Of course, Samantha Bittner is right up there if you’re looking for someone to blame for bringing such a massive crowd to your nice quiet beach here on the Southern Oregon Coast. But there were so many more behind the scenes that Sam counted on to cover the myriad complications and demands a gathering of this magnitude imposes.  Not to mention the money, time, resources, product, ....

    Ted Eady’s sponsorship the last couple years has been huge.  He’s a fan, videographer, owner of the Beachcomber and a huge believer in both windsurfing and stand up paddleboarding events as a way to bring the sort of people he’d like to see come visit the area to take advantage of what it has to offer.  He was a far more than generous benefactor to this event.  Donating room in his hotel, his time, prize money, the use of his ever growing stable of standup paddle boards and his considerable stoke to the cause.

    And there is also an impressive list of the other sponsors of the entire tour as well as the local folks in Pistol that are to be reminded any chance we might get how stoked we are about their contributions.  

    And the judges, Keith Teboul, Matt Pritchard, Dave Dominy, Gary Koop and Alex Bitoun.  You might be thinking how tough can it be to hang out on the beach and watch the crew shred it up.  Well, it turns out to be a rather demanding pastime.  And they were missing the sailing.  I helped build the scaffold in a building wind on Wednesday morning and can tell you that even ten feet off the beach, in 4.2 weather, there is still madd sand blowing around.  The sun was in their eyes in the afternoons -- for four days of events with the first couple days going way long. The finals for the double elimination finished with the sun setting into the way distant marine layer.  Long hours, grabbing lunch on the fly, brutal working conditions, the union wouldn’t be having it.   This along with a hundred other demands, decisions and distractions to contend with.  

    Kevin Pritchard was no doubt, up till early in the mornings doing some very cool video releases during the event and has been supporting the tour heavily with all kinds of promotional video stoke.  Pete DeKay was all over the media direction and was on site to help.  Josh Samperio handled the mic.  Ryan Kolburg was on the sand the whole time doing the beach marshall action and helped huge with the set up and take down.  Hot wild Barbecue was in the parking lot feeding the masses.  Ken Deerie was running the I pad scoring system.  The Gold Beach Fairgrounds was home to the event parties and feeds. Playa Del Sol stayed open late to feed the crew a couple nights.  Ranger Austin was on site for backup.  Jeff Ferguson was huge behind the scenes getting us press and facilitating all kinds of stuff.  Tim at Port Hole graciously lent us his generator.  And one of the most excellent heros of all, Sam’s Mom Sandra, who was tireless and totally stoked and handled so much.  And there are so many more I am neglecting to mention for there is so much more to this than any of us know.  

    And I certainly wish I could do more to dispel the mistaken perception that many seem to have that I too am one of the heroes.  It would have been nice to be so involved, but I’ve been working on three other projects as well as sailing full time.  So I assure you that I was able to do little more than help install the scaffolding and provide the site security this time around.  And the latter was mostly Sheila.  OK, I did throw down a few words and picked up a lot of trash.  But I think many of the same people that are overestimating my contribution are underestimating what a huge collaboration something like this is and how it seems to take on a life of it’s own thanks to all the volunteerism that goes into pulling it off. 

    So even more stoke and gratitude should go out to Olaf Poedel and Alek Kiselica and Steve DeCicco and Atilla Tivador and James Lundin and Diego Femenias and the all the other contestants and significant others that all came together to make this happen is such fine form.  And all those who are already working on making the 2012 Pistol River Wave Bash something worth traveling from Japan or Morocco or Ireland or Hawaii or Canada or where ever you might be coming from.  And I’ll be looking way forward to seeing everybody again then if not sooner.   With gratitude, stoke and respect.      Dana