Chase Leider, Sally Cohen and Saxon Wilson claimed division titles as the sixth annual Loggerhead Classic wrapped up Sept. 27 at Jacksonville Beach.

The three-day longboard competition drew more than 130 competitors from Hawaii, Costa Rica, Mexico and both U.S. coasts. The field surpassed the 43-year-old Wavemasters Pro-Am as the largest surfing festival in Jacksonville history, according to the Beach Gazette.

Leider took the men's division. Cohen won the women's final. Wilson, a Flagler County resident and defending champion, repeated in the vintage division, which requires competitors to ride boards built in the 1960s.

Competitors ranged in age from their teens to late 20s and competed for a share of a $20,000 prize pool, First Coast News reported.

From choppy surf to ideal conditions

A rogue storm broke what the Beach Gazette called "the flattest summer in history," delivering choppy surf on opening day Sept. 25. The Beach Gazette described Sunday's finals conditions as "the most perfect day you could ever ask for."

"The storm brings the waves, so we're stoked," Cohen told First Coast News on Sept. 25, the opening day of the event.

Contest director Justin Quintal created the Loggerhead Classic. Quintal, born in Satellite Beach and raised in part in Jacksonville, won the 2019 WSL World Longboard Championship. Joel Tudor, whose competition record the Beach Gazette described as rivaling Quintal's, was among those in attendance for the finals.

Celebration and local festivities

The awards ceremony drew a sellout crowd Sunday evening at Casa Marina. The weekend's festivities began with an opening-night welcome party at Safe Harbor Seafood in Mayport, hosted by owner Chris Wooten. The Beach Gazette described Wooten as a local surfing icon and former competitor on the Hixon Surf Shop team. Three nights of live music followed.

"It's definitely better than it being flat, which it's been a long, hot, flat summer," Quintal told First Coast News on Sept. 25.