Zane Schweitzer is full speed full time. After taking part in the intense and dramatic racing action at PPG’s, Zane headed for another epic weekend of action in Ventura at the Ventura Paddlesurf and Hydrofoil Championships ~ where he won both the Stand Up Paddle Surf and Hydrofoil Surf divisions this weekend!
Zaniac and his crew are now continuing their road trip to San Francisco to prepare for the highly anticipated 2018 Red Bull Heavy Water! Follow Zane on Instagram to stay up to date with all the action: @zaniac1
Read Zane’s recap from the Ventura weekend while we wait for the Green Light from Heavy Water.
“Spending some time in California we road-tripped from Dana point’s Pacific Paddle Games to San Francisco for the Redbull Heavy Water. On the way up we stopped in Ventura for two exciting events including a non-profit kids clinic, InZane Super Groms Kids Clinics teamed up with Pure Stoke, and as well the Ventura Paddle Surfing Championships where I took part in the SUP surf and as well as the Hydrofoil surf division.
Arriving at Venture we went straight into our kids’ clinic with the Super Groms and we had a great turn out of about 10 to 15 kids throughout the afternoon all filled with stoke and finding a connection with nature and a passion for the ocean through Surfing and SUP! It’s always a pleasure and a rewarding feeling to be able to share the love for the ocean and our passions for surf sport with the Keiki on my travels! This #InZaneSuperGroms event took place in #Ventura #California in Collaboration with @purestokeorg and it was a blast!! Mahalo to all the #SuperParents and volunteers for bringing the kids down to have some fun and connect with nature! I love seeing kids open up to a new activity with passion. Teaching first-time surfers have always been just as much fun for me as it is for my students!
On to the Competition the next day after getting charged up with Pure Stoke with the kids at our InZane Super Groms event…
No matter what event I am in, I always expect to find a growing and or learning experience where I can improve my performance and competition Surfing. This event was especially exciting as we will compete in one of California’s very first Hydrofoil surf competitions! We have also been blessed with a lot of swell while here in California from recent hurricane activity off the west coast and here in Ventura, we scored some great conditions for competition nonetheless! The competition took place at California Street and we had waves from waist high to head high and super clean California conditions!
The break of California Street is predominantly a right but there were some fun lefts coming in as well with this west swell, so this gave a lot of riding opportunity during the event with the rights that ran along the rock-point break and with quick punchy lefts great for airs. I chose my 7’2” x 24” pro model by Starboard to compete on As this is always my go-to board for competition and high-performance sup surfing to meet the judges scoring criteria of speed, power and flow. For the Hydrofoil division I chose my Hypernut 6’9” x 23” with the Go Foil Kai set up – the waves were hollow and fast with head to over headsets for hydrofoil so I ended up actually borrowing a Go Foil Kai Model from my cousin Andrew Quine who lives in Santa Barbara as the only foils I had with me on this trip were the Starboard Wave 1700 GoFoil Iwa 1700.
After advancing on in 3 heats of the sup surf and 2 heats of the Hydrofoil, I made it into the final for both events and this last day of the weekend’s competition was my kind of day with activities in multiple heats and divisions throughout the day! In the sup surf final, I had California’s aerial tosser Daniel Hughes, Anthony Maltese of Southern California and Caroline Angibaud of France advancing through the Open Sup divisions taking out men to get into the final! It was an airshow between Daniel.
In the Hydrofoil final, I surfed with Kent Hardley and Chris Gutzeit of the Cloud IX team and also both local boys to the area. Going out and having fun on the hydrofoil is one thing but starting to wrap your head around judging criteria and how this new sport should be judged was definitely a fun challenge! I decided to serve the foil with similar criteria to surf competition, with speed, power and flow along with the length of ride and utilizing multiple waves rides with pumps back out. Even in waves around head high, the hydrofoil makes for a really exciting session, especially with some of the sets that reeled down the rock point with a hollow pocket where we were hitting speeds of 18mph+! I had a blast throughout the final and think I flew riding or pumping almost the entire heat! As long as I didn’t get disqualified for too many rides I felt I had a good chance for the win!
At the end of the epic weekend of action and at the awards ceremony I was stoked to come out on top and walk away with the double win! In the SUP surf, my good wave selection paid off allowing from some long rides with combinations of manoeuvres. The judges must have enjoyed the Hydrofoil heat because the 3 of us Finals did for sure! I’m really looking forward to more Hydrofoil and Foil surf events in the future!”
– Zane Schweitzer
