Dirty Old Wedge

- 1936, the army corps of engineers

completed construction of the west jetty

of the Newport Beach harbor entrance.

It's intent was to protect and shelter

but what this grouping of rocks created

was something that no man could've expected.

The Wedge in one word, psycho.

(Entrance Song by The Black Angels)

- That wave is a standout, freak of nature.

- The Wedge has as much power as any wave

I've ever surfed in my life.

- I would say Hawaii power in the middle of Orange County.

- And it kills people and it breaks necks

and you go, shit.

¶Bending time feeling fine

¶Entrance song

¶Entrance song ¶

- It's the most famous body surfing wave in world, duh.

- When you talk about this mysterious place the Wedge

you finally go down there

and it's just all hell breaking loose.

- It was a venue and it was like a gladiator pit arena

watching a few of us pretty much like risk our lives.

¶Rolling fast down 75

¶Cutting through like a knife ¶

- The wave was the reason all of us were there.

It wasn't anything more than that, it was the wave.

- My name is Ron Romanosky.

Some call me Romo.

I'm a shaper, a photographer,

one of maybe, I don't know, three or four billion of them.

And I'm a hopeless and insufferable Wedge addict.

Our story begins at Wedge,

25 or so years after the jetty construction was over.

There was already an established group of guys at Wedge.

Fred Simpson and Roger Goodan were among them.

- When I first went to the Wedge,

this would be in the late 50's,

there were no crowds.

There were no lifeguards.

A max crowd would be three, four, five people.

There were always enough waves.

- When I first arrived at the Wedge and starting meeting

the different people that were riding it already,

there was one gentleman that I already knew.

He was the first high school kid to swim faster

than two minutes in the 200.

And he did it in ninth grade.

- The wave physics at the Wedge is unique

for a couple of different reasons.

Firstly, that you have the wave that is coming in

from the south.

It banks up against the jetty

and so you end up with a side wave

being superimposed on by another wave.

So you have two waves on top of one another.

- It essentially doubles the height of the wave

and it is as big as it gets on this coast.

- It was routinely all body surfers.

Surf boards were too long and too heavy

to be able to handle the big surf.

And, to be able to experiment with different techniques,

it was really remarkable because we got a lot

of riding in.

It was very, kind of egalitarian, sweet environment.

- No magazines, no social media.

People communicated on phones, land line phones.

Those early days at Wedge were really a simple time.

- In the early 70's Danny Kwock

was on the beach, I believe, but I don't believe

he had yet gone in that water.

- First experience at the Wedge for me was

I'd moved from Gwaii, I've kind of always heard about it

cause I grew up at a place by Sandy Beach.

The guys down there,

the kind of guys like Mark Cunningham guys

that were like the legend body surfer guys,

they'd always be talking about the Wedge

and it was this infamous place, even in Hawaii as a kid.

And then I moved to California and we ended up

in Newport Beach.

I all of a sudden knew like,

this must be where the Wedge is, I think,

it's in Newport Beach, you know, I don't know where.

I mean, I didn't know it was right by my house.

I just started going down there and hanging out

and that was pretty much it, you know,

at the Wedge at the time.

It was just a mixture of the local kids

and there was Romo.

Then as I started growing up there,

I realized why people didn't come down,

because Romo was pretty much like (mumbles) get out.

- Some time in the mid 70's,

this group of guys showed up,

never seen them before, blond haired, long haired,

but they rode well.

They had respect for the guys that were there before them.

This new group of guys would become to known as Wedge crew.

And Mel Thoman was its leader.

- My first experience coming down to the Wedge

I think I was 14 or 15.

I think anybody who comes down first

thinks it's gonna be big.

It's the Wedge, it's gonna be big,

you've just heard stories.

I got there and it was like one foot.

So, 60 miles one way, one foot, not too happy.

But, a couple years later, it was 1975

and it was June, solid southern hemi,

and it was, it was a good size.

And I remember standing on the beach for an hour and a half

and I watched the guys who I could tell they knew

what they were doing, they were ripping.

And I thought I was pretty good.

And I get down there and I go I got a lot to learn.

- There was this one summer where Mel Thoman

and Greg Deets and these guys just rolled out

of this cheesy van that was just so hideous.

And at the same time, this other guy Terry Wade

was down there too.

Us kids were like, oh, who are these guys?

Ya know, but then they started coming every day

and they'd get there at freaking 7:00 AM

and they'd leave at like seven o'clock at night.

- We kind of made this little pact

and we were the new guys, the young guys.

- 77, that summer was the year I really got to know

those guys really well and we started hanging out together

and, no not getting in trouble.

Well, not getting caught I should say.

- For some reason, it became a very large group

that would go there every day,

whether there were waves or not.

The group was very united

and I think that's why it became the Wedge crew.

I don't know who coined the phrase

but it kind of started in that min 70's era

where I came in at.

- You could tell right away who the players were

down at the Wedge and you just knew to stay clear

and just stay low.

- The Wedge guys saw themselves as kind of rebellious,

non-mainstream and they regaled in that.

- They had a lot of commaraderie.

They became the locals.

They kind of like were jerks to people

who weren't from here.

- You had all the guys in the group,

thought the exact same way.

This is our wave and nobody else is gonna mess it up

for us.

- There's definitely a local Wedge crew and--

- They don't like anybody invading their turf.

They don't like (laughs).

- When I first went there, everybody was,

it was aggressive.

I mean, everybody had their fucking balls out.

- For the Wedge guys, yeah it is a little bit

of a different story because that wave isn't about just fun,

it's about pushing yourself to your limit.

- The body surfer Wedge guys were like water polo lifeguard,

buff, stud dudes, you know.

So, they didn't take crap from anybody.

- You'd get the standard warning, you know?

If you were an idiot and you cut you off or something

and they landed on you, you'd say, listen man,

don't do that again.

And if they did it again, well,

sometimes we'd follow them on the beach.

The Wedge crew.

The Wedge crew.

Yeah.

- We're in the Wedge pit.

Yeah.

- Are they gonna kick our butts for being here?

- Ya know and it was funny cause they came down in shorts

at first and then all of sudden man,

they'd just bust into Speedos and we're just all,

whoa, you know?

When I first starting riding,

it was Speedos under the trunks, get down to the water,

drop the trunks, ride in your Speedos.

And then, eventually we said, oh.

You know what, we're the best guys down here.

We were here all the time

so why don't we just wear 'em on the beach?

Because we didn't care.

We didn't care what anybody thought of us.

You know, it was their trip

and they made fun of themselves.

They made it like funny to wear Speedos.

- And the only time I wouldn't wear Speeds,

Romanaosky and I did a lot of Frisbee.

He'd say, Mel, there's no way I'm throwing the Frisbee

with you wearing Speedos.

- But it was funny, I think they kind of won us all over

and kind of established their deal

because they were freely charismatic, you know?

Like, Mel was super funny and just was really good