Roy Powers

Roy Powers is no stranger to nail-biters at the end of the ASP season, and he is in for another one for the winter of 2006.

Roy Powers is the Quiet Kauaian. He grew up surfing with contemporaries Dustin Barca, Jesse Merle-Jones and Danny Fuller, along the same shores as the Irons Brothers, Laird Hamilton, Rochelle Ballard and Keala Kennelly. Powers has seen what surfing and stardom and success have brought his neighbors: tall wives and big houses, fame and fortune, movie deals. That has to have an effect on a guy from an island that offers a lot of natural beauty, but not a lot of opportunity. Interviewed by Aaron Checkwood for Trans World Surf Magazine, Powers summed up the Garden Isle like this: "The waves are killer. There's not much to do, there's not really a good job, you can't just go to college cause there's a killer job there. The people see how much of a luxury life is when you're leaving all the time and you get free clothes, boards. Everybody wants that, but the waves are also perfect so that helps-it's something in the water. Look at Sunny (Garcia), he moved there now he's winning the world title."

Powers' climb up the WQS Ratings has been slow and steady, and a little heartbreaking. He was 123rd in 2002, 71st in 2003 and then in 2004, he only needed to make it through one heat during the World Cup of Surfing presented by O’Neill. Powers knows Sunset and is comfortable at Sunset, but the ocean would not give him a break and he missed it by that much.

Such a close call and disappointment might have destroyed a lesser man, but Powers is from Kauai and Kauai is all about being tough, so he slugged it out on the 2005 WQS, finished 9th and made it to The Show for 2006.

Powers came in at 34th on the 2006 WCT and he has struggled, placing either 17th or 33rd in every event up to the Boost Mobile Pro, Presented by Hurley at Lowers Trestles. Powers' competitive highlight was in a WQS event in August, the Six-Star Honda US Open Presented by ONeill, where Powers nearly took out Rob Machado at Huntington to win the whole thing. The second placing in a Six Star might have saved Powers' okole, because he moved from 86th to 26th in the WQS: "I need this," Powers admitted in an ASP press release. "My rookie season hasn't been going so well. Hopefully this momentum goes my way in the upcoming qualifying events and maybe even on the World Tour."

Things did improve a bit for Powers with a fifth at the Quiksilver Pro France, but going into the Brazilian WCT event, Powers was 37th on the WCT and 23rd on the WQS and once again he was on the edge, as he had been at Sunset in 2004. There are two WCT events remaining, and four WQS events, one in Brazil and then three in Hawaii, two at Sunset and one at Haleiwa. Powers had some work to do going into the winter of 2006, but he's a Kauai guy and Kauai guys are tough.