It's safe to say that the mind of the late Tom Morey was fertile ground for innovative and creative endeavours. In just the surfing realm he was responsible for the creation of the concave nose on a longboard, the first removable fin system, and the first softboards. He was also responsible for the very first professional surfing contest when the 'Tom Morey International Nose Riding Championships' was held in Ventura in 1965, and of course the Morey Boogie, the genesis of today's bodyboard.

While Tom passed away last year at 86, it seems his thinking and ideas continue to influence the surfing world. This year will see the inaugural 'Boog Jam' bodyboard contest take place at Pipeline between February 24th and 4th March.

Morey is on record as having said he was uncomfortable with the action sports direction that the bodyboarding world took years ago. He originally conceived the craft as a way of opening up the experience of the ocean to the everyday person and felt that outright competition ran contrary to the spirit of free expression and personal enjoyment of riders he envisioned when the boogie was created.

Tom Morey named his creation the 'boogieboard' because of his passion for jazz music, and the upcoming Boog Jam competition format is a continuation of this inspiration. As well as being an inventor and aeronautical engineer, Morey was also an accomplished drummer. The collaborative, call and response culture embedded in jazz bands in which he played in his early life deeply affected his ideas around competition. Morey's vision for competition surfing taps into this idea of participants being inspired by and riffing off each other's surfing, rather than a traditional win at any cost structure.

In his final days, Tom communicated this vision to Mike Stewart and others and so the 'Boog Jam' concept has since been created.

According to Josh Kirkman, competitive rider and organiser of the Boog Jam event this year on behalf of the APB, the event format is similar to an expression session, and it will see 40 competitors push each other to win the overall contest, as well as win various performance categories embedded in the competition itself that will be judged by the online audience. Each heat will be 55 minutes long and feature 10 competitors. Competitors will surf twice and all of the action will be captured from six camera angles in HD video. This footage will then be remotely reviewed by three international judges who will score the best two rides of each competitor to determine an overall winner. The footage will then be curated into a narrated broadcast and available for public viewing, who will be able to vote on the performance categories such as best barrel or best air.

"The combination of the expression session format, remote video judging, and a delayed event production as opposed to a live webcast, enables the opportunity for experimentation," says Kirkman. "Given Tom Morey's love of invention and creative expression, the opportunity to try out some new ideas has been a thrill. Like any invention though, you never really know until you try, so I am excited to see how all this plays out."

The competition will give priority of entry to previous Pipeline champions, with Mike Stewart, Guilherme Tamega, Jeff and Dave Hubbard, Ryan Hardy, Andre Botha, and Ben Severson already registered to compete. Paying homage to the past champions was an important aspect of the event according to Kirkman:

"It is clear that over the fifty years since the boogieboard was invented, there have been so many moments at Pipeline that have inspired countless generations of bodyboarding. These generations of bodyboarders are all part of the community, and this event seeks to serve them all. The traditional approach to elite competition has seen generations come and go from the scene, which is okay, but it means we lose talent and heroes over time. This format, and the preference to previous Pipe Champions to defend their dominance against contenders, is a way for the APB to engage with everyone who loves bodyboarding and give them one hell of a show that connects them to their own past experiences."

"There's absolutely no doubt that each and every Pipe Champion competing at this year's event could win it. Of the riders not attending this year, such as Damien King, Pierre Louis Costes, Amaury Lavernhe, Andrew Lester, Eppo and Bullet, well, you can be sure that those guys could certainly give anyone else out there a run for their money too."

The swell forecast is looking solid for an amazing event on the 25th or 26th of February. With the delayed production, it is going to be an anxious wait until we get to see the outcomes from the event, but with experimentation, creation and invention at the fore, you can bet that the spirit of Tom Morey will be a force to be reckoned with this year at Pipe.

//DAN DOBBIN