With some help from fellow Kaua'i surfers, Roy Powers should once again be able to compete with the world's best.

Powers finished the 2008 ASP World Tour ranked No. 28 — one spot below the cutoff point for requalification for the 2009 tour. In effect, he is the first alternate.

But because No. 20 Bruce Irons of Kaua'i has already announced his retirement from the tour, Powers is expected to make the elite tour for 2009.

Only 45 of the world's best surfers are allowed to compete on the ASP World Tour.

"It's not official yet, but it looks good, and I'm making my plans to surf on the tour again," said Powers, who is from Hanalei. "I'm just so relieved right now. There was a chance I wasn't going to (requalify) and it was really stressful."

The stress started when Powers lost in the second round of the Billabong Pipeline Masters contest earlier this month.

Because of that loss, other surfers could have moved ahead of Powers in the final ratings.

But Kaua'i's Evan Valiere upset No. 30 Mick Campbell of Australia in the second round, and then Kaua'i's Andy Irons defeated No. 29 Dean Morrison of Australia in the third round. Those two results secured Powers the No. 28 ranking.

"I couldn't even watch Andy's heat with Dean Morrison," Powers said. "I felt like my whole career was on the line and I couldn't do anything about it."

If Powers dropped in the ratings, he would have dropped to the World Qualifying Series for 2009. It is an option he was not willing to take.

"If you compare it to baseball, it's like going from the majors to the minors," said Powers, 27. "It's just not the same. I feel like I did my thing on the (WQS), and I don't want to do it again."

Instead, with his elite tour status renewed, Powers wants to improve his ranking for 2009.

The 2009 World Tour will start in March, so Powers said he will spend the next two months training on O'ahu and Kaua'i, and maybe even in California.

"I feel like I have a better idea of what the tour is like now, and so I really want to focus on getting stronger physically and mentally," he said.

Powers said it took nearly all of the 2008 tour for him to get used to the "business" aspect of surfing.

"Most of the places we went to, it was just me and my girlfriend (Danielle O'Connell)," he said. "It's not like the (qualifying series) where you travel with 10 of your friends and you all hang out together. It really is a business on the (World Tour), and took me a while to learn how to travel and compete on that level."