This season, the Titans of Mavericks big wave surf contest was going to have a women’s heat or no heats at all.
A California Coastal Commission report released Friday afternoon said its staff recommendation would have been to deny contest organizer Cartel Management its permit if Cartel did not include a women’s heat in its plans for the 2016-17 contest.
In addition to submitting a permit application, Cartel on Oct. 14 submitted a request to extend the commission’s permit through 2020. Doing so would marry it with the five-year permit issued to Cartel by the San Mateo County Harbor District last year.
Within its request to the CCC, Cartel laid out its plans for the contest, which included no women’s heat until the 2017-18 season.
On Wednesday, Cartel announced it would hold a one-hour, six-woman contest with a $30,000 prize purse within the main event this season.
“It’s quite simply the right time,” Cartel COO Brian Waters said Wednesday. “There was no compelling driver other than it was the time to do it.”
The California Coastal Commission’s permit allows the holder exclusive one-day use of the Maverick’s offshore surfing area near Pillar Point Harbor, Maverick’s Beach, the Pillar Point Marsh parking lot and the trail between the two on the day of the contest. The contest window runs from Nov. 1 through March 31.
Cartel Management acquired the contest, which is held in 25-foot-plus waves at the Maverick’s break near Pillar Point in Half Moon Bay, in 2015. That same year, the CCC voted to require that Cartel prepare a plan for the inclusion of women surfers as competitors in future Mavericks’ surf events if it wanted to pursue a permit extension through 2020.
According to the CCC staff report, putting off the women’s heat until next season goes against the commission’s directive.
“Given that this was not consistent with the action taken and direction provided by the Commission in their approval of the 2015 permit, staff discussed this issue with Cartel and indicated that delaying the inclusion of a women’s heat until that time would not be consistent with the Commission’s action,” the staff noted in the report, “and that staff intended to require a heat starting in 2016-2017 and continuing in all subsequent years of the contest authorized by the amended permit through 2020.”
With the announcement that it would run a heat this season, the staff recommended the commission approve the permit extension. The CCC will vote on the permit during its Nov. 2 meeting.
This article has been modified to reflect Brian Waters’ title as chief operations officer of Cartel Management.
