Alter Eager to Return to Place Where It All Started

The last time Hobie Alter was in these parts, he was stopped by a cop and given a traffic ticket.

“That was about a year ago . . . right in front of my surf shop in Dana Point,” said Alter, speaking on the telephone from his home in Orcas Island, Wash. “He had no idea who I was. . . . He was obviously a non-surfer.”

That incident aside, Alter, a surfing legend, said he’s looking forward to returning to the Southland for Saturday’s Hobie San Onofre Long Board Classic.

For Alter, 63, it’s an opportunity to visit friends and talk about the old days, when he and a small group of surfers blazed the trail of what was to grow into a subculture.

Alter grew up in Laguna Beach, where he shaped his first surfboards out of balsa wood in his family’s garage in the early ‘50s. As his board business flourished, he opened the first surf shop in the county in Dana Point. Alter also began designing boards that carried the names of the more famous surfers of his day.

Those early Hobie designs, the Hobie Joyce Hoffman or the Hobie Gary Propper, can demand up to $10,000 in auction today.

“It’s really mind-blowing when I think about one of my early boards selling for that much money,” Alter said. “Believe me, back in those days, we had no idea that it would come to this. We were just too busy with life. I look back on those days and I have to call it a near-perfect existence.”

While Alter is considered one of the giants in surfing and beach wear, it was his other invention, the Hobie Cat, that would propel him to business stardom.

According to Alter, the Hobie Cat is still the best-selling catamaran in the world.

“It’s amazing that it’s still so popular,” he said. “When you think that the reason why I designed this boat was so that me and my friends could have something to cruise off the beach on. It’s really unbelievable that it came out of this idea.”

Dividing his time between his home in Washington and a second home in McCall, Idaho, Alter said his inventions, such as the Hobie Hawk radio-controlled glider, keep him busy.

“I just love it in Idaho because it is so far removed. It gives me time to work and putter around,” Alter said. “But another big reason is the skiing. I love to ski. And when the [skiing] season is over in Idaho, that’s when we pack up and go to our Washington home. We spend most of our time cruising the water on my 60-foot catamaran.”

The Hobie San Onofre Classic, sponsored by Hobie Design Inc., will be at Old Man’s Surf Beach at San Onofre State Park. Competition is limited to boards that were made before 1970, and they must be at least nine feet long, said contest founder Allan Seymour of Capistrano Beach.

The contest is divided into three age-group divisions: Under 36, 36 to 49 and “geezers 50 and over.” There’s also a women’s open. Expected to compete are some of the top longboarders, including world champion Joel Tudor of La Jolla; Robert Weaver, who played the character Wingnut in the surf film “Endless Summer II”; the legendary Corky Carroll, and up-and-coming longboarders Brenden White of San Clemente and Cody Craig of Cayucos, Calif.

“While the competition is important, the main reason for this contest is to showcase these vintage surfboards,” Seymour said. “That’s why it’s so cool to have Hobie down here for the contest, because many of these boards are models that he designed.”

Competition starts at 7 a.m. Old Man’s is located off the Basilone Road exit of the southbound San Diego Freeway. Turn right, and parking (which is limited) is about one mile past the traffic signal. San Onofre State Park opens at 6 a.m.

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One of the county’s top young surfers, Tim Reyes of Huntington Beach, won the boys’ division of the U.S. Surfing Federation Western Region contest at Salt Creek last weekend.

Other county winners included Chris Fowler of Huntington Beach (Menehunes division), Patrick Drummy of San Juan Capistrano (men’s open), Rick Fignetti of Huntington Beach (seniors) and Mike Butler of Huntington Beach (kneeboard).

In the women’s competition, Midget Smith of San Juan Capistrano won the grand masters division and Maureen Drummy, also of San Juan Capistrano, won the women’s longboard division.