Date of Birth: June 9, 1989

Best Known For: Shootin Dice

Local Spot: Ocean Isle Beach

My Crew: DeShaun, Michael, Jim, C^2, Kron, Butler, Rupp, BP, Knox

Board of Choice: 5'9" Green SBZ Sharpeye

Dream Wave: A wave with a higher quality than Ocean Isle Beach

My Top Five:

1.) "Return of the Mack" 2.) "This is How We Do It" 3.) "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" 4.) "Moving on Up" 5.) "Like to Party"

Mathematically speaking, my contest result looks like this: Michael Powell-1(or a few)=Ben Powell.

That is, whatever position my brother finishes in any contest, I will be conveniently placed a few positions below him. Although, there are a few exceptions to this contemporary equation. Empirical evidence has shown that I can exceed my brothers competitive drive in certain circumstances. These certain circumstances only happen when: A. he looses his temper like Perez Hilton does after he gets bludgeoned in the side of the head with a George Foreman Grill by one of the Black Eyed Peas lead singers—or— B. he absolutely does not catch any waves in the heat. I think those are the only two outliers in Mikes zealous heat strategy that cause him to lose while surfing against his younger brother.

The equation above was exercised two weekends ago at the Reef/Sweetwater Pro-am where little Mike actually won the whole event. Needless to say, my ingenious formula was correct once again. This time I placed equal 25th, 24 positions behind my brother. I am not vengeful of this because I collected a few dollars for my performance and also because he has been surfing like a crazed vandal from the south for the past year and deserves some recognition. With that being said, I am actually quite thrilled he won.

Aside from all the credit Mike is getting, I am also reaping benefits of his win; living vicariously through the champ. One would get a better understanding after the following explanation: Michael and I are brothers and have been brothers since day one(whatever that means). Michael Powell won one of the biggest surfing contests on the east coast. Therefore, by the transitive property of "brothers", Ben Powell won the Reef/Sweetwater Pro-am as well.

That last portion is actually bull-s#&t, BUT, a generous majority of Wrightsville Beach has come up to me, mistaking me for my brother, and has expressed their feelings on how excited they were for me. Obviously, I need to write in permanent marker on my forehead "I didn't win, call my brother and give him your regards: 910-233-5543".

In any case, all gayness aside, I am really excited for him and my mind was blown when he won the tournament. I will make a valiant effort to vanquish him in the next event so that I don't have to write anything stupid on my forehead again.

East Coast rippers, Ben and Michael Powell put their surf knowledge to good use at Carolina School of Surf

The Brothers Powell, now junior business-men,have compiled all their entrepreneur expertise into one brick-s!#t-house of an entity. This entity, known as Carolina School of Surf, is just now beginning its ultimate reign of surf schools/surf instruction/custodial services/Costco surfboard provider. Our surf school is open for business so check out the site and make yourself comfortable. - BP

Go here for more on the Carolina School of Surf.

Ben Powell escapes the freeze factor

A one week vacation down to the Caribbean was well worth it. The time has finally come to where we can all eagerly say that the brutal chills of the winter are behind us. Of course I am referring to "we" as the ones who are sitting up here in the northern hemisphere that absolutely froze our "Inconvenient Truths" off this winter. Speaking on behalf of all of "us", I can say that we are filled with joy and relief that those times are finally over for another few months, at least.

For a majority of this winter, I was trapped inside my neglected, unkempt home watching re-runs of Seinfeld, solving sudoku puzzles, and eating apple pies like your average american citizen. Because of this extended period of blandness, which was brought on due to the weather, I decided to cut my losses and head south to paradise with my loving girlfriend. Our destination of choice for the trip was Dominican Republic. This trip was an overall success and it had done what I had initially wanted it to do: Alleviate the pain of the mind-numbingly cold weather that has plagued the eastern seaboard this year.-- Ben Powell

Great Lakes Dredging company makes their way to North Carolina

Whata'ya know? The East Coast has been flatter this winter than the standout performer of your local junior women's swim team. In the past three months I have spent more time playing Texas hold'em at the regional Elks Lodge than I have surfing. Every day it seems like the winds have been blowing offshore, sending beautiful surf down to the Caribbean. When are those winds going to switch around and send some love to the mid-atlantic you might ask? Ahh...probably not until hurricane season, which is a lingering four months away.

Enough with me trying to describe to you the HORRIBLE waves. We have some pretty cool project going on down here in the bible belt that I thought was worth documenting. The Great Lakes Dredging company has advanced southward to Wrightsville Beach all the way from the Great Lakes in order to generously provide our beaches with deep channels and velvety sand (not quite, its actually an aggregate of aged shells and huge rocks that will put a stone bruise on even the toughest of feet). If you have ever seen dredging work being done, then you know that there is a massive convoy of tugs, bulldozers, and little construction men that make the whole process operate smoothly. Along with these power houses there are miles and miles and miles of pipe. These guys are going to be here for the next month according to one of the Army Corps of Engineers employees that is supervising the project. I tried to take a photo of him but he wasn't having it. I guess he doesn't like being in the spotlight. Any who, I got some photos for a more vivid take on what is happening. --BP

Finally got a Firewire I've been wanting.

I have been going through boards faster than Courtney Love goes through prescription Vicodin. It seemed like every time a paddled out I would end up with some kind of fracture or crease on my board from surfing like an idiot. To end this massacre of my little sticks, I got a Firewire that is exceptionally more durable than your traditional poll-urethane surfboard being it has a "triple density EPS core with parabolic edges, lined with high-density aerospace composite material." Firewire Surfboards All Rights Reserved. Wow, is that really a surfboard? It sounds like the description foreign compact car manufacturers, like Tata®, give their new cars although their products buckle at the fulcrum if they go in excess of 25 miles per hour unlike the Firewire Surfboard because they are so cheap and poorly manufactured.

With all this extra support I pray that this board will last me longer than three months or I am going to be fired up. So far so good and all she has experienced from my lead foot surfing is one pressure ding and a small crack in the tail. Say your prayers for me...or maybe just my board. -BP

Volcom stop one of the Cooterfish series.

The Crustaceous Tour makes their stop in southern North Carolina, Wrightsville Beach. The contest was comprised of stomach high, sloppy waves and antics of the young ones trying to get a free pair of socks or an xxxs t-shirt. Aside from all the competition on the shore, there was also plenty of action out in the water all day. Because I was so generously awarded an alternate slot due to too many competitors, I was forced to sit on the beach, waiting to be inserted into one of the Pro-am heats in hopes to be $500 richer by the end of the day. I got pretty lucky considering I actually got in the contest, but going into the finals my luck had dwindled down to next to nothing, considering I didn't win the 5 Benjamins.

Anywho, here are the results and a couple photos. BP

Pro/Am

1. Nick Bland - $500

2. Ben Powell

3. Slater Powell

4. Ross Stevens

5. Mark Hunt

6. Travis Ajay

Ben Powell gets some nuggets in North Carolina

As Hurricane Bill forged up the eastern coast of the U.S., surfers from the Caribbean to Nova Scotia experienced above average surf for a couple days. Although he did not live up to all the hype, with news-hounds claiming it would be "the biggest swell in a DECADE", Bill threw some fun, consistent surf to us East-coasters that was highly enjoyable. After passing north of Florida, Bill was forecasted to swing back out into the Atlantic and not make landfall. Many people where seduced into traveling up north, passed the Mason Dixon line, to hunt for waves. I think some were kind of disappointed at what they found but still had a fun time.

I got some photos from Wrightsville during the short window we had for waves. Enjoy!-BP

A short jaunt up to Ocracoke, NC with family...

The family oriented getaway for the year took my immediate family and I to the quaint village of Ocracoke, NC, located just south of Cape Hatteras. The trip was characterized by attempting to surf, eating at most, if not all the restaurants on the island, drinking as much wine as possible(for the moms), and shopping until the credit card companies called to question the extreme charges on the cards. Fortunately, for my brother and I, there was a pretty descent swell striking the Outer Banks the day we arrived. This time of year I get fired up over anything that is above waist high. The excitement increased my dopamine levels to a high and I wanted to go chug one of my moms Franzia® wine boxes and go surf for the rest of the day, but I didnt, I just went surfing. Any who, the first day of surf was fun but it died after the second, and the third had just deteriorated into nothing but a shallow willed wind chop that was tough to even stand up on. Other than surfing, the family had an entertaining weekend and I would sum up it with an A-, just because the chicks there are rebels, and not in a good way. B?P

Trip to the heart of the Real Carolina

I made my way up to Chapel Hill, NC for the day in order to take a seat with one of the 3 million doctors that are in the area. While I was up there I had a few hours of spare time so I decided to share my wealth of Hurley stickers and plastered them up around UNC's basketball coliseum, the Dean Dome. During a regular season game, if the Dome is sold out, there will be a mere 22,000 people attending. Now these greek life enthusiasts of the academic hotspot of UNC will stop wearing their little pastel colored Polos with plaid slacks and put on something with a little more appeal to it.

Ben Powell reports from the 2009 NSSA Nationals at Salt Creek

Chest to neck high waves where rolling in the zone all day for competitors. Salt Creek came through with some fun waves all day for the college divisions. About 20 different schools competed for the title of top surf academy in the nation which was ultimately handed to Cal-State San Marcos, University of North Carolina Wilmington just missing the gold after a sudden death surf-off. Points where accumulated by individual surfers whom surfed for their teams.

Surfing all day, I got 2nd in the mens division, just being ousted by Marty Weinstein, while my brother collected third. UNCW was satisfied with their results after being placed ahead of all the UC-fill-in-the-blank schools except for one. Get em next year.--BP