Bruce Irons, above, slashes through the lip of a wave while brother Andy, below, cuts through monster surf at pipeline.

For the first 10 years of the tour, Hawaii landed up to six surfers in the top 16 each season. But by 1986 it was down to Derek Ho and Hans Hedemann, and for the last eight years it has been Ho and Sunny Garcia keeping each other company, with occasional help from Kaipo Jaquias.

But those lonely days are over. While Ho and Garcia are hanging as tough as ever, a tsunami of young surfing talent from the islands will keep Hawaii a surfing powerhouse for years.

Five Hawaii surfers made the top 16 last year, and on the women's tour, Rochelle Ballard is alone no longer, as youngsters Keala Kennelly and Megan Abubo are scrapping to join Ballard in the top eight.

At 26, Garcia is rated No. 1 on the World Championship Tour and determined to surpass last year's agonizingly close charge for the world title. Jaquias, 23, leads a pack of Hawaii surfers his age and younger that are taking the world tour by storm.

And then there is Kalani Robb, last season's rookie of the year and already trading blows with world champions in competition. Robb is in awe of nobody. He's amazing tour veterans, and teaching many of them to dread drawing him in a heat.

At 19 he's the baby of the tour, ranked No. 4 with a star that is white-hot and rising.

And just about the time Robb reaches out to seize the ultimate prize in surfing, Hawaii will unleash the Irons brothers.

There is a snarling pack of radical young Hawaii surfers agitating for a chance at the world tour, and the most frightening of them are Andy and Bruce Irons from sleepy Kauai.

If there is a formula for success in surfing, the Irons brothers followed it perfectly. It starts with designer surfing genes from a North Shore surf veteran father and a contest-winning uncle. Their mother soaked those genes in saltwater at Lumahai Beach on Kauai since the boys were able to crawl, which became daily bodyboard sessions in the waves.

By ages 8 and 9 they graduated to surfboards, and by 10 and 11 they got the ultimate playground: a perfect training area in their own backyard in Hanalei Bay. The spot is called Pine Trees, and it can be rights, lefts, peaks, mushy, down the line, fast, slow, just like surf conditions on the world tour.

The boys were on it day and night. They controlled it, they dominated it. Then their dad took them to the next level, the big, mean waves at Hanalei Point, Waikokos, and especially Haena.

The boys' bodies are road maps of scars from encounters with Kauai's voracious reefs. "If you go full bore, which they do all the time, you might make it," says their father, Phil. "If you hold back, you get slammed."

Going full bore has earned all three Irons men some serious slams. They've all had stitches to close gashes on their head and between their eyes, and they are well acquainted with the long drive from Hanalei to the doctor's office in Lihue.

"The scars show character, and I've got plenty of that," says Andy.

Another critical element to their success formula was contest judge Donald Pahia, who molded their raw talent into a routine designed to please the judges.

Then there is Dave Riddle, who surfed Sunset Point with Phil Irons when they were skinny teen-agers back in the '60s.

They reconnected five years ago at a contest, Irons with his two boys and Riddle with Dayton Segundo, whom he has raised since age 11. The youngsters have become the awesome threesome, and Riddle takes care of the Kauai kids when they compete on Oahu.

"They have been so hard on each other, ever since they were tiny," says Phil.

Bruce is happy-go-lucky, while Andy is intense, with a determination to do anything to win.

Phil mentions the Quiksilver Pro contest in 6-foot waves at Velzyland in March, when Andy paddled in Bruce's way and disrupted a potentially contest-winning tube ride.

"I'm hoping now they will start to work as a team," he adds.

Kauai surfing legend Titus Kinimaka watched the brothers lay waste to each other in competitive combat five years ago and declared that they were going to be champions.

Triple Crown of Surfing director Randy Rarick has deemed Andy the next devastator from Hawaii, and the brothers' coming-out party in February seemed to back his prediction.

They put on a show of nerve in the HIC Pipeline Pro that established their credentials. Surfing against Hawaii's best professionals in 12-foot waves, Bruce paddled out on a puny 6-foot, 6-inch board and fearlessly threw himself over the ledge of some monster waves.

Some resulted in astounding tube rides, while others ended in hideous beatings for his 5-foot, 5-inch, 110-pound body. Meanwhile, Andy was getting pitted on equally punishing waves with a similar ratio of beatings to barrels, and both reached the semifinals.

Andy went on to steal the contest from Pipeline master Derek Ho in a final heat fraught with punishing, wind- and rain-whipped giant waves.

Professional contest judge and surfing photographer Bernie Baker has seen it all before. "At the Pipe contest, they were surfing out of their minds. But at a Sandy Beach contest two weeks later, they were falling on every wave.

"It comes down to what they can do in all conditions presented to them. Those are the guys who have always stood out in professional surfing internationally."

Just to prove it wasn't a one-time deal, Andy and Bruce recently finished first and second in small waves at Ala Moana in the Surfpac contest. And successful competition is a family trait. Bruce won the menehune division of the U.S. Open at Ala Moana in 1992, exactly 28 years after his uncle Rick won the first U.S. Open, in California.

"I take a great deal of pleasure watching them rip in crummy waves, because anybody can perform in perfect waves," says Riddle. "That's your measure of a really good surfer."

Andy is poised to find out how good a surfer he really is. He will graduate from Kapaa High School in June and will graduate to the big league of surf adventures, aboard a luxury yacht sailing throughout Indonesia on a Quiksilver promo with world champion Kelly Slater and former world champion Tom Carroll.

Andy will maintain his amateur status until he competes in his final world amateur contest in September. Then he'll try to surf his way onto the WCT.

But he will leave Bruce behind to take the interminable bus ride to Kapaa High alone. Phil never considered pulling his sons out for home schooling, preferring to let them have normal growth in a social setting. "Public school helps them face what the real world is all about," says Phil.

Meanwhile, Andy will have to look for someone other than Bruce to push him over the competitive edge.

If it all seems like a surf dream, well, it is.

"It's a great life," says Andy. "I can't think of anything better than doing what you love to do."