2013 Rotator Archive Stories

How many surfers in San Clemente would like to have 180 surfboards in their garage? Resident Maurice Agnello has that many in a warehouse where he sells used boards at what often is one-fourth the price of what they would cost new. Agnello, 41, started his business, UsedSurf, in 2005 using his long experience as a surfer and surfboard ai

Who needs to go to Sea World when you have a show like this right in your back yard? Huntington Beach surfer and stand-up paddler Mona Webster was about to take a wave in Newport Beach on her stand-up paddle board Friday – which also happened to be her 49th birthday – when she spotted the three big, beau

Back in 2007, Tim Lukei and his friends would glide along the calm waters in Newport Beach on stand-up paddleboards and passersby would bombard them with questions. “Is that hard? How do you do that? Do you give lessons?” It wasn't hard. To show them, Lukei, of Irvine, would let people give it a try, sometimes making $10 off

If you're looking to get out of town while at the same time do some good and catch some waves, there's a surf-yoga-volunteer trip coming up in Nicaragua that still has some spots available. The event is put on by SYRV, and this year Aileen Pham, owner of RA Yoga in Costa Mesa, is hosting the yoga portion of the trip. Yoga classes are held daily

Orange County surfwear industry insider Paul Naude and private equity firm Sycamore Partners are one step closer to taking over Billabong International Ltd. The Gold Coast, Australia-based company announced Tuesday that it had entered exclusive discussions with Naude and Sycamore, which offered a takeover bid that amounts t

Surfers from San Clemente, Capistrano Beach, Dana Point, Fullerton, Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach put on a show Saturday and Sunday in Oceanside, a final tuneup for the West Coast Championships set for April 27-28 at San Onofre's Church Beach. A solid swell kept surfers on their toes at the ninth stop on this season's Western Surfing A

NEWPORT BEACH – The waves were perfect, the sun was firing, and the community came out to the sand at 54th Street to support the Newport Harbor High School Surf Classic, which raised about $7,500 for the school's surf team. The contest drew surfers from elementary-school age to masters 40 and older to compete in an event that over1

Orange County's Courtney Conlogue claimed her second Women's World Tour victory Friday, winning a big surf contest in New Zealand over Hawaii's Coco Ho. The waves were two-to-three-feet at Taranki's Fitzroy Beach for the TSB Bank NZ Surf Festival, the fourth stop of seven on the women's ASP World Tour. "I put in a lot of hard wor

NEWPORT BEACH – The addition of slow-moving paddleboarders to Newport Harbor's heavy summer boat traffic has led some harbor users to question the safety of having paddlers share the channels with boaters. Standup paddleboarding, often called SUP, has exploded in popularity in recent years. The influx has led to multiple SUP rental

The good news is, it's still early in the year for the competitive surfing circuit. But it's been a somewhat sluggish start for some of the Orange County surfers who are on the other side of the world competing against the world's best surfers in the Association of Surfing Professionals World Tour as the second men's event – the Ri

As I drove up and down the coast Thursday looking for waves - to which I found none - I thought about this past swell as I drove past flat break after flat break.  All I could think about was "this place was just firing a few days ago." Then I thought, "Man, there was so much going on I'm going to check it out again."

Surprisingly, on Tuesday morning, the dying swell from last weekend was still hanging around with the small NNW back-up swell hitting, putting sets head high to a foot overhead. The sun broke through the cloud bank mid-morning and made for a mostly sunny day. It would be hard to believe this swell will be around at all Wednesday and surf should

Monday beach gloom was the start to the day, but if you could see through the mist you would have seen waves pumping some 6-feet towers on the shoreline. As the day moved, on the swell backed off. By 5 p.m. there were only slight pulses of what was a great weekend swell that kept us all happy and close to, if not completely, surfed out. Next few

This weekend was the opening weekend for what might be shaping up to be one of the strongest spring seasons in years. Sunday was the peak of the swell, with most south facing beaches hitting 4- to 6-foot surf. Lowers Sunday evening was pumping beautiful long rights and lefts up to 6 feet on the sets with very little down time in between.

The new SSW swell started filling in nicely Friday in Orange County, with most beaches showing the increase in wave heights – but you had to find the break that didn't have morning sickness if you surfed early. Newport Beach looked like another dumpy day early this morning with not much to be had until around 10 a.m. when the tide

For almost a week now, the coast has been socked in with low clouds and coastal fog, which makes for no surf photography in the early parts of the day. But there seems to be a nice little burn-off going on in the late afternoon/early evening that's been fun to surf and shoot two days in a row. Huntington Beach local Brad Ettinger was out

The mid-period swell due in Tuesday came in the evening up and down the coast. By 2 p.m. signs of the south, southwest started to roll through, bumping the surf up two or three feet and by the evening, surf was a solid 3 feet with a few 4-footers. Swell fills in Tuesday night and runs through the next day with 3- to 4-foot surf with a couple 5-f

Monday was just another sign that Mother Nature put the breaks on spring getting here early. As the cold front started moving through in the morning, the coastal air temperature started to drop and the day looked as gloomy as the first day of winter. Surf is on the rise, heading for the 3- to 4-foot range, but you might want to hit it ea

Orange County surfers took home three of five titles during the Surfing America Prime Surf Series finals, which ran Sunday on the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier. The contest kicked off on Saturday, with the finals hel

All indicators point to spring being near, with clocks springing forward this past Sunday and sunny skies, and most of all, combo after combo swell lined up for the week. Monday morning witnessed the first of several swells to hit Orange County from both the SSW and the NNW directions. Peaky lines with no wind gave birth to fun to real fun condi

The final day of the NSSA State Championships fired off in perfect 3- to 4-foot surf on the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier. The college, high school and middle school finals had the kids catching close to perfect waves and riding them for some high scores. "Did we score or what?!" said NSSA Executive Director Janice Arag

A chill in the air at the beach today as the winds kicked in early and kept the temperature down. Today was the second day of competition in the NSSA State Championships on the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier. Still a lot of swell in the water, which gave the kids plenty of head high waves to ride. Today's standouts and moving on to tomo

The clearing skies and windy day made for a crisp winter day in Huntington Beach. NSSA North America set up shop today on the south side of the pier for a long States Finals weekend. The college rounds ran today with the high schools and middle schools hitting the beach tomorrow. Sunny days ahead with more combo swells lining up for the weekend

You got to love it when storms seem to cooperate with you, as this storm did by slowing down and not coming around until the late evening hours Thursday. The sun did make a small appearance around 4 p.m. for those out surfing the victory-at-sea conditions. Sets came in on the bigger side, hitting 5 to 6 feet on north side of the Huntingt

Hmmm, the last thing I heard on the local late night news was, "Rain tomorrow with partly cloudy skies." But when I was awoken from sleep at 6 a.m. by Teddy Navarro laughing at me for still being in bed, it was a different story.   "Where are you, Hawaiian?" he yelled at me on the phone. "It's firing and the sun's out!" I ro