Surf's up north as Hongkongers join China's 'first surfing contest'

Shinichi Yoshida catches his winning wave about 100 metres off Cherry Point and rides it all the way to the shore. 'It's unbelievable - this is a dream,' says Yoshida after the awards ceremony, his substantial trophy standing in the sand next to him. An unprepossessing, stocky man with shoulder-length bleached hair, Yoshida has just won the 720 China Surf Open, billed by its organisers as China's first surfing competition.

Hong Hoi Wan - which translates in English as the somewhat unimaginative '10-Kilometre Beach' - is on a peninsula jutting out into Red Sea Bay in Guangdong province. The surfing contest, held on December 6 and 7, attracted 45 competitors - most of whom were based in Hong Kong and all of whom, except one, were male - to a remote outpost 30km from the nearest city centre, Shanwei. It is a safe bet that few of the local villagers who ventured onto the beach to watch had seen a surfboard before. The event's organiser, seven-year-old Noosa-based sunglasses and sportswear company 720 Eye Armour, is unconcerned by locals'unfamiliarity with surfing. Spark interest in the sport, then people will want the clothes and sunglasses, reasons Spencer R. Barton, 720's chief executive officer. 'I want a Guangzhou taxi-driver to be wearing our product,' he says. 'He may not be a surfer, but he can get a feel for it.'

Although surfing is basically nonexistent in mainland China, it's a different story in Hong Kong. Surfing has soared in popularity in the SAR in the past 10 years. These days about 300 surfers, a mixture of locals and expats (with a high Australian quotient), tap Hong Kong waters such as Big Wave Bay on Hong Kong Island and Tai Long Wan in the New Territories. At least eight surfing shops have opened to serve them and the many others drawn to the sport's fashion, a trend that is now a US$3 billion business globally, according to the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association in the United States. For the past five years, there has been at least one surfing competition held annually in Hong Kong, and 720 Eye Armour sponsored last year's at Tai Long Wan.

Nonetheless, surfing has been through some turbulent times in Hong Kong. About seven years ago, the SAR government briefly banned the sport after a swimmer was hit by a wayward board. The Hong Kong Surfing Association was formed to fight the ban and to prove that surfing was safe, and the government relented. The gold medal won by Hong Kong windsurfer Lee Lai-shan at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta - Hong Kong's first Olympic gold - also boosted the popularity of water sports in general, deflecting some glory onto surfing in the process. The result is that Hong Kong waters are starting to resemble the city's footpaths: packed.

'You go out on a Monday or Tuesday at 7am and there are 20 or 30 guys there, and you think, 'Don't these guys have jobs?' ' says Paul Hilton, 33, a freelance photographer who has lived in Big Wave Bay for eight years. He and other surfers say they are sorely in need of a new frontier. The mainland beckons. On December 5, the day before the competition is scheduled to start, a gang of 35 surfers and 10 boogie-boarders, accompanied by wives and girlfriends, file onto two buses in Hong Kong bound for Hong Hoi Wan. The atmosphere on board is of heady excitement. Except for Hainan Island - whose waves surfers call inconsistent - the mainland is virtually virgin surfing territory. Only two competitors, both expats from Shanghai , have ever surfed China before - in both cases, Hainan Island and Hong Hoi Wan. In fact, it's only since the building of expressways in southern China that such a trip has become possible. Can Hong Hoi Wan and its break point, dubbed Cherry Point by Barton on an earlier reconnaissance trip, deliver waves this weekend?