellfleet from Hampton, N.H., watched the final heats in awe. “Surfing is a huge part of our lives, so even though we’re not competing, we needed to come,” she said.
Cropper was impressed by the number of female surfers participating and noted that a woman in the ninth heat had claimed the best barrel, and potentially best wave, of the day.
“The reality of a surf competition is that it can be very aggressive, very stressful in the lineup, especially for women,” said Los Angeles-based Anna Dimond, who learned how to surf as a kid on the Outer Cape and participated in the “Cougars” heat for women over 30. Here, she said, that’s not the case. “It’s just so nice to have this warm-hearted, goofy way to celebrate,” she said.
“Team Fat,” the next to last heat, was composed of more than a dozen dudes who had been friends with Houghton. Most had visited his grave in Wellfleet that afternoon, pouring out a bit of Willy’s Wipeout on the granite and grass before reporting to the beach for the competition.
“This is the heat we’ve been waiting for,” said an announcer wearing a T-shirt proclaiming “Warm Water Is for Pussies.”
By 7 p.m., the fog hovering at the top of the dunes had begun to dissipate. The crew from the Pump House took the last surf before the crowd climbed the dune for the awards ceremony.
Demetri and Matt Rivers of the Pump House awarded posters to the first-, second-, and third-place winners in each heat. But many of the winners had already gone home for the day, spent and satisfied with only intangible rewards.
Dana Franchitto, a Wellfleet surfer who mans the parking booth at Lecount Hollow Beach, was one of the last to leave the beach that night.
“Surfing is not a sport to me,” he said. “This is the only surf competition I like because it’s not serious. It’s being in nature, in the energy of the wave. I think Thoreau would have done it. Or maybe John Muir if he wasn’t so far out in the wilderness. Maybe Rachel Carson. That’s where I get it from.”
