X-TRAK Team Captain & National Sales Manager Frieda Zamba-Shaw

Putting in a little R&D time. It's all for the good of the company.
photo: Mike Rutherford

Fun waves launch AAU - Hayes, Umbel, Duff, King among early champions

Corey Howell of Melbourne surfs in the AAU National Surfing Championships in the Men's Open in Cocoa Beach. (Rik Jesse, FLORIDA TODAY)

Shane Holmes

It was rainy, gloomy and gusty at the beach behind Coconuts on the Beach, and George Seguna could not have been any more pleased.

A quick look at the ocean would tell you why.

Waves were breaking 3 to 5 feet in glassy offshore sets -- and they didn't stop all day long, rain or not -- and the roughly 135 surfers who invaded Cocoa Beach for the AAU National Surfing Championships were taking advantage of it.

"Cocoa Beach is absolutely pumping," Seguna said. "This is a dream come true for us."

Seguna is the contest director of the tournament, which is sponsored by Bright House Networks and the World Skin Cancer Foundation.

The tournament's main event is the Open Shortboard and Longboard competitions because the top four from each will be awarded a slot in the Sean and Skippy Slater Invitational behind the Cocoa Beach Hilton.

The event will be Nov. 7-9, and Cocoa Beach native and nine-time world champion Kelly Slater is expected to compete.

Saturday, both events completed preliminary heats, and the semifinal and final heats will be conducted today. Multiple other age groups and divisions also finish today.

Ten surfers from the Open Shortboard event, who either finished first or second in one of the five heats, will surf today.

Cocoa Beach's Danny Cruden, who finished first in his respective heat, was a judge for last year's AAU tournament and said the surf could not have been better.

"Usually we don't get surf like this here," he said. "These are blessed conditions."

From the Open Longboard competition, 10 surfers from five heats also advanced and will compete today for one of four spots.

Because the tournament is all amateur, no money will be awarded, except for the opportunity to surf in the same competition as Slater. Star surfers C.J. Hobgood and Cory Lopez are also likely to attend, Seguna said, but that has yet to be confirmed.

"This is an unbelievable opportunity for these surfers," Seguna said. "Normally, they would have to go through multiple levels of surfing competitions to get a chance to compete with those guys."

Cruden said he'll just focus on today's competition.

"I'm trying not to think about that possibility (of competing against Slater)," he said.

The competition features about 135 surfers from all over Florida, the Bahamas and Puerto Rico. The age groups ranged from Super Menehune (6 and under) to Super Men's (46 and over).

The semifinals and finals for those events are also scheduled for today.

Blake Sands, a 23-year-old surfer who was born and raised in the Bahamas but has lived locally for the past four years, won his heat in the Men's division Saturday. He praised the level of competition.

"I feel really, extremely good about winning," he said. "That was a tough heat, everybody was really tough."

Sean Hayes won the Super Men's event, Joey Rosadio won the Open Bodyboard, Korey King won the Junior Women's, Julie Stine won the Masters Women's, Jasset Umbel won Women's Shortboard and Crystal Duff won the Women's Longboard.

Aside from the Open Shortboard and Open Longboard competition, today's action will also include an X-Games-style high school team competition between Satellite, Cocoa Beach and Jupiter.

Surfers enter the water at 8 a.m.

Morgan Just wins Fluid Skim Invasion

After a hard faught battle between Morgan Just, Corbin Dull and Kris Stone, Morgan Just beats Corbin Dull by one point to take the 2008 Fluid Skim Invasion. This contest was Kris Stone’s first PRO event and the deep knowledge of the local wave conditions led him into the final.

Morgan Just (Dana Point, CA)
Corbin Dull (Panama City Beach, FL)
Kris Stone (Fort Walton Beach, FL)
Jed Currington (Vilano Beach, FL)
Dave Armstrong (Venice, FL)
Derrick Pryor (Panama City, FL)

More at: http://skiminvasion.com/

Morgan Just

Congrats to Kyle Timm

Kyle nabbed a 1st in the ISF contest at Oceanside Harbor on Saturday. There were about 10 middle schools competing in it, so about 90 kids were in the short board division. Great Job Kyle!

Jasset in FLorida Today

Surfing's new wave

Melbourne Beach's Umbel among Brevard County's female teen sensations

BY HILLARD GROSSMAN
FLORIDA TODAY
It's been 20 years since Jan Futch propped up her "competitive" surfboard and stopped traveling around the globe as a touring pro. She had dominated the mid-'80s as the Florida and Southeast champion and was chasing the world's best.
But at 21, she was ready to raise her son.
"What could I do?" she said. "Life starts getting in the way."
Little did she know she'd be the last true world-class champion from Brevard County for the next two decades.
But, that may be about to change, with the emergence of several teenage sensations, including 14-year-old Jasset Umbel of Melbourne Beach.
She has a sweet smile, a cute name and a refreshing perspective on competitive surfing. She also has enough energy to play tag, hide-and-seek and jump on a trampoline after a few hours of surfing at the Ocean Avenue break, just steps from her family's 1937 Cape Cod-style home.
"I just like to surf with my friends," she said.
"She loves people," said her mom, Dorette. "She'd be just as happy if her friends had won."
Don't let the lack of a killer instinct fool you. Her room is full of trophies, some shoulder-high, lending testament to her ability. She's only been surfing for three years, but already has won back-to-back National Scholastic Surfing Association and Eastern Surfing Association East Coast championships.
"She's the real deal, and I don't say that very lightly," Futch said. "I've been watching her since she was little. The first time I laid eyes on her was when I was watching Eddie (her son, Eddie Guilbeau) and the boys in a huge shore break. It was scary. But I saw her take off, and she just charged it. I haven't seen anything like that (from a girl) around here in a long time."
Neither has Quiksilver's Matt Kechele, who spent five seasons on the World Tour.
"I saw her in Cape Hatteras (N.C.) during the Easterns, and she just wanted to free-surf," he said. "She paddled out in these big waves, 6-feet Hawaiian. I mean, pretty big. People were concerned, for sure. But she had no problem. She's definitely got a bright future."
Surfing gets aggressive
It was the girls of yesteryear, including Futch, who set the tone for the local surf scene.
Girls such as Lynn Thomas Vignetti, who won the 1969 East Coast Championships before setting off for a stellar West Coast career, and Cocoa Beach's Sharon Wolfe, a two-time U.S. champion, who won the 1982 East Coast title. There also was Simone Maffey, an East Coast champion from Indialantic, and Satellite Beach's Mary Ann Hayes, now in the East Coast Hall of Fame.
Some have tried to duplicate their feats, girls such as Connie Arias and Kira Sheppard and Lauren McLean. But they've been few and far between.
So what happened in the past 20 years?
"Most of those girls started out on longboards -- that's where most of them got their training -- and they were beautiful surfers," said Dick Catri, a legendary Hall of Fame surfer from Melbourne Beach. "But then, shorter boards came into play. Several adapted very well to them, but surfing got a whole lot more aggressive, and guys were less tolerant about giving up waves to girls, so a lot of the girls gave up.
"Now, there's been a tremendous resurgence in the past 10 years. Some of these girls surf better than the guys, and they keep their femininity doing it."
Acceptance from the guys has been crucial to most female surfers, including Futch, who learned to surf from her brother, Johnny -- a pro.
"Plain and simple, most of the girls today start surfing with other girls," Futch said. whose once-candid reputation with judges helped level the playing surface between men and women. "They do great until they're 15 or 16, but they're so wrapped up in girls surfing. I just don't see where the level (of girls surfing) has accelerated all around."
Where the boys are
Jasset grew up in the shadows of East Coast stars such as Paul Reinecke and David Speir. She also happens to surf with a pretty good group of guys, including Guilbeau, Blake Jones (one of the top 10 progressive surfers on the East Coast) and Marshall Alberga (who once defeated nine-time world champion Kelly Slater in the finals of a Cocoa Beach contest).
"They encourage me," Jasset said.
"Sure, they'd tell her to take a wave, because they didn't want it," laughed her dad, Bob, a former nationally-ranked pro skateboarder who now is a zone manager for Ford Motor Company.
Realistically, Jasset's gracefulness and aggressiveness have impressed the "Inlet boys."
"She's killing it lately," said Guilbeau, 21, one of the area's top surfers and a regular at Ocean Aveue and Sebastian Inlet. "We're stoked because she's always trying to push it in bigger waves.She's eating healthy, she's so smart into it. She's so humble, too. One day I'll hear, 'I got this contest coming up.' But you'd have to hear it from someone else that she won.
"I've never won an East Coast title, and already she's got a couple. It's crazy. She was just a little girl a couple of years ago."
Hasn't been easy
Jasset learned to surf on her dad's longboard when she was 11 as he'd hold onto her ankles.
"She could swim, so after a couple of times, she was up," Bob said. "It started out as a hobby. Then, it got to be where her and her brother (Jack, now 10) would fight to see who'd get on the longboard. One day I said to her, 'Let your brother ride the longboard.' She jumped on my shortboard and it didn't take long. Then they started fighting over the shortboard."
By 12, O'Neill representatives in California had seen her on a shortboard and were asking to sponsor her.It was a big step for Jasset, especially to be on the same "team" with WCT superstar Cory Lopez.
But, it hasn't gone to her head. She still keeps her dad as her coach.
"He's a good coach, but I think I'm a better surfer than him," she giggled.
There is little doubt. She's already won 13 of 24 NSSA events, including her first one at age 11 and another one Sunday at Sebastian, often celebrating with ice cream from Moo's in Indialantic.
But it hasn't exactly been as smooth as the soft-serve cones she enjoys.
Jasset was born with double-deficit dyslexia, although her audio-visual shortcomings were not realized until later in life. After some trying times through public schools and private schools, Dorette now keeps her in home-school courses through New Covenant Christian School in Melbourne.
"We keep her home-schooled (now in eighth grade), but it's not because of surfing," Dorette said. "It's a learning deformity, which we discovered later, wondering why she wasn't reading."
But Jasset refuses to use it as a crutch in her sport, even though she struggled at first with such intricacies as learning which direction to take on a surfboard and when the clock would run out on her heats.
"In the beginning, it was different." Bob explained. "She couldn't understand there were 5 minutes left in the heat. She'd block everything out and go full-bore until the horn blew. But she's over all that now."
"I actually think it leads to more creativity on her turns," Dorette said, "because she thinks things out differently."
"I think she's getting better," her little brother said.
Wave of the future
Jasset is part of a new wave of female surfers who could take the sport to higher levels. Locally, there is Christa Alves (19), Savannah Bradley (15), Emily Ruppert (13) and Nikki Viesins (12), to name a few.
Just last week, 14-year-old Tyler Wright of Australia -- who also learned to surf with her brothers -- became the youngest female surfer to win an ASP World Tour event by capturing the Beachley Classic in her home country. The irony of Wright's win came just a few days after seven-time women's world champion Layne Beachley announced she'd be retiring in December.
Earlier this year, another 14-year-old, Malia Manuel of Hawaii, became the youngest to win the U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, Calif.
"There are definitely some young girls out there in California, like (national champion) Courtney Conlogue," Kechele said. "All of those girls are beating some of the guys.Right now, you've got a good group of girls in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states, like Quincy Davis, and Ariel and Alexis Engstrom (all of Montauk, N.Y.).
"I think the movie 'Blue Crush' would have got them fired up years ago. I know we've had a competition gap, but as surfing continues to grow and capture people's interest, these girls will be a big part of it."
Jasset realizes World Tour stars, such as Slater and twins C.J. and Damien Hobgood, all began their surfing careers just minutes from her home.
"I know they started here, so you know it can be done," said Jasset, who also would love to work with animals as a veterinarian.
"She's such a sweet girl," Futch said. "Too many of them lose that sweetness."
As long as those ice cream celebrations continue, Jasset should have a very sweet future.

A look at Jasset Umbel
Age: 14
Hometown: Melbourne Beach
Big Feats: Winning Open Women and Explorer girls titles at the NSSA East Coast Championships, ESA Southeast Regional and East Coast girls Champion in 2008
Sponsors: O'Neill, Lost surfboards, Future Fins, Xtrak, Nixon, DNA energy drink, Ocean Minded and Catalyst surfshop.

More new pads!

The all new SPLAT and POLKA.com pads are now available from X-TRAK. Check them out on the website, www.xtrak.com or purchase one now on the online store, www.xtrakstore.com. The first shipments are just now arriving at our distributors and will be in shop over the days and weeks to come.

X-TRAK/MAGMA Sign Three New US Distributors

X-Trak & Magma sign major US distribution agreements

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, - - Rockledge, Florida -- Hyperform Inc., the manufacturer of X-TRAK surf products and the new, innovative MAGMA Wax, is proud to announce that they have continued the expansion of their domestic distribution network with the addition of three new distributors on the US East and West coasts.

While customers are encouraged to order from the distributors in their regions factory direct communications will still be welcomed.

Their new distributors can be contacted at:

Coastal Surf Supplies
12636 Sunset Ave., H-2
Ocean City, MD 21842
Ph: (888) 569-7038
Fx: (410) 213-7825
Email: sales@coastalsurfsupplies.com

Just Surf, Inc.
1812 Milbank Rd.
Encinitas, CA
Ph: (877) 657-2594
Fx: (760) 434-5946
Email: info@justsurfusa.com

Rainbow Fin Co.
677 Beach Drive
La Selva Beach, CA 95076
Ph: (831) 728-2998
Fx: (831) 728-3156
Email: info@rainbowfins.com

In addition to the distributor’s in-house teams, each will be backed by factory support and the new X-TRAK/MAGMA National Sales Manager, and four time world champ, Frieda Zamba-Shaw. Look for joint promotional events in the weeks and months to come including the Jan 14-17 Surf Expo and other trade shows, contests and shop events.

With nearly 2 decades of experience in making surfboard traction, X-TRAK has become a trusted name in the surfing industry by providing: unbeatable traction as a result of our innovative microdot embossing processes and intricate, cutting edge designs that are offered in a variety of colors.

MAGMA surfboard wax has unique, patent-pending color coded embers for quick and easy differentiation between the 5 temperature formulas offered. MAGMA wax provides fast build up, advanced anti-slicking properties, and various tackifiers for total deck traction. Each bar of MAGMA is made of 3 break-away pieces that are poured into a recycled/recyclable packaging that can also be used for storage.

www.justsurfusa.com
www.rainbowfins.com
www.hyperforminc.com
www.coastalsurfsupplies.com

Easterns 2009 - The Frieda Zamba-Shaw Report

Checkout all the photos from Frieda's trip here: http://xtrakfriedareporteasterns.blogspot.com/

Jasset's on a roll

Jasset takes the win in the Girls divison at the 41st annual East Coast Championships for the Eastern Surfing Association in Buxton, North Carolina.

On Sunday She won the Volcom Cooterfish in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

Michel Laframboise

Long time Cocoa Beach local and multivehicle windrider Michel Laframboise stopped by the other day with his lovely wife and fellow rider Regina to get some traction for their new kiteboards. Here are a couple shots. Look foreword to seeing some action shots soon!

Mikey DeTemple & Picaresque

Here is a little excerpt from Mikey's blog:

"THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2008

First up!
After having 1,400 feet of super-16 sitting in the fridge, shot over a month ago I decided it was time to send it out. AKA, I had the money to have it processed. This surf-film-making thing is expensive. While I was in France last week it was processed, transfered and awaited my arrival yesterday when I returned to Rhode Island. We shot this whole trip on super-16, so it was kind of nerve racking wondering what we were going to see. Pleasantly surprised, it's all I hoped for. Here's a little tease of what you will be seeing.
Photos thanks to Chasen Marshal."

Here is a link to his blog: http://highseasfilm.blogspot.com/

Keep us posted on the progress Mikey!