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Doin' the wave at the Nelscott Reef

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 10 June, 2006 : - - John Forse first set his sights on Nelscott Reef in 1989, and last year a long-held dream came true when he led the first Nelscott Reef Tow In Classic. The second contest will be held this year, on a set of waves that even Forse calls, "terrifying."

With a possible gap of 12 months between the inaugural Nelscott Reef Tow-In Classic and the recently announced second one, it would be easy to wonder if organizer John Forse can wait that long without going a little crazy.

That gap, however, is about seven years shorter than the last time Forse dared to do something on the reef. And that story didn't end near as happily as the surf contest.

A bit more than a decade before Forse's dream came true, with dozens of the world's pre-eminent surfers hanging 10 off the coast of Lincoln City, Forse tried to surf the reef himself, in 1995.

"My first mission out there was to try and paddle it, " Forse remembers, "and I was actually overwhelmed. I spent winters on the North Shore of Oahu and I'd never seen anything as big" as the waves on Nelscott Reef. "Terrifying is probably the word."

It would be eight years before Forse would try again, this time with a tow-in. In 1991 surfing legend Laird Hamilton had himself towed into the giant waves off Hawaii with a personal watercraft, and that's what Forse realized he was going to need to do to surf Nelscott Reef.

"Nobody around here would have anything to do with it," Forse says. "I had to go to Santa Cruz to recruit because nobody here was capable of towing me in." And in 2003, he made his second attempt at the wave of his dreams. Forse finally surfed the monster wave at Nelscott Reef. Sort of.

"I didn't make it; I got my a__ kicked," he says today. "It was my first tow wave - ever. I knew I wanted to get it in, but once I got in I hadn't thought it any further through. "The steamroller caught up with me."

Forse has every reason to think his second Nelscott Reef Tow-In Classic will fare far better. For one thing, the first one went incredibly well - "I can't help but brag, but we did a phenomenal job," he said - and that's made even more world-class surfers want to make the trip to Oregon.

"We established our credibility," he said. "We have world-caliber waves and a great contest." And that's not just Forse talking. From general trade publications like Portland Monthly to surfer-specific magazines like Surfer's Path, media coverage of the Dec. 11, 2005 event has been nothing but positive. Word-of-mouth within the surfer community has also been incredibly good, Forse said.

"I went to congratulate (2005 participant) Shane Dorian, and he said, 'I just got off the phone with Kelly Slater. He wants to be my partner for the contest.'" That Slater, a seven-time world champion, wants to be part of the only tow-in contest on the U.S. mainland is remarkable to Forse. "That compliment really stuck out."

Forse does have a few changes in mind for the 2006 edition of the classic. The contest window will be expanded by 30 total days, this year from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, to give even bigger waves a better chance of hitting the reef on the right day. "We want bigger waves," Forse said. "All things considered last year, that was on the smallish side," even with 20-footers running over the reef.

"It will break cleaner than that. The bigger it gets the cleaner it gets," he said. "It can break two to three times that and break just as clean." He also sees making the contest slightly longer. Adding another heat should tack about an hour onto the contest.

Finally, Forse hopes more people will get involved in promoting the contest. Last year, Chinook Winds Casino Resort was "really generous" with funding the event, Forse said, and he hopes they will be again this year. But he also hopes other companies will come on board and take advantage of the marketing opportunity as the event becomes a bigger part of the public consciousness.

There's some evidence that's already happening. At a recent meeting of the Lincoln City Urban Renewal Budget Committee, members were hopeful that trail and open space changes would come in time for the crowds they expect the event to bring in.

Indeed, Forse sees the event as not just an advertisement for surfing in Lincoln City, but all of the community. "We're putting Lincoln City on the map," he said. "People are saying, what about this place?"

Forse first saw the wave that would dominate so much of his life in 1989. Many of those years were driven by a need to surf it. Today, however, Forse finds his relationship with the wave as one of guide, as opposed to rider, something he's - mostly - OK with.

"As I get older, and my surfing stinks more, the next best thing to surfing it well yourself is seeing someone else rip it up," he said. "It's seeing what another great surfer can do with it."

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Source: Barton Grove Howe/Newport News Times
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