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Volcom has offered $20,000 for the first kickflip on a surfboard “above and off the lip.” Santa Cruz’s Zoltan Torkos has submitted several videos in the competition (one of his best is pictured below). Here are the rules, according to Volcom:

Volcom is giving away $20,000 to the first person that can land a “proper” kickflip while surfing! By proper we mean an “above and off the lip” kickflip where first you bottom turn, launch an air, use your front foot to flip the board, and then land on it and ride out cleanly. No chop hops, backwash, fingerflips, grabs or laybacks. Just a proper kickflip. We’re going to be strict on these following guidelines. The rules are all listed here, so get out there and put this trick in the history books. Good luck!

Rules:
1. Your entry must be on video from the start of the trick through the ride out. No photos allowed.
2. This contest is open to everyone. The contest begins today and will run until there’s a winner.
3. The kickflip must be a proper air that begins from a bottom turn, is launched “above and off the lip” and travels above the wave. No backwash, No chop hops, or anything in the flats, from the wave face, or below the lip of the wave.
4. All waves must be self caught – You must paddle into the wave. This means NO tow-ats, step-offs, jetskis, boats, dinghys, winches, canoes, oars, helicopters, dolphins or assistance of any kind.
5. No grabs of any kind. Not before, not after, not during.
6. You must completely “ride out” of the kickflip. That means if you land on the back of the wave and fail to continue surfing the wave – it’s not a make!
7. No heelflips. Or else we’d have called it the Heelflip-Off.
8. No shoes. Who surfs in shoes anyway? Regular “made for surfing” booties are acceptable.
9. You must be riding a real surfboard with at least one fin. No boogie boards, softboards, wakeboards, wakeskates, skimboards, kiteboards, trays etc.

Here’s the video explanation of the contest rules. (Volcom already paid Torklos $10,000 in its first edition of the challenge).

Here’s Zoltan Torkos of Santa Cruz in one of his submitted kickflips:

Zoltan deserves a vote. What do you think?

The story of the effort to steer the San Lorenzo River away from the historic Santa Cruz Boardwalk was among the most viewed of 2012 on the Sentinel website. Dan Coyro photo

Crime, surf and sea creatures were among the most popular subjects on the Sentinel’s website in 2012.

The site received more than 41 million page views through early December of 2012 and the Sentinel’s mobile apps (iPhone and Android introduced in February, iPad in November), received another 6 million views.

The Sentinel welcomed more than 4.6 million unique annual visitors to the site.

The most viewed local story of 2012 was on the tragic stabbing death of Shannon Collins on Broadway. Collins, who ran a popular downtown business, was walking during the morning of May 7, on her way to a hair appointment, when she was attacked and brutally murderd. Charles Edwards, who was arrested and charged with the crime, was a felon with a violent history who had been earlier released on parole due to a clerical error. Readers grieved, struggled to understand the senseless loss, and offered their support to Collins’ loved ones.
The story received more than 70,000 page views during the year.
The second most viewed story of 2012 was about a woman who gave birth to a baby girl in the lobby of the county jail. The woman had been arrested on suspicion of being drunk in public on a Sunday afternoon. Jail staff initially refused to book her because she was pregnant and intoxicated. She was evaluated at Dominican Hospital and then brought back to the jail Sunday evening for booking. On Monday, sober and being released, she gave birth in the lobby, with help from jail medical staff. The baby girl was estimated to be 2 or 3 months premature. The Drudge Report posted a prominent link to the story, which was viewed more than 59,000 times.

Fans of “Chasing Mavericks” may have gone home from the movie and searched online for more information on Santa Cruz surfer Jay Moriarity. When they did, one of the top results was Wallace Baine’s 2010 column marking the 10th anniversary of Moriarity’s accidental death. The story was read more than 44,000 times.

Other most viewed stories included an embedded video made by a Santa Cruz fisherman who captured incredible underwater shots of dolphins swimming with his boat. A shark attack on a kayak near Pleasure Point closed beaches and captured the community’s attention and the story drew more than 20,000 page views. It also prompted Sentinel reporter Jason Hoppin to build a shark attack map, detailing all reported shark attacks in California history. The map also received more than 16,000 page views during the year.

The Sentinel’s online audience continues to grow (page views were up 17 percent this year), and our newsroom is committed to delivering news and the community’s stories across all platforms and devices. We break news on twitter, we share community stories on Facebook. We built a Community Media Lab to connect with and highlight local bloggers (more than 10,000 views of that page). We’ve added more than 1,300 followers on Instagram this year. YouTube videos produced by the Sentinel were watched more than 300,000 times.

Readers were drawn to sex (Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show photos drew more than 60,000 views), to the absurd (Shark falls from sky, lands on California Golf Course – 8,400 views), to up-to-the-moment election coverage (nearly 600,000 page views on election day and the two days following), to the in-depth (Our investigative project on the $123 million proposed desalination project in Santa Cruz generated more than 60,000 views).

We published all public salaries in Santa Cruz County, and those databases drew more than 100,000 views. We worked harder than ever to involve our readers in polls, commentary, in tipping us off to news, and to connect with local bloggers and experts in their fields. The Sentinel events calendar was viewed more than 800,000 times.

We also built partnerships with Santa Cruz Waves (a new surf photo every day on the Sentinel home page), and Cruzio (our top referrer of traffic, more than 340,000 views from their site) and updated our weddings page, updated all subscriber services online, launched community pages and offered an online-first series on the Top 10 Things to Do Before You Die in Santa Cruz (20,000 views). We also offered our first annual Readers Choice voting, and we’re pleased to say that our audience is always reaching out to us, with the “contact us” page receiving more than 60,000 views.

The 10 most-read local stories on the Santa Cruz Sentinel website in 2012:

1. Police call Monday’s stabbing of downtown Santa Cruz business owner ‘unprovoked and random’
2. Woman gives birth to baby girl in lobby of Santa Cruz County Jail early Monday morning
3. On the 10th anniversary of the death of iconic surfer Jay Moriarity, his widow reflects
4. Santa Cruz County Jail escapee apprehended
5. Employee of Santa Cruz business thwarts armed robber by grabbing his gun, police say
6. Daughter of surf shop owner dies after falling out of party bus, CHP says
7. Tuna fisherman posts video of dolphins swimming with underwater ‘torpedo’ camera
8. Shark attacks kayak near Pleasure Point
9. Crews fight off San Lorenzo River to save Boardwalk
10. Granite Rock CEO Bruce Woolpert dies in boating accident

Editor’s note: This post has been updated with the correct count of story views, showing that the story on the stabbing death of Shannon Collins was the most viewed of 2012.

Related story: Taunts, graffiti add up near Pleasure Point home

Posted from .

The city of Capitola is going to consider allowing dogs on the beach. A public hearing is planned for Thursday, April 12. We want your opinion:

See related story: Dogs on the beach? Capitola council seeking public input Thursday

Posted from .

Here are the 10 most viewed stories or pages from the Sentinel website from Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2011:

1. Remade Hoffman’s unveiled to public
2. Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Pets on Parade
3. Woman’s body found under train trestle in Aptos
4. Shooting begins in Jay Moriarity movie; paddle-out moved to Friday
5. Aptos man arrested with 500 marijuana plants
6. Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Babies!
7. Cops and Courts, Oct. 12, 2011: Knife-wielding thief robs man of $30
8. Ma Maison, Restaurant Review: French flavors meet California freshness at Ma Maison
9. Documentary features Santa Cruz County serial killer from 1970s
10. Injured Giants fan Bryan Stow transferred Tuesday from San Francisco General Hospital

Link of the Day: With a handful of projects we’re trying to push forward, (and no photo interns), we haven’t done the best job of updating the Sentinel Photo Blog, but we found time in the day to post Shmuel Thaler’s surf shot yesterday. We live in a great place.

Posted from Santa Cruz, California, United States.

We just added a great photo of Finland’s Seppo Paju to our Photo Blog.

Paju earned $500 by hurling a disc from the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf to into a basket on Main Beach on Thursday afternoon. Random thought: Does anyone else think Paju looks a lot like another great pitcher – Little League World Series hero Cody Webster?

Yesterday evening, my e-mail started overheating with messages from the Facebook group, “You know you grew up in Santa Cruz when …”

Mariah Hicks, who grew up here and is the little girl in the Louden Nelson mural, started the group last night at about 9 p.m. As of this afternoon, it has more than 1,400 members and the content is nonstop. All are having fun. Here’s a sample of recent posts:

“You seen the movie The Lost Boys a million times and still love it..haha”

“You remember The Walking Lady.”

“The Skyview Drive-in! Only saw one movie there, Mary Poppins, as a kid. But loved to drive by it on the freeway and try to catch a glimpse of one of the screens.”

“Macfarland’s coffee candy, A&W baby burgers, Maple Street. What was the name of the old comic book store on Pacific?”

Hicks, from Utah, says she misses Santa Cruz. Probably now more than ever.

We’re working on an update about an 80-foot whale found washed up at Bean Hollow.

That reminds the web team of a smaller whale that washed ashore in Santa Cruz in spring of 2009.

It’s unclear right now what will become of the whale, but it’s not easy to deal with. We’re advising, again, not to let this happen:

Here’s the story for today, more photos to come.

The Sentinel reporting staff has been working on a handful of shark stories this summer.

This week, our Fish Rap columnist Allen Bushnell relayed a report on a kayaker who went face-to-face with a shark. It wound up our top story on the website for three days.

Today we had a short story on an abundance of shark-chewed otter remains washing up on beaches of Norther California.

Earlier this year, Capitola beaches were closed after several shark sightings.

Today, we received this photo from Tracy McAvoy:

We’re checking on the photo and the story, but Tracy said the shark was found Thursday at Hidden Beach Park, alive, and that his dog was curious about the creature. Stay tuned for a few more details.

Here are a few more links to Sentinel shark stories:

If you’re a fan of sharks, you’ve probably already watched Chuck Patterson’s video from San Onofre, ‘Me my shark and I,’ posted last week. (It’s received nearly 2 million views this week):

Me my Shark and I from Chuck Patterson on Vimeo.