Huntington beach, known as Surf City in the USA - is famous for it's pier that extends out past the breaking waves. The iconic location can be recognised instantly, those huge black pylons from the pier are in every photo of the place, with the stand up paddlers even surfing straight through them if the sections allow! Aside from the pier, Huntington Beach, California is also well known for the world class beach break, which produces the perfect recipe for stand up paddling waves on a regular basis.

Thanks to the reliable swell and great backdrop, Huntington Beach enjoys more than its fair share of surf comps every year, the most exciting of which (to us anyway) is the Huntington Beach Pro! The long, clean waves are the perfect style for stand up paddle surfing, with wide open faces giving those on longer boards room to carve and pull into some little cover-ups. Further down the line, steeper sections give the short boards a playground to boost aerials and massive hacks. This place really has it all.

Right now, the worlds best are sitting on Huntington Beach for Round Four of the Stand Up World Tour, and Stand Up World Series. Athletes like Nicole Pacelli and Izzi Gomez in the women's line-up, and Caio Vaz, Kai Lenny, in the mens heats. Current forecasts suggest a good clean swell for the week, in the range of 4-6 foot on some days. If a swell like that reaches the beach, we’re in for some exciting action for sure. Our hope for an Aussie in the top three is lost with Keahi De Aboitiz still out of the running with an ankle injury earlier in the year. Hopefully he’ll be back in the water soon, and surfing as hard as ever in the 2015 season.

With this being the 4th event on the world tour, it’s getting close to the pointy end of the competition for stand up paddlers. There’s only one stop left after California, and that’s in France. So what happens in Cali could be the decider for who wins the coveted world title in 2014. Our bets are on Kai Lenny making a comeback from second place, but he’s going to have to work hard to beat the current leader Caio Vaz.

Don't forget about the racing either, there's all the usual racing formats at this event including Sprints, a Long Distance event and Youth Challenge. Headlining the racing events is Connor Baxter, followed closely by Kai Lenny. With Lenny needing to perform in both the surfing and racing, he's certainly got his work cut out for him! 

As with all the Stand Up World Tour events, you can stream the action live on their website, or check back next week to see how it all went down.

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