A Short History of Surfing

Surf history is an expansive, cloudy subject that quickly fades from HD video, to dull black and white images into a hazy world of folklore with few definitive statements. The following words are distilled from numerous books and magazines, but mostly they are secondhand stories and firsthand observations from over half a century of surfing.

The oldest surf story known dates back around 500 years and concerns the Maui chiefess Kelea. I never even knew her name until recently, but it was another woman, born centuries later that would ignite my generation as Gidget led me and millions of other boomers to the waves in 1959.

Initially surfing for me was a counterpunch to the overwhelming stimulus of a new sport, a new sound, and a life I never even suspected existed. By the time I entered high school I was obsessed with riding every break in California, and soon expanded my dreams to include the world when Bruce Brown became my travel agent.   I must have been in the sun too long, because I was blind to a history far older and richer than any American sport. To my arrogant mind my peers and I had discovered real surfing, and all who preceded us were essentially kooks. The idea of learning surf history in my youth was about as appealing as learning ancient history from a schoolbook. My world revolved around all the fun I could squeeze from the newly invented foam surfboard.

The Beach Boys may not have all been surfers, and they often seemed to miss the biggest set waves of youth culture, but they were dead right when they sang, “Catch a wave and you’re sittin’ on top of the world.” If you’ve ever surfed, you realize they nailed it.
Still, neither they or even the great Dick Dale could point the way out of the barrel, and it would be decades before I realized that surfing was far older than what my father and his surf buddies did on wooden planks at Santa Monica in the 1930s. Even that seemed almost like a different sport to the turns, cutbacks and noserides my generation was practicing. 

When I finally did attempt tracing surfing’s origins everything evaporated into a world beyond film and even written language. Still, in time I came to believe that surfing was as natural as falling off a log and that the first humans probably paddled those logs out to sea and enjoyed the rush of being pushed back to shore by whitewater. If that is so, which it likely is, surfing is actually as old as humanity itself. While this is mere speculation on my part actual proof of surfing’s antiquity exists in 4,000-year-old carvings from Chan chan, Peru, where it is believed people from that country sailed to Tahiti to become the island’s first settlers. It I also fairly certain that the ancestors of these Tahitians found their way to Hawaii and were among the first to ride the perfect waves that would make Hawaiian surfing a natural and national pastime.  While the aforementioned story of Kelea is mythical, many historians believe that men and women surfed in equal numbers in ancient Hawaii. When surfing was revived in the early 1900s, however, it returned as a Western activity, compete with Western ideas of sexism in sports, something that essentially relegated woman to the shore until fairly recently.  Because of this modern surfing was raised by single parent Duke Kahanamoku with no idea of who its mother was. As an Olympic star the Duke was able to spread the word about surfing far beyond his Island home. Thankfully by Duke’s time we had good cameras and sharp pencils to record surfing.

When I finally grew up and became interested surf history I went back about century beyond my time, until I faced a few scant paragraphs penned by non-surfers, empty pages and contradictory facts. My frustration had about peeked until one evening in the early ‘90s. I rose from dinner at a restaurant in Waikiki to admire one of Duke’s wooden boards, wondering about that sturdy vehicle when I was jarred awake by a familiar voice. Turning around I was greeted by Duke’s star pupil, Rabbit Kekai. Rabbit motioned toward Diamond Head while offering a living history lesson that surpassed all the surf books I’d ever read. “This board used to be solid wood and weighed over a hundred pounds,” said Rabbit, rapping it with his knuckles, revealing a hollow sound. After it was hollowed out it only weighed about 75 pounds. That’s when I won the Diamond Head paddle race on it. I can still remember returning to shore with Duke standing right there in the sand, cheering me on.” With that, Kekai walked on to join his dinner companions, never realizing that his few words forever turned a tattered sketch from the past into a 3-D feature film as I visualized a robust and youthful Duke Kahanamoku sliding for over a mile on this very board as a child called Rabbit awaited his turn in the shore break.  It’s possible Rabbit was riding that very board in a 1930s newsreel of him surfing Waikiki, weaving through a pack of stationary riders, frozen on their “logs.” Rabbit, who has surfed for around 90 years, influenced everybody who ever saw him, including all of the kids who rode his wake at his home break, Queen’s. Premier among that ‘50s crew were Donald Takayama, Paul Strauch and Joey Cabell. They in turn influenced the next generation of Queen’s surfers, including noseriding king David Nuuhiwa, Pipe Master Gerry Lopez and power broker, Barry Kaniaupuni. 
Next up were Larry Bertlemann and Montgomery “Buttons” Kaluhiokalani, whose low rotational styles proved directly influential to today’s top surfers. Using shorter boards than most anyone in the mid ‘70s, Bert and Buttons pushed their boards deeper onto the rail and further up the face than ever before, launching into previously impossible moves like 360 degree turns.

It was around this time that surfers who had been bred in the relatively isolated outpost of Australia arrived on Oahu’s North Shore to begin a competitive dominance that has yet to wane. The Aussies may not have been superior surfers to the Hawaiians, but they were far more seasoned competitors to surfers who traditionally took a much more relaxed approach to wave riding. Where the surf media sold the mantra “Rip, tear, lacerate,” Hawaiians and to a lesser degree Californians were generally more concerned with the art of soulful flow. And while the newcomers did take away most of the hardware in the ‘70s, one still has to wonder if the results would have varied if the new Hawaiians had been raised in a more competitive environment.

One of the biggest inventions in the surfing world more resembled a toy than a surfboard. The Morey Boogie, which was developed solely by Tom Morey in the early ‘70s featured the first soft materials and zero learning curve. Because of this and it’s low price, the Boogie has probably brought introduced more people to waves than any single device in history. The Boogie also led to the development of the full-sized soft surfboard when Morey and legendary surfer Mike Doyle collaborated on a board that would eventually become the prototype of today’s department store, entry-level surfboard, which now speckles most lineups.

When pro surfing was launched in the mid 1970s California pearled on takeoff, and went from the top of the heap in the ‘60s, to a competitive joke, Except for the women’s divisions initially dominated by Margo Oberg, few U.S. males ranked anywhere near the top. Of course were numerous world-class surfers in the Golden State, but most of them were riding boards in the ‘7’6” range, while the average Australian surf star was riding something a full foot shorter. Also, U.S. surfers generally lacked contest experience in a time and place when competitive surfing was nearly considered counter revolutionary. It got so bad that by the time the Australian backed Stubbies contest was held at Black’s Beach in 1979, anti contest forces had torched the porta potties, and there was a sniper was stationed on the cliff with a 22 caliber rifle, apparently ready to fire some warning shots (I’m giving him he benefit of the doubt here) at contestants before Newport competitor Lenny Foster boldly disarmed him.

Undeterred by the naysayers, surfers came in droves from as far north as Santa Cruz where Richard Schmidt and Vince Collier represented the new wave, and a young Dave Parmenter proved there were hot surfers in the nearly unknown Central Coast town of Cayucos. Surfers from Santa Barbara, Orange, LA and San Diego Counties came together for the first time in ages, as California surfers again proved themselves worthy of center stage. But it would require Australian surfer stars Peter Townend and Ian Cairns to really rev up the competitive machine in the U.S. as they took charge of the National Scholastic Surfing Association (NSSA) and helped train a new crew of future pros, not the least of which was then future multiple World Champion, Santa Barbara’s Tom Curren. Internationally, mid eighties surfing was dominated by Curren in California, while fellow Californian Joey Buran managed to crack the top 16 a few times. Hawaiians Dane Kealoha and Johnny Boy Gomes ruled Backdoor Pipeline while Australia’s Tom Carroll demolished Pipe, until his countryman, Mark Occhilupo, upstaged him. South Africa’s Martin Potter ripped into a world title, and while not as famous as some on the list, his influence would prove profound in Southern California where Matt Archbold, Dino Andino and Christian Fletcher followed him into the sky. Meanwhile, the surfer who many consider the father of aerial surfing, Kevin Reed, was flying above the crowd in wilderness locations north of Santa Cruz.

The nineties were a parade for the ages as longboards returned in force, making smaller waves more accessible. Some of the longboarders from the ‘60s like Nat Young, David Nuuhiwa, Herbie Fletcher and Dale Dobson dusted off their acts while a pre-teen Joel Tudor took notes from ‘60s surf movies, and began a sort of Karaoke of Nuuhiwa at first, until Tudor had eventually polished his act and beaten the old masters at the game they had taught him. It all came down one day at an Oceanside Longboard Club Contest where 13-year-old Joel put his legendary audience on alert with his turns, cutbacks, precocious style and brilliant noseriding. There were others in the mix too, but most of them were riding long tri fins in a progressive fashion. And so it was Joel’s nearly solitary act that gave young surfers permission to sneak back in time and ride boards their parents had stashed in the rafters more than decade earlier.

Perhaps even more surprising than Tudor’s debut, was the East Coast invasion where a place not known for its waves, Florida, would eventually produce the top competitive surfers in the world. Amazingly world champions Frieda Zamba, Lisa Anderson, CJ Hobgood and history’s most dominant competitor and arguably greatest surfer, Kelly Slater, were among them.  But surfing’s family tree was splintering by the Slater era, with Kelly being the newest growth on the performance branch while the longboarding Tudor on a heavy longboard, and then Laird Hamilton on a board with a paddle, went the other way. Stand Up Paddling (SUP) fueled a debate in surfing as hot as the issue of gun control among the general population. There is not enough room here to discuss the conflict, but it could be summed up by saying that opponents see SUPs as offering their riders an unfair wave catching advantage, while proponents see them as an evolutionary inevitability and something offering the freedom to ride whatever they like in the lineup. While this conflict would normally work itself out as experienced SUP riders yielded way to those with an obvious paddle disadvantage, the SUP has proven a feeder pond to inland masses who arrive on the coast without the slightest idea of a millennia of surf etiquette. Now, the buzz of motorized surfboards can be heard as it is every decade or so, something that if they catch on could turn a spark of discontent into a forest fire.

All vehicles have their place in the ocean, but some might be best used beyond already crowded lineups where they can enjoy the vast resources of an ocean big enough to accommodate anyone on anything. Competitively speaking that brings us to the present where Slater remains in the hunt for his 12th World title. But there’s so much more going on than what brilliant Aussie goofyfoot Wayne Lynch once termed “Gaudy Metal and Ego Trips.” Surfing for the average rider has been radically altered by the consistent refinement of wetsuits, the introduction of shaping machines, molded boards and discount stores selling surfboards for a hundred bucks. What were once secrets are now blurted out around the world after being well documented by video cams and wave-hungry explorers. Surf brands appear in department store windows in Omaha. And yet even with all this pressure on a limited resource clued in surfers can still find a few waves alone from time to time.

"Don’t hog all those darned waves."
Duke Kahanamoku

Surfing has never been so popular or so diverse as it is now, with women claiming their rightful place in the lineup, SUPs making their stand, longboards filling in the gaps on small days, tow ins taking Everest sized drops, kids carving harder and blasting higher than ever, and alternative wave craft via the Alaia and the Paipo returning us to our roots while we race forward at the same time, on smaller, lighter surfboards.

These are exciting times in surfing, with great challenges and opportunities. My hope is that we all learn to share our precious, delicate and limited resource, and that artificial waves and artificial reefs open up endless gardens of delights for us, our children, and our children’s children. I further hope that we cease battling each other, and unite against our true enemies, the polluters. Surfing is a gift as old as humanity and as new as John John Florence’s future great, great grandchildren, who will someday discover surfing for themselves and feel like the first ones to be “sittin’ on top of the world.”

In 1972 Chris Ahrens was a surfer living on a pristine beach in Australia and wondering if he was going to eat that day, or not. It was then he wrote his first story for a surf magazine and was rewarded with fifty American dollars. Having [metaphorically speaking] learned to fish, that piece led to thirty years of countess bylines in various newspapers and magazines and every major surfing publication in the world. This was followed by three popular books on surfing. Through years of interviewing surfers, Ahrens learned the skill necessary for his work in interviewing major celebrities for Risen Magazine.

After seven years as editor in chief of Risen, Ahrens wrote and directed the award-winning documentary D.O.P.E. (Death Or Prison Eventually). That in turn led to a contract with HarperOne to co-write the memoirs of legendary skateboarder, Christian Hosoi.

Ahrens works as a full-time writer and lives on the beach in Cardiff, California with his wife Tracy and their cat, Clara. Twilight in the City of Angels is his first novel.

SUP for the first time!

So you are ready to take the plunge and try one of the fastest growing water sports in the world! Stand up Paddle to me is one of the best ways to enjoy being on the water! As a certified SUP Instructor I believe it is important to take a lesson for your first time with a certified instructor someone who is going to really look after your safety and teach you proper stroke technique and just set you up for a positive experience for your first time. But if you plan to venture out with out a lesson here our a few tips you need to know.

1. Know the conditions!- Every time I get a call for a lesson I am looking at the wind conditions and surf size, making sure it will be safe for my customer and that their experience will be enjoyable. Just be aware that whether you are heading out on a lake our ocean the conditions can change very quickly so be alert and aware of your surroundings. We do not want you to be on the next episode of I shouldn’t be alive! There are several good websites you can use to see the forecast of the wind and waves before you head out.

2. Equipment- For your first time on a SUP I would encourage a bigger board around 12 ft with a width of at least 30 inches. The bigger and wider the board the more stable it will be for you I put my customers on the 12”1 Laird Paddle Board with a 31 inch width it’s a great board that is very stable and great to learn on and it could hold up to about 270 Pound person. If you are smaller you might not need such a big board but again in my opinion if it is your first time the bigger the board the better. To judge the size of your paddle it should be about 9 inches above your height. It would be good to have a leash and a PFD in case you fall.

3. Get in and out of water- Most injuries happen on a SUP whether on a lake our ocean when you are about 5 feet from shore. In lakes you are not worried about waves but many people get to comfortable coming in to shore and if they are standing on the board and get into the shallow water there fins hit the sand and they go head first into the sand and that is not fun! For the ocean you need to be aware of the waves, I have seen so many people when coming in on a SUP not paying attention of the wave that is coming behind them and you know what happens next. So when launching and returning to the shore I would encourage you paddle out on your knees and choke up on paddle like a canoe or you can get on your stomach and prone paddle with the paddle head flat side under your chest. Once you are in a safe place get ready to stand.

4. Stand, Paddle and Turns- Once you are out in the water its time to stand! You want to get a little momentum paddling on both sides of board on your knees while your hands are choked up on the paddle close to the blade of paddle, make sure your knees are in the center point of board most boards have a handle in the center of the board you will want your knees on either side of the handle. You will get on all fours with paddle in the right hand or left whatever is comfortable for you with the blade of paddle facing towards the water. Don’t hesitate and jump to your feet if it is hard for you to do both feet at once you can step up one leg at time and make sure you are centered with the handle of board in between both feet and your feet facing forward shoulder width apart and knees slightly bent. Eighty percent of your balance stems on where you are focusing so once you stand focus straight ahead not looking down at board or water it will be a lot easier to balance.
Then start the paddle stroke with one hand on top grabbing the paddle handle and the other half way down the paddle. Keep your arms extended with a slight bend in elbows which will force you to paddle more with your core. Rotate your hip and reach to nose of board put paddle in water the paddle should be perpendicular which will force your top arm to straighten and stroke throwing top hand over like throwing a punch and other shoulder rotates like a one arm row. All the power in your stroke will be how far you can reach towards nose of board and stroking to your feet if you go past your feet it will slow down your recovery. You will probably switch your stroke after 3-4 strokes depending on wind and currents to keep you going straight.

A couple of basic turn strokes that you will need to know is the Front sweep stroke turn which you would put paddle in water angle blade away from board and stroke away from board at a 45 degree angle. If Paddle is on right side it will turn the board left and on left side it will turn board right. The back sweep is just reversing and throwing the paddle to the tail of board and stroke to the nose do this 3-4 times and then throw paddle over and do a front stroke this can turn you around pretty quickly just make sure you bend your knees a little to braise yourself and keep you from falling in water.

5. Be Prepared – Its good to communicate with someone that you will be going out for a paddle and where. Also to have plenty of water, snacks and what my wife always calls me out on is putting on sunscreen! So these are just a few tips to make your first time on a SUP safe and enjoyable know get out there and have fun!

Written by Tyler Lennon, Paddle Instructor/Trainer with Cove Paddle Fitness

Black Monday. December 5, 2005. That’s the day that contemporary surfboard manufacturing changed forever. As many of you know, this is the day that Clark Foam shut down. Abruptly. Without telling anyone. Just a long fax, sent to Clark Foam customers everywhere, basically saying, “No Mas.”

It sent shock waves throughout the industry.

Today those waves are still being felt, but not so much in the form of shock, but rather innovation: waves of innovation.

Since that day we’ve seen the rise of new foam blank companies and renewed interest in EPS foam and earth-friendly, eco-conscious manufacturing techniques. There are foam blanks made out of mushroom fibers, sugarcane and soy by-product. There is an old standby, epoxy resin, and new to market bio-resins from linseed oil as well as cloth weaves produced from hemp and bamboo. New sustainable products are being tested and brought to market each year.

If you want a sustainable, environment-friendly surfboard you can get one. There is one catch: you have to ask.

In general, the industry isn’t going to offer it to you. Tried and true manufacturing techniques using polyurethane foam and polystyrene resins (not so earth friendly) continue to dominate the market place. Two reason for this. One, a majority of the manufacturing process-- the set-up, the tools, the labor force, the vendors, they have all perfected, if you will, working with and selling surfboards produced with the “two polys”. Second, these standardized poly constructed boards are proven in the water. We know the flex patterns, we know how they work, we know why they work. We’ve shaped them by the thousand. We’ve laminated them by the thousand. We’ve broken them. We’ve fixed them. We’ve perfected them. They are reliable. Therefore, the manufacturer is reliable. Reliable manufacturers tend to stay in business.

So, the feeling is…”why change?”

Millennials have stepped up to the plate with a new culture, a holistic life ethos based on living clean, living healthy, living ‘as one’. This means our environment comes first. Surfboard manufacturing has found a sliver in this lifestyle. We can raise chickens, home school our kids, do yoga on SUPs and by God we can also build a more earth-friendly surfboard.

Two examples of the many options out there: Grain surfboards, they make finely tuned wooden kit-surfboards with epoxy resin. A gorgeous surfboard that rides incredible and that is earth friendly (plus you build it yourself- so some pride in ownership is inherent). One of the high performance-oriented manufacturers is …Lost Surfboards, which offers an EPS blank with SuperSap resin in their popular high performance models ridden by World Tour professionals. All of these boards as well or better than the more traditional manufacturing methods.

Why aren’t all boards made this way?

Retrofitting an entire industry, from the labor force, to the equipment, to the tools, to the vendor offerings, it is a slow process. What is needed is for demand to increase. That demand would increase exponentially if a World Champion caliber surfer, a Kelly Slater or Nat Young or Mick Fanning or Gabe Medina could and would win an ASP World Championship riding a sustainably built surfboard, and to then proudly and loudly proclaim their sustainable surfboard. You’d immediately see 15-year olds around the world demand the sustainable option.

There is momentum. Firewire Surfboards is producing 100% of their surfboards with Super Sap resin (an eco-friendly resin on the market). Firewire team riders Michel Bourez (Bourez is #5 ranked ASP surfer in the world) and Sally Fitzgibbons (ASP #2) are both riding, competing and winning on sustainable surfboards. For what it is worth, I’d like to see these two professionals proclaim the sustainable nature of their boards louder. Furthermore, the industry has one shining light, E-tech Glassing and Surfboards is the world’s only sustainable surfboard manufacturer. Earth friendly only! They manufacture sustainable surfboards for …Lost Surfboards and Channel Islands Surfboards.

Baby steps. There is progress. Until that time, it’s in our hands -- the savvy customer. You and I. We can slowly change the perception. When you order your next custom surfboard ask about “sustainable” options.

A great resource for understanding the sustainable surfboard options can be found at SustainableSurf.org. – SB

In the late 1960s the waves on the Hollister Ranch were California’s ultimate prize. There it was, one of the last private, undeveloped landmasses in Southern California with points and coves and favorable winds secured under armed guards that could have ridden shotgun on John Wayne’s stagecoach. But no gun totting cowboy was gonna keep us out, pilgrim we were determined to ride those perfect waves which we heard lacked riders most days.

It was mostly the stuff of legend and coconut wireless rumors that drove us to such obsession. Then, Surfer Magazine’s Ron Stoner fanned the flames with photos of Skip Frye and Mike Hynson, confirming the rumored perfection was, in anything, understated. But to surf there you had to be a ranch hand, a guest, or a member of an elite fleet, the local surf club in town. We were none of the above. Being foot soldiers in this war, or natural first line of attack was to walk in. Bad idea. We were five or six miles in as the offshore winds whipped our boards around so violently we had to grip our boards tightly so they wouldn’t be blown away. When a guard on horseback insisted we turn around, we marched back to the car, like condemned men. It turned out okay as we were rewarded with decent and nearly empty Rincon that evening.

The next attempt worked better. The Ranch was to be subdivided, and we would take advantage of that tragedy. It was my brother Dave who figured out that we could approach the offending real estate company in Santa Barbara, act like we were potential investors, and be granted 30 day passes. We dusted off the suits we had graduated from high school in; put them on over equally musty ties, pressed white shirts and our best spit shinned shoes. We walked into the office imposters and walked away with one of the most coveted prizes in surfing 30 day passes to the Ranch.

Apparently the greedy land grab failed after a year or so, and Dave bought a Ranch boat, while I stuck to my home breaks and basically forgot about the place. Then came John Severson’s 1970s offering, Pacific Vibrations, and surf lust started up all over again.
One hot, mushy afternoon I was sitting in the sand at Beacons with Peter Pinline when he wondered aloud if anyone had a decent Ranch boat. I said that my brother Dave did, and since Dave was living in Kauai at the time, it should be no problem borrowing it for a day or so. The boat was parked in the family’s garage and I called my parents to say we were going to have a few visitors for the night. We arrived on a Friday evening, and I was greeted by my mother on the phone with Dave, who had just then called from Kauai to ask her if the boat was okay. She said it was, told him she loved him and hung up.

We ate dinner, I took my old room, Peter took the couch, and the other two passengers, Jack Jensen and Lauren “Buttons” Montgomery, slept in their car in the school parking lot across the street. This was a turbulent era with Viet Nam protests at their peak, and some knucklehead lit the school on fire that night. The fire department and the cops were soon there, questioning these transients surfers who were camped out at the scene of the crime. Jack and Buttons finally convinced the cops that they were in the midst of a surf trip, the flames were doused and nobody was arrested.

We had a full two hours to make Santa Barbara, so we awoke early, backed the car into the driveway and prepared to attach the boat to the bumper hitch. Bumper hitch? We seemed to have forgotten that one little item. That morning was spent in various junkyards seeking a bumper hitch, which nobody had. When we finally did locate one, the guy wanted 75 dollars for it, which, in a time of 40-cent gas and 150 dollar a month rents, was the equivalent of a month’s wages. You could buy an entire used boat for 75 dollars! We looked and called and begged and… Nothing. So we split for home, stopping at Doheny on the way, in order to rest. And there we were, 40 minutes from Encinitas, as the dream waves we were seeking, peeled forever into a newly formed point after the river had flooded and moved sand into just the right formation.

The next day was just another lousy day in the boring old paradise of Encinitas. As youth usually don’t, we hadn’t yet realized we had it made. I know that now. So, here’s to the joy of here and now!