The Santa Cruz AAAA was held on the weekend of April 6-7, at Santa Cruz Rivermouth. SURFER Magazine went big on the coverage (seven pages; the Duke Invitational, held a few months earlier, got just six) because this was the first contest to feature the Western Surfing Association's newly-created AAAA division. At the time, as writer Drew Kampion noted, it was "as professional a classification as a surfer can find himself in." Over the next seven years, until the designation was retired, most of the best American surfers found themselves either owning or gunning for a high AAAA rating.

Sixteen surfers, based on 1967's ratings, were given a AAAA rating prior to the 1968 Santa Cruz event; 12 men and four women, as follows:


1. Corky Carroll
2. Skip Frye
3. Steve Bigler
4. Mike Purpus
5. Donald Takayama
6. Dru Harrison
7. Andy Newman
8. David Nuuhiwa
9. Peter Johnson
10. Tom Padaca
11. Greg Tucker
12. Charlie Quesnel


1. Joyce Hoffman
2. Joey Hamasaki
3. Margo Godfrey
4. Cathy Lienhard

While San Diego's Dale Dobson won the headline event (there was also a AAA division, in which Dobson finished third—it's complicated), he threw a curveball by riding a 9' 6" noserider when virtually every other competitor, male and female, had dropped to eight-foot or less. He would jump aboard a few weeks later, but the shortboard train had left the station without Dale.

 I was baffled at how the viability of the short surfboard at this point still seemed up in the air. It took a minute to realize that, in America at least, the news hadn't really gotten out. Paul Witzig's 

, with its Come to Jesus closing sequence of Nat Young and Bob McTavish at Honolua Bay, hadn't yet toured America. Photos from that history-making session, in fact, are featured in the article that directly follows Kampion's Santa Cruz AAAA contest coverage—John Witzig's "The Challenge from Down Under."

So there's Dale Dobson longboarding his way to victory in Santa Cruz on page 82, while on page 85 you've got Nat Young bottom-turning at Honolua on his Plastic Machine. Give a thought to pages 83 and 84—if there was ever such thing as a visible seam in surf history, there it is.

SURFER photographer Brad Barrett also covered the Santa Cruz event. A few of his shots were used in the article, but most have been in storage these past 50-something years. Below you'll find a gallery of Barrett pictures taken during both days of the contest.

Brad recalls: "It was my first big out-of-town photo assignment. I headed north up Highway 101 in the trusty SURFER VW van with inveterate Aussie traveler Peter Troy along for the ride, with warnings to take it easy through the windy Refugio pass and try not to roll the van. Eventually, our little party arrived safely in Santa Cruz and made our way to Pleasure Point to meet and stay with Drew Kampion, who was covering the contest as a freelancer. The event was held at Rivermouth, and the surf was good. It was the beginning of the shortboard era, and tho’ Dale Dobson won the men’s division on a 9’6”, things were beginning to get interesting. A couple of weeks later, the 1967 Surfer Poll banquet was held, Drew was in attendance, and SURFER publisher John Severson took him aside at some point during the evening to offer him the editor position at the mag. And the rest, as it’s been said, is history." 

[Barrett photo, above, by Drew Kampion. Photo captions below.]

Contest judges, including Marge Calhoun, left

1968 SANTA CRUZ AAAA CONTEST, AS SHOT BY BRAD BARRETT

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