1974 East Coast Championship
At this year’s “Scibal/Mesanko Sessions,” an annual get together in Cabo of folks who volunteer their time to support the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame, there were legendary East Coast surfers, a former IPS World Champion, a good mix of industry and publishing legends and a whole bunch of Hall of Famers. Topics of discussion ran the gamut and, as you would expect, the verbal abuse that is the norm when a large group of men, who you might suggest have not fully matured, get together was on full display. Since many of these gents were a part of the halcyon days of the burgeoning East Coast competitive scene, the stories carried a bit more weight than the usual surfer word salad.
As a few of us sat around the pool, it was noted that it was the 50th anniversary of what many believe were the best back-to-back contests of the era when the East Coast and U.S. Championships were held over consecutive weeks at the Lighthouse Jetty in Buxton, North Carolina. Two weeks of solid surf provided by two different hurricanes made sure that the surfing levels would be at their highest. The U.S. Championship received most of the attention with a large contingent of Californians making the trek back East. Luminaries including Skip Frye, Tony Staples and the red hot Mark Levy from the South Bay were stunned to see the quality of waves produced on the Outer Banks. The lefts off the Lighthouse groin were hollow and fast and the level of surfing from both West and East Coasters was all-time! As most of us know, New York’s Rick Rasmussen won the Men’s Championship over Florida’s Jim Cartland. Goofy foots reigned supreme in the powerful lefts and Rasmussen’s win catapulted him into the international surf media spotlight.
Talking recently with California’s legendary surfer Tony Staples about coming to Hatteras for the U.S. Championship, he compared the lefts at the groin to Blacks in San Diego. He, along with Skip Frye, made the trip cross country stopping in every surf shop that carried Gordon & Smith Surfboards, their equipment sponsor, and camped at the Lighthouse Campgrounds during the entire contest. Staples made it to the semi-finals, one of the four goofy foots whose skills in left hand barrels were a clear advantage. He spoke fondly of meeting East Coast surfers joking that they were much friendlier than his California counterparts.
The discussion soon turned to the East Coast Championship, which had concluded just a few days before an onslaught of competitors showed up for the national titles comp. As one of the guys pointed out, the Eastern’s did not get nearly the amount of coverage it deserved with one national surf magazine barely giving it a paragraph of acknowledgement. The waves pumped for most of the event and the final was between two of the top competitors from the East Coast. Looking at the crew sitting around the pool it was quickly pointed out that the two finalists from that day, Greg Loehr and Jim Cartland, were active participants in the jocular back and forth that was playing out amongst our group.
In the best article written about the contest by New Jersey’s Bob Lacovara for Surfing Magazine, his opening paragraph really summed up the feel of the event and times. “Let’s take the best of the East Coast hotties, (it was the 70s after all) deposit them on an island, not any desert island mind you, just one of limited habitation and reasonable facilities, then provide decent waves and activate a well-oiled contest machine.” The ESA Eastern’s had truly become a showcase event that had provided a landscape that transcended the old North vs South bluster into a competition that saw finalists from up and down the East Coast. Florida had dominated the championship for many years, but it soon became obvious that surfing talent was everywhere, and the hotly contested Junior Men’s Final was won by Robert Hurt from South Carolina with not one Floridian making the podium. Florida’s Cartland and Loehr were the last two left standing in the Men’s Division after the man-on-man competition saw standouts like Jeff Arensman from New Jersey along with New Yorker’s Rick Rasmussen and Ed Fawess in the mix till the end along with Floridian Jeff Clark.
The two finalists, Cartland and Loehr, went on to successful careers, one as an innovator and mad scientist, creating groundbreaking epoxy resin products that challenged the norms of surfboard manufacturing while still setting a standard as a top competitive surfer, earning respect in the heavy waves on Oah’u. Greg Loehr’s company, “Resin Research,” supplies manufacturers all over the world. The genius, Jim Cartland, earned his degree in Florida that year and then went to Hawai’i where he made a name for himself on the North Shore, especially at Pipeline, while pursuing a Master’s Degree in Theoretical Math (what is that?), eventually earning his Medical Degree in Radiology while still surfing whenever his studies allowed.
The ‘74 Easterns started with a bang that September with overhead surf at the Lighthouse groins allowing the contest organizers to run the massive numbers of heats from the Boy’s Division up to Senior Men’s. The premier Men’s Division had a huge number of competitors with 12-4A surfers seeded directly into the semifinals while the rest of the 36 qualifiers battled it out for the final six spots. The preliminaries were single elimination; if you lost, you packed up your car and headed home. The surf for the Men’s early heats was a solid 4-to-6 feet with some 8-foot sets, the left off the groin giving multiple opportunities for barrel riding with Rick Rasmussen showing the style and gumption that won him the U.S. title the following week. However, from early on, Cartland and Loehr looked to be leading the pack.
The fact that the two close friends from Cocoa Beach might be heading to the final was not a surprise. Cartland first surfed the Outer Banks in the 60s and had many trips under his belt, posting up at the Lighthouse campgrounds as was the right of passage during the 70s. Throughout the contest Cartland said he really didn’t have any support crew on the beach and didn’t even have water during the days he was surfing multiple heats. As a doctor these days, Cartland remembers that he might have been dehydrated during much of the day, but the waves were so good he was focused on surfing well and getting through his heats. Loehr was very familiar with the Lighthouse lefts as he spent months at a time living in Cape Hatteras shaping surfboards for Natural Art and working as a trash collector. The two goofy foots were the perfect competitors to meet in the final on the powerful lefts.
As the waves under the watchful eye of the Hatteras Lighthouse got somewhat out of control a decision was made to move the contest to the Southside of the Island, specifically to the grinding sandbars just over the dunes from Billy Mitchell Airport. The surf was difficult to ride but the contest organizers powered through and multiple finals were completed, however the Junior’s and Men’s semis were put on hold. Luckily the Lighthouse turned on again and the contest caravan headed back to Buxton just in time to see perfect 4-to-6 foot barreling rights and lefts with pristine conditions. Loehr battled it out against New Jersey’s Jeff Arensman, defeating him on his last two waves to make it into the final, while Cartland went into the final undefeated, forcing Loehr to have to beat him twice.
In the first heat, Loehr finished on top as Cartland was admittedly tired from surfing four heats during the day with little sustenance. The final heat was a showcase for some of the best surfing of the contest with Loehr going top-to-bottom with multiple verticals hits on the steep Buxton lefts while Cartland continued to pull into seemingly unmakeable barrels only to come flying out of the tube to the surprise of the spectators on the beach. The Surfing Magazine article described the performances as “superb.” In the end, the tally of the scores was extremely close and, finally, after finishing second so many times, Greg Loehr won his first East Coast Surfing title.
The following week in the U.S. Championship both Loehr and Cartland continued to raise the standards of East Coast Surfing as did the Lighthouse waves, much to the surprise of the visiting West Coast stars. Loehr earned a semi-final finish while Cartland came in second in a close final to Rick Rasmussen for the first U.S. Men’s title won by an East Coast surfer.
Back to the conversation in the pool, I posed a question to Cartland at the end of our conversation but did not expect his reply. “Hey Doc, you finished with a second place at both the Eastern and U.S. Championships in 1974, when did you stop competing,” I asked. Cartland, with his typical dry humor, said, “In 1974.” To all of us talkin’ story, that seemed like the best time to head off to get a beer as nobody could top that.
Photos by: Eric Olsen
