They seem to be keeping up a tradition, but they are using boats these days that don't look very well suited for surf sailing. Maybe the giant jib on a TheMightyHobie18 is there to help get out thru the surf. the little jibs on the boats in the videos don't look like they are helping to pull the boats out thru the waves much.
from the video it looks like they are hoping those particular conditions never manifest. Certainly there are not many oportunities to practice sailing an inter 20 thru formitible surf w/onshore winds. the economics of destroying I20's for practice during training dosen't add up either.
some of the skippers didn't seem to understand the importance of being as far forward as possible when the gnarly breaker hits. or they knew about it, but didn't do it. having broken maybe 1/2 a dozen hobie cat masts in the 70's it's tough to blame the guys that did flip over backwards tho.
it's kinda funny that cats were surf sailing and jumping waves before anyone ever thought of a windsurfer, but now cat surf sailing is most rare. sad that mostly only the carnage aspects of cat surf sailing gets displayed these days. of course you are going to get mostly carnage trying to surf sail a racing cat tho. just watch the 70's video sharing the wind if you want to know why people surf sail cats, or look at old fotos of the worrell guys on H16s blasting out thru the surf w/ a reefed main and no jib.