Salick NKF Surf Festival moved from Labor Day weekend to Columbus Day weekend in Octover
Labor Day weekend on the Space Coast often was known for large surfing events, preparing for the first day of school and the threat of tropical storms or hurricanes.
Well, one out of three, unfortunately, has stuck around.
After 37 years, the Rich Salick National Kidney Foundation (Labor Day) Surf Festival is being moved to Columbus Day weekend, Oct. 7-9 this year, at the Westgate Cocoa Beach Pier.
"We'll test the waters," said Phil Salick, co-organizer of the important fundraising event that long ago would bring in as many as 1,200 entrants, when Lori Wilson Park also had to be used. Now, 300-400 surfers compete in pro and amateur divisions.
"I remember us putting heats in the water after the sun went down, when cars (headlights) would light up the pier."
Several reasons Salick indicated for the switch: the incredible heat during Labor Day; the threat of hurricanes (which forced two previous events to be switched); easier access to restaurants donating their services and specialties at the crowd-pleasing Taste of Brevard and Silent Auction (this year on Sunday, Oct. 8 at the Cocoa Beach Country Club); and the fact that two junior pro contests, in Cape Hatteras, N.C., and Virginia Beach, Va., have been attracting many East Coast standouts in search of bigger payouts and points in the World Surf League qualification system.
"I think it's a good move for us this year," said Salick, who will turn 74 the day before the NKF event begins.
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Students will be out of school Monday, Oct. 9, but it is a teacher workday.
"The original school schedule was incorrect, so we went to the superintendent to get it clarified," Salick said.
"Kids (in the contest) probably would have missed school anyway," he said, laughing.
Salick said that without a surf event on Labor Day, businesses at the beach, or nearby, shouldn't suffer.
"The Pier has so much going on for them, they're gonna draw a lot of the people from the hotels, anyway," he said.
Salick's first contest took place in 1976 as a fundraising team event. It was the first contest legendary surfer Kelly Slater ever won.
"Every time I'd go to the pier (when I was younger), it'd be like the last weekend before school started, and it was packed," Salick said.
Speaking of traditions, the Florida Surf Museum's Waterman's Challenge will go back to its original roots in this year's event on Saturday, Sept. 23 at the Hilton Oceanfront on Cocoa Beach.
Now in its 22nd year, the contest normally had been held in the heat of the summer, in June.
"We've changed it up; now, it's for 40-and-over longboards only," said event organizer John Hughes, director of the Florida Surf Museum.
He said there will be three open divisions: Vintage Longboards (surfboards built before 1970 and more than 9 feet long); Luck of the Draw (Another Ride surf shop will provide five different types of longboards, and each surfer will spin a wheel to see which board they must ride); and a Surf 'n Turf event (a surfer must hit a golf ball into a hula hoop before running out to catch a wave).
"We have a lot of fun," Hughes said.
On the Space Coast, surfing continues to be popular, although interest in organizing and sponsoring some popular competitive events has been on the downswing. The departure of the Easter Surf Fest (now a one-day dog surfing event); the Quiksilver King of the Peak; the Florida Pro; the Sebastian Inlet Pro; and the Salty Sweet Pro-Am, for instance, exhibits that.
But, there are still plenty of mainstays, such as the action-packed Beach 'N Boards Fest on Cocoa Beach; the ever-growing Locals Only event on Satellite Beach; the Space Coast BoardRiders' Grom Fest (this year, in December); Melbourne Beach Founders Day; Surfers for Autism; Special Olympics; and the ESA, NSSA and ISA series of events, to name a few.
There also is the traditional Surfing Santas exhibition at Coconuts on the Beach on Dec. 24, although Brevard County commissioners recently decided to pull away from all cultural event funding (Surfing Santas helps support the Florida Surf Museum which, in turn, supports Grind for Life). The King Center recently announced a partnership with the event that attracts thousands to the beach that morning.
"The bigger problem, actually, is that there are so many events, and the need for volunteers is so great, and we're holding it in an area that's not that heavily populated to begin with," Salick said.
"But, you know, we're still kickin' (butt)."
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Melbourne Beach surfing standout Rachel Presti recently became the focal point of NPI Productions' video, "Surfing Hawaii '23" in which the Cocoa Beach-based cinematography team, led by Dalton Smith, tagged along for a few days on the North Shore ... Palm City's Zoe Benedetto is ranked 30th on the World Surf League's Challenger Series, moving up 12 places after a ninth-place finish in the Wallex U.S. Open of Surfing event in Huntington Beach, Calif. ... Victor Bezard won the Men's Closed and Men's Open titles, while Teresa Rogerson won the Women's Closed division at the recent U.S. Open Waveski Championships at Cherie Down Park in Cape Canaveral. Enzo Monfort won the Juniors division. ... The surf-friendly film, "Birth of The Endless Summer" is being shown through Aug. 24 at Melbourne's CW Theaters.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Rich Salick NKF Surf Festival moves from Labor Day to Columbus Day
