Reply to comment

Dennis interviewed on Kayaksurf.net

Dennis Judson was recently interviewed by Luis of KayakSurf.net.

Hi Dennis! First of all, congratulations for the great success of SCKSF. Let's start for the beginning... 1978, ASU. Tell us how this project was born...

You realize when we started our business, Adventure Sports Unlimited, the main focus was kayaking, SCUBA Diving and Cross Country Skiing. In all these sports we perceived ourselves as pretty agro. In kayaking this meant white water, not sea, kayaking. Now we did trips to the river but we were on the ocean-the river was at least 3 hours away for anything that could be perceived as beginning. So our white water training ground was the surf. We needed to promote our kayaking idea of adventure to the world so what better method than creating a gathering of white water folk to display their skills in moving waves-the Santa Cruz Kayak Surf Festival was born. We called this thing a Festival, although it was run like a contest, in that we had events for novice and expert kayakers alike greased with town parties every night to maximize contestant mingling. Our premise was that this thing should foster learning and growth in the process of sliding over waves in paddle powered vehicles. Little did we know what we started.

Did you ever thought about reaching this point?

Well, no. We were quite happy surfing Dancers, Super Sports and Sabers. Than those English started messing with designs-Malcolm came out with a Saber copy in glass called a Jester. The design race was on. I remember the breakfast meeting with Merv Larson saying he could make a kayak like wave ski-the American answer. Now everyone has their own design and manufacturer.

Full interview to be posted soon at Kayaksurf.net.

Dec 03, 2009