Written by Matt Dursum
“Out of the water, I am nothing. Surfing is the greatest thrill of my life.” —Duke Kahanamoku
Surfing, in some form or another, is thousands of years old. One of surfing’s oldest origin stories comes from Peru. Millennia before the Inca Empire, coastal people in Northern Peru made light-weight and versatile watercraft out of reeds. The ancient caballitos (little horses) are still ridden today. Although people likely rode waves with them, their sole purpose was a fishing vessel.
Surfing—the gnar-gnar board riding kind we all adore—started in ancient Polynesia, specifically on a tiny chain of islands known as Hawaii. The Polynesians were expert navigators and used stars, currents, and constellations to voyage thousands of miles in search of a new land. Originally from East Asia, they reached distant islands such as Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, Rapa Nui, and north to the Hawaiian Islands between 300 and 1000 AD.
Ancient Hawaiian society, including the kapu system of law and governance and the custom of placing lie necklaces, originated in Tahiti. Another Polynesian pastime also spread to Hawaii—surfing. At first, surfing was likely a fun activity amongst fisherman, sailors, and children. The earliest surfboards were made out of any floatable material.
Eventually, the ancient Hawaiians started obsessing over surfing. Boards became better built and Hawaiian royalty had their own boards made of special wood such as breadfruit tree, wiliwili, or koa, built by a shaper and blessed by a kahuna or local spiritual healer.. People of all ages and backgrounds took to the sport.
The early boards came in several shapes and sizes. The esteemed Olo design was up to 20 feet long. On the smaller end was the 6 to 7 foot long alaia. These early boards lacked a stabilizing fin, meaning that surfers had to rely on body positioning to remain in control. Still, surfers challenged each other into larger waves, pushing themselves into the offshore reefs that surround the islands.
Surfing became ritualistic and an occasional challenge between chiefs and nobles. Bets were made on who could ride a wave the longest and fastest. Conflicts were also sometimes solved in the water through a surf-off. The world’s first surf event was likely the Makahiki harvest and surf competition, an annual four-month celebration where war and work stopped and people celebrated and surfed.
European Missionaries
British explorer Captain James Cook, on a voyage to find the Northwest passage in 1778, landed on Kauaʻi island with 150 men. It was Cooke’s surgeon, William Anderson, who first wrote about surfing when the crew was in Tahiti in 1777, stating, “I could not help concluding that this man felt the most supreme pleasure while he was driven on so fast and so smoothly by the sea.”
When Cook reached the islands, his presence was tolerated and possibly idolized by some communities. Eventually, people realized the ill intentions of the foreigners and after a bloody skirmish, Cook was killed on the beach of Kealakekua Bay.
Soon, tales of Cook’s ‘adventures’ and the beautiful islands he interacted with reached Europe and North America. Waves of missionaries and colonists arrived. With the outsiders came diseases that wiped out nearly 90% of the original Hawaiian population. In the following decades, Hawaiins were stripped of their time to surf and were sucked into the daily grind of western society. Religious fervor and judgment against indigenous culture spread and soon Hula dances and lei necklaces were banned. The 19th century’s European colonists almost destroyed surfing at its roots.
The Comeback
All the fear towards the ocean by wealthy Europeans and North Americans vanished in the 20th century. Warm remote getaways became an attraction for the rich. For poets and writers, it was a fascination. As white skinned North Americans and Europeans relaxed by the shores, a select few local Hawaiians continued to surf.
Honolulu became ground zero for the island’s booming tourism industry and surfing became its marketing tool. Then came the American adventure writer Jack London, who wrote about the odd local sport of surfing in his new adventure books after trying the sport for himself. In 1908, the wealthy tycoon and surf buddy of London’s named Alexander Hume Ford set up the Outrigger Canoe and Surfboard Club on Waikiki beach. His goal was to popularize surfing for the new arrivals and preserve a slice of beach he enjoyed from hotel developers. Although it was promoting a Native Hawaiian sport, the club maintained a white’s only policy.
It was Waikiki local George Freeth who brought surfing to the mainland and performed surfing exhibitions in Huntington Beach. Freeth became a famous lifeguard and surfing ambassador but died alone in 1919 at age 35, in a hospital bed due to complications with the Spanish Flu. He was surfing’s first paid ambassador.
Surfing’s first superstar was Duke Kahanamoku. He was an Olympic swimming gold medalist, Native Hawaiian, and co-founder of the Hui Nalu surfing club, a rival club to Ford’s white’s only Outrigger Canoe and Surfboard Club. Kahanamoku became a global swimming phenomenon, winning several Olympic Gold medals and repeatedly breaking records.
Kahanamoku gave surfing and swimming demonstrations all around the world, including Australia. It was here, as in the United States and Europe, where his celebrity and athleticism broke racial barriers and inspired people living on the coast to craft their own wooden boards and take to the waves.
Surfing Goes Global
California in the ‘20s already had a growing surf scene with small competitions such as the Pacific Coast Championships in Corona del Mar.Most boards were little more than simple hand-crafted wooden planks.
It was the Wisconsin born Tom Blake who first revolutionized surfboard design in 1935, by creating lighter, hollow bodied boards and attaching a stabilizing fin. Without fins, early surf boards were hard to control and riders could only travel straight to shore. Blake also created surfing’s first stereotypes by ditching the era’s suit and ties for simple clothes made for comfort. He also lived off foraged fruits and stayed as far from society as possible.
It was during the ‘30s, where surf culture flourished in California, Hawaii, and Australia. In Australia, people moved from Sydney north, to the perfect and desolate sandy beaches and points of the Gold Coast. In California, San Onofre became the destination where surfers would pile in cars and brave the barren dirt roads of Orange County or Oceanside to reach the cobblestone peaks of the spot known as Trestles. Along the quiet beaches, surfers threw parties, surfed all day, and played ukuleles while dancing by the fire.
After WWII, surfing went through another boom. New technologies, specifically petrochemicals, opened up new products that surfers could use to improve their equipment. In a Bay Area lab, chemist Hugh Bradner crafted the world’s first wetsuit out of neoprene. Californian surfer Jack O’Neill also caught on to the new technology and with his incessant marketing strategies pushed O’Neil wetsuits in surf shops globally by the beginning of the ‘70s. This invention allowed surfers in cold water destinations such as California, Southern Australia, and South Africa to surf all year long. It also opened up the floodgates for new destinations like Canada, New Zealand, and Chile.
In California, a growing middle class emerged and moved west. Surfboard design also progressed, with Bob Simmon’s new concave designs and Hobie Alter’s polyurethane foam boards. Boards were now lightweight and flexible, allowing surfers to carve and nose ride. The days of riding in tandem were over, and new hierarchies formed.
The laid-back and quasi-vagabond lifestyle popularized in ‘60s films such as the Endless Summer and TV shows such as Gidget were groomed along Californian beaches like Malibu. Surf music, popularized by guitarist Dick Dale, became the anthem of the anti-establishment sentiments that crept into surfing’s consciousness, along with terms like ‘bitchin’ and ‘rad’.
The decade also saw conflict. Many beaches remained racially segregated and the US’s unpopular Vietnam War sent surfer GI’s into combat. With increasing US involvement in foreign conflicts, the US military set up shop around the world and with the battle-hungry soldiers came surfers looking for waves. Aside from the military, Americans started traveling in higher numbers to locations such as Peru, Japan, Biarritz, France, South Africa, and Mexico. These locations and other coastal areas around the world soon fostered their own homegrown surf cultures.
Changing Tides
In 1967 came the next big shift in surfing. Santa Barbara local George Greenough and Queensland surfer Bob McTavish changed surfing forever by developing the short board. From fin design to new concaves and hydrodynamics, boards could go from 10’ in length down to 7’.
With faster and more maneuverable boards, surfers could chase down sections and shred instead of traveling in straight lines. From Australia to Africa, these new shapes broke all the rules and created new hierarchies in the lineup. They also destroyed the surfing industry from the inside out. Now, if you weren’t making and selling short boards, you went out of business.
After the shortboard came Californian inventions such as the leash, which tied onto a surfer’s ankle to keep their board from careening into the beach—a common problem back in the day. California was also the hub of surfwear and surf gear. Sex Wax, O’Neill, skateboards, and surf magazines; these were Californian staples that became must-haves for every modern surfer. Although California pioneered the designs, Australia soon took over when it came to short board talent, with soul surfing, short-board competitions, and their own brands such as Rip Curl and Billabong.
The North Shore
Although California was the poster child of surfing for middle America and Australia a cradle of young talent, Hawaii was still surfing’s homeland. When airline ticket prices dropped during the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, everyone wanted to go to Hawaii. The waves were bigger, heavier, and more critical. Hawaiian surfing was concentrated on Oahu’s south and west shore at spots such as Waikiki and the big waves of Makaha.
Local Hawaiians, such as David Nuuhiwa, competed with the Australians and Californians, and took the sport to new heights with advanced nose riding and cutbacks. Yet, Hawaii’s North Shore has always attracted surfers. Eventually known as the ‘Seven Mile Miracle’, this stretch of sand produced some of the world’s most dangerous and challenging surf. Very few surfers ever took on the North Shore successfully. The long boards of surfing’s early era were no match for the coast’s barreling reefs. However, with the new short boards, surfers could take performance surfing to the world’s ultimate testing grounds.
The coastline of shallow reefs and deep ocean faces northwest. When winter storms form south of Alaska, they create monstrous waves that slam directly into Oahu’s North Shore. Although Sunset Beach was for decades a popular big-wave proving ground, no other spot gained as much attention as Pipeline. The wave at Pipeline broke in two directions depending on the swell, but it was its picture perfect left that gave it its reputation. There were a handful of surfers in the early ‘70s who could ride the wave, but none like Gerry lopez. A yoga-practicing Hawaiin with infinite style and laid-back charisma, Lopez showed the world what could be done inside the heaviest wave on the planet.
And then came the outsiders. The South African Shaun Thomson and Australians Wayne “The Rabbit” Bartholomew, Peter Townend, and Ian Cairns. They surfed aggressively and their progression changed surfing forever. Unfortunately, the visiting surfer’s misplaced arrogance disrespected the local Hawaiians. This led to groups such as Da Hui who, through initial violence and eventual diplomacy, forced the sport and visiting foreign surfers to recognize Hawaiians as the stewards of the North Shore and introduced a strict pecking order in the lineups.
At the same time, in the early ‘70s, Hawaiian’s Fred Hemmings and Randy Rarick stringed together loosely organized surfing events and made the first world championship tour in 1976. The tour body organized a flawed ranking system and took on the title International Professional Surfers (IPS). In further decades, it would become the Surfing Professionals (ASP) and eventually the World Surf League in 2015.
Then, the next huge wave of change shook the surfing world again. Australian pro surfer Simon Anderson designed a board that used a third stabilizing fin between two rear side fins. He shaved off a few inches on the nose of the board and narrowed it into a curved point. In 1981 at the Pro Tour competition at Bell’s Beach, Australia, Anderson rocked up holding his strange new design. When his board outperformed the twin-fins and single fins on solid double overhead surf and smaller surf later on in the competition, the world of surfboard design took another pivotal turn. Anderson’s new ‘thruster’ was here to stay.
Since the dawn of the Thruster in the ‘80s, surfing has changed more than any other sport. It has become an international powerhouse, raking in billions of dollars annually. Today, there are wave pools capable of generating head-high and world-class contestable waves in the middle of nowhere. Big waves and the World Surf League Big Wave World Tour are showcasing the best men and women surfers at the biggest waves on the planet.
The biggest change to surfing isn’t the equipment, styles, or business of the sport, it’s its globalization. The class divide between surfers has now narrowed. Countries such as Brazil have erased American and Australian dominance and pushed the sport to new heights in progression. Women are now paid as much as men in professional surfing and are pushing the limits of what’s possible, regardless of gender. Surfing is now the people’s sport, accessible to anyone, of any background, all around the globe.
