The human act of riding ocean waves on floatation devices has
been going on for
thousands of years. We, in fact, do not know how many
thousands of years. It has been reasonably estimated that the act involving
wooden boards could date as far back as 2000 B.C. (4000 B.P.), before the
beginning of the Polynesian migration across the
Pacific
Ocean.
If we count canoe surfing, the act must be far older than that and if we
include bodysurfing, then we must consider the span of time in terms of tens of
thousands of years.
Surfing on boards –
he’e nalu – rose to a high level of
development in the Hawaiian Islands sometime after
Polynesians first settledthe Hawaiian chain beginning around 300 A.D. (2300 B.P.). “Wave sliding” using
boards – along with canoe and body surfing – not only became important parts of
the lifestyle of all Hawaiians prior to European contact in the later 1700s, but
was also integrally connected with Hawaiian culture.
In stark contrast to this “golden age,” surfing fell to an almost ignominious
near-death during the 1800s – mostly due to European and American cultural,
political and religious influences.
During “The Revival” period of surfing at the very beginning of
the Twentieth Century, surfing’s decline was arrested and set back on a course
of natural evolution. Since that time, surfing has grown vastly in popularity
and now is practiced in most every corner of the world. Key figures in this
resurgent interest in surfing include:
George Freeth,
Alexander Hume Ford, Jack
London,
Duke Paoa Kahanamoku,
Dad Center, Dudie Miller, “John D” Kaupiko and numerous
beach boys and surfing
wahines at
Waikiki,
on O’ahu, in the first two decades of the 1900s.
A little surprisingly to those of us looking back at it now,
surfing’s growth was not explosive following its resurgence, but rather a slow
and gradual progression. For this reason, the surfing years between 1912 and
1928 are not well known and, predictably not well documented.
We, of course, know the historical context. The
1910s were
dominated by events that would lead to the First World War. The war, itself,
was vastly different than any other war that had preceded it. “The total number
of casualties, including killed, wounded, and missing, is figured at 37.5
million… An outbreak of influenza in the autumn of 1918 compounded the death
toll as it swept through populations already weakened by the nutritional
privations of total war.”
In Europe and other nations
that had been caught up in the global struggle, “Wartime disruption helped
cause a sharp recession in 1920-21… For most nations, prosperity returned only
in the mid-1920s.”
“The catastrophic toll of the war also resulted in a new,
looser code of morality, especially in a growing urban environment. A new
generation, decimated by war, felt betrayed by their elders and rejected the
more austere standards of conduct they had been taught as children.”
To truly appreciate the great surfing decade that the 1930s
was, it is important to understand this time leading into it, in the Earth
zones where surfers were riding waves in the Hawaiian style: Australia, Southern
California and – of course – Waikiki.
Australia, 1910-1930
It is still a common misconception that surfing in Australia
began in 1914-15, with the visit of
Duke Kahanamoku to New South Wales and the
surfing demonstrations he gave at that time. In fact,
Australia’s surfing roots go much
further back – as far as the late 1800s, before legal rights to swim in the
open sea had even been won.
This was because “In Australia,” emphasized the Australian authors of
Surfing
Subcultures, “the origins of surfing were based on body surfing rather than
on traditional board riding... the early Australian settlers – mainly of
English origin – found no native surfing tradition to encourage or restrict
either body or craft-based surfing, as was the case in
Hawaii.”
Australian surfing’s Polynesian connection came in the form of
Alick Wickham and Tommy Tana. In the 1890s, Alick Wickham, a native of the
Solomon Islands,
became an important influence on Australian swimming when he demonstrated a “crawl”
stroke that was later exported to the rest of the world as the “Australian
crawl.”
Around the same time another South Sea Islander, Tommy Tana – a
youth employed as a houseboy in the Manly district – was body surfing at the
beach there. Tana hailed from the Pacific
island
of
Tana, in the New Hebrides, which is
now called by its traditional name of
Vanuatu. He amazed onlookers at
Manly
Beach
and inspired others to dive in. His style was studied and copied by Manly
swimmers like Eric Moore, Arthur Lowe and Freddie Williams. Williams soon
became the first local considered to fully master bodysurfing. Later on,
Freddie Williams became a public figure when he made the first publicized
rescue of another swimmer at
Manly Beach.
After the turn of the century, Alick Wickham shaped the first
surfboard in
Australia.
Hand carved from a large piece of driftwood found on Curl Curl beach, this
board was so bad it actually sank.
Wickham’s knowledge of stand-up surfing using a board was obviously limited and
is a testimony of how far surfing had fallen in such Polynesian locales as the
Solomon Islands
by the late 1800s.
When more novice swimmers and non-swimmers started ocean
bathing off unsupervised beaches, accidents became numerous and soon raised hell
with the public.
At
Manly
Beach
alone, there were 16 drownings in the space of 10 years. Local government
authorities and regulars at the beaches eventually figured out that the general
public would need to be either regulated or monitored. This realization became
the driving force for the formation of the Australian Surf Life Saving movement.
By 1909, the newly formed Australian Surf Life Saving Association
published that there were eleven clubs active in
New South Wales. According to the report, no
lives had been lost in the previous twelve months while beach patrols had been
operating. Thereafter, similar reports were made with similar statistics even
though “surf bathing” and surfing grew at a dramatic rate across the beaches of
Australia.
By 1964, there would be 112 clubs operating in
New South Wales alone.
The first Surf Carnival was held on January 25th 1908 at
Manly
Beach.
Six clubs competed and the first surfboat race, with various craft, was won by
Little Coogee (now Clovelly), using their whale boat. Surf Carnivals quickly
become a popular method of revenue for the Live Saving Clubs. The revenue from
gate receipts were used to purchase gear and improve facilities.
Tamarama Carnival, alone, attracted fifteen thousand spectators in February
1908.
That same year,
Alexander Hume Ford – the man who more than
anyone helped publicize surfing at
Waikiki
during the first two decades of the Twentieth Century – visited Manly. He
wrote, curiously, that “I wanted to try riding the waves on a surf-board, but
it is forbidden.”
Many writers – including myself, once upon a time – have
written that before Duke Kahanamoku came to Australia and became the first one
to really popularize the sport, there were no surfers riding surfboards. The
historical record proves that this is not correct.
While assisting with the 1908 trade agreements between
Hawai’i,
Australia
and
New Zealand,
Alexander Hume Ford introduced surfing to Australian Percy Hunter, the head of
the New South Wales Immigration and Tourism Bureau. Two years later, when Ford
visited
Australia again in
1910, he noted that there were already several surfboards stashed at
Manly
Beach.
This was a full four and a half years before
Duke
Kahanamoku visited
Australia
for the first time and got credited for stoking Australians on stand-up
surfing.
During this time, amongst some surf lifesavers, there was an understanding
of what surfboards were. It was noted that “Fred Notting painted a brace of
slabs and named them Honolulu Queen and Fiji Flyer; gay they were to look at
but they were not surfboards.”
In 1912, well-known Australian swimmer, local businessman and
politician
Charles D. Paterson, of
Manly Beach,
Sydney, brought
a solid, heavy redwood board back with him from
Hawai’i. He and some local bodysurfers tried
to ride it, but with little success. “When he and his mates couldn’t figure out
how to ride it,” Duke biographer Sandra Hall wrote, “his wife used it as an
ironing board.”
Yet, Patterson and his mates were not the only ones who had
attempted surfboard riding or were surfing prior to Duke’s visit. Early in
1912, the
Daily Telegraph reported on the second Freshwater Life Saving
Carnival held on January 26th. In the account of the day’s events, there is
mention of surfboard riding: “A clever exhibition of surf board shooting was
given by Mr. Walker, of the Manly Seagulls Surf Club. With his Hawaiian surf
board he drew much applause for his clever feats, coming in on the breaker
standing balanced on his feet or his head.”
Whether the board
Walker
rode on was a knock-off of Patterson’s, Patterson’s, or an entirely separate
board is unknown.
We do know for sure that following the arrival of C.D. Paterson’s
board at Manly in 1912, a small group – the Walker Brothers, Steve McKelvey,
Jack Reynolds, Fred Notting, Basil Kirke,
Jack Reynolds, Norman
Roberts, Geoff Wyld, Tom Walker, Claude West (then aged 13) and Miss Esma Amor
– all attempted surf riding on replica boards. Some of these tried surfing
before and some after Duke’s visit. Made from Californian redwood by Les Hinds,
a local builder from
North Steyne, they were 8
ft long, 20” wide, 11/2” thick and weighed 35 pounds. Riding the boards was
limited to launching onto broken waves from a standing position and riding
white water straight in, either prone or kneeling. Standing rides on the board
for up to 50 yards/meters were considered outstanding.
In
Queensland,
by 1913-14, prone boards four to five feet long, one inch thick, and about a
foot wide were in use on Coolangatta Beaches.
These were made from slabs of cedar or pine and probably used as bodyboards.
Charlie Faukner read of Duke
Kahanamoku’s surf riding and used a board as an aqua planner on the
Tweed
River,
to ride at Greenmount in 1914.
Sometime slightly before 1914, at Deewhy, “Long Harry” Taylor “made a board
resembling an old-fashioned church door, but his efforts in the surf were so
futile they became ridiculous.”
So, yes, surfing on wooden boards – or their facsimile – had
already begun by the time Duke Kahanamoku first visited
Australia in 1914-15. Even so, it is
undeniable that it was Duke’s shaping his own board and then riding it at
Freshwater that really got surfing going in
Australia. His riding was widely
publicized and resulted in huge enthusiasm for stand-up surfing in
New South Wales. Unfortunately,
this stoke was rapidly dampened by the onset of World War I, when many young
Australians lost their lives on the battlefields of Europe, including Manly
captain and Olympic swimming champion, Cecil Healy. Surfing, like most other
Australian recreational activities, was largely put on hold until after 1918.
Duke Kahanamoku’s tandem partner while in
Australia, Isabel Letham, continued board riding
at Freshwater up to 1918 when she moved to the
USA to work as a professional swimming
instructor.
Other prominent boardriders in the Manly area, post-Duke, were Steve Dowling, “Busty”
Walker, Geoff Wyld, Ossie Downing, Reg Vaughn (Manly), Tom Walker (Seagulls),
Barton Ronald, Billy Hill and Lyal Pidcock.
Circa 1915, seventeen year old Grace Wootton (nee Smith) was
encouraged to try prone boarding – body boarding – at
Point Lonsdale, Victoria.
Using a board brought to
Australia
by “a Mr. Jackson and a Mr. Goldie from
Hawaii,”
and after some basic instruction, Grace Wootton became a proficient and stoked
surfer. A local carpenter was commissioned to make a board for her, for the
following season. This board was solid timber, approximately 6 feet x 16 inches
and a little over 1-inch thick. The cost of 12 shillings included her initials
(GW) carved at one end. Photographs of Grace Wootton taken in 1916 show her
surfing and her personally modified woolen swimsuit, purchased from Ball and
Welch (Outfitters), Melbourne.
Following Duke’s surfing demonstrations in
Australia and
New Zealand, many boards were made in
Oceana based on his handcrafted design.
Circa 1915, Collaroy Surf Life Saving Club member, Alf “Weary”
Lee saw Duke Kahanamoku’s Dee Why demonstration and built his own board
according to Duke’s design. Since the board was stored in the club house,
it was available for younger club members to have a go of it.
Duke’s most stoked pupil, Claude West, was initially at the
Freshwater Club but later moved to Manly. He became
Australia’s top boardrider for the
next 10 years. Starting out riding Duke’s original pine board, West really got
into stand-up surfing and encouraged others, including “Snowy” McAllister of
Manly and Adrian Curlewis of
Palm
Beach. He went on to become a professional lifesaver
at
Manly
Beach
for many years.
In
Queensland,
two copies of Duke Kahanamoku’s pine board were made for the Greenmount Surf
Lifesaving Club. The arrival of the two boards prompted further replicas made
and surfed by Sid “Splinter” Chapman, Andy Gibson and a surfer known only as
Winders. Prices varied from two shillings and sixpence to seven shillings and
sixpence.
In 1919 Louis Whyte, a
Geelong
businessman, and Ian McGillivray visited Hawai‘i and purchased solid redwood
boards from Duke Kahanamoku. The boards were subsequently ridden at
Lorne Point, Victoria.
John Ralston, a
Sydney solicitor
and land developer, introduced surfboards at
Palm Beach,
Sydney in 1919.
With such encouragement,
Palm Beach
became a popular board riding beach, producing several champions and a strong
pro-surfboard lobby within the ASLA.
Some of the Surf Life Saving clubs became centers of board
riding, clubhouses becoming storage facilities for boards, in addition to being
places where club members could gather and hang out.
With the end of World War I in 1918, military technological
developments like industrial glues and varnishes were applied to marine craft,
including surfboard construction.
In the early years of its establishment, board riding was given
little support by the Surf Life Surfing Association. Competitions as part of
carnivals were judged subjectively. For example, a headstand scored maximum
points although it had little to do with how well one rode the wave. With a
growing emphasis on rescue techniques, it was paddling skill that became the
focus when it came to surfboard use. Record keeping for surfing events was an
after thought. Often, board events were either not held or not recorded, and
since the ASLA was in its infancy and basically a New South Wales organization, results were
open to dispute.
Amazingly, it was not until 1946 that the first
officially-recognized Australian Longboard Championship took place.
However, the first credited Australian surfing magazine was published in 1917. This
was Manly Surf Club’s
The Surf, which first published on December 1,
1917. It ran for twenty editions, until April 27, 1918.
In February 1920, Claude West used his board to rescue a
swimmer at Manly. The rescuee was the Australian Goveror-General, Sir Ronald
Mungo Fergerson, who presented his rescuer with his silver dress watch, in
appreciation.
A newspaper report of the “Australian Championships” at Manly,
March 1920, records the results of a surfboard race:
1. A. McKenzie (North Bondi)
2. Oswald Downing (Manly)
3. A. Moxan (
North Bondi)
A similar newspaper report of the Bondi Championships, April
1921, records the results of a surfboard race as:
1. A. McKenzie (North Bondi)
2. A. Moxan
Other starters were Oswald Downing and Claude West (Manly).
By 1921, the Surf Life Saving Association printed their first handbook.
It probably formed the basis for subsequent publications later entitled the “Handbook
of the Surf Life Saving Association of Australia.”
At the Australian Championships at Manly in 1922, the board
event results were:
1. Claude West (Manly)
2. A. McKenzie (North Bondi)
3. Oswald Downing (Manly)
West, who had apparently dominated the demonstrations, was soon
to retire.
Oswald Downing was an early board builder and a trainee
architect who had drawn up his own surfboard construction plans. These are
possibly the plans printed in the 1923 edition of The Australian Surf Life
Saving Handbook.
In celebration of Collaroy SLSC’s victory in the Alarm Reel
Race at the Australian Championships at Manly in 1922, swimmer Ron Harris’
family commissioned Buster Quinn (a cabinet maker with Anthony Hordens) to make
a surfboard. Quinn made the board from a single piece of Californian Redwood at
the Dingbats’ Camp. Before it was completed, however, Harris’ father died and
the family left Collaroy. Chic Proctor acquired the board in Harris’ absence
and it remains in the clubhouse to this day as the Club’s Life Members Honour
Board.
With growing numbers of surf board riders, the Manly Council
considered banning surfboards altogether, in 1923, in the interest of the public
safety of bodysurfers. This idea was forgotten when one day at the beach, three
city councilors witnessed a rescue of three swimmers in high surf by Claude West
using his surfboard. Reversing their position, the Council commended the use of
surfboards as rescue craft.
At the 1924 the Australian Championships at Manly, the
surfboard display was won by Charles Justin “Snowy” McAlister of the Manly Surf
Club. As a kid, he had watched Duke ride in 1915. Thereafter, Snowy soon began
surfing on his mother’s pine ironing board. “I used to wag school and rush down
to the beach with it,” he recalled. “I got away with it a number of times, but
she eventually found out because I would come home sunburnt.”
The pine ironing board was followed by a self-made plywood board and his first
full size board, a gift from Oswald Downing.
Later, Snowy made his own solid redwood board. “I used to go
into the timber yards in the city and buy a ten by three foot piece of wood
about two feet thick (sic, inches?),
which I had delivered to the cargo wharf beside the Manly ferry.
“I’d lug it home, then carve it, varnish it overnight and try
it out the next morning.
“We were getting murdered in those days.
“The boards had no fins.
“We’d go straight down the face of the wave instead of riding
the corners as the Duke had done. When we saw him do that we thought he was
just riding crooked.”
Starting out on an impressive competitive record, Snowy
McAlister won board displays in Sydney in 1923-24 (Manly), 1924-25 (Manly),
1925-26 (North Bondi) and 1926-27 (Manly, second Les Ellinson).
His record at
Newcastle
was even more outstanding, with wins in 1923-24, 1925-26, 1927-28, 1930-31,
1931-32, 1934-35 and 1935-36. All these victories were on solid boards. He
competed to 1938 and then made a comeback at the 1956 Olympic Carnival,
Torquay.
Snowy was the nation’s unofficial national surfboard champion from 1924 to
1928. He visited
South Africa
and
England on the way to
the Amsterdam Olympics in 1928, accompanying another Manly Surf Club member
Andrew “Boy”
Carlton.
Following the introduction of the
Blake Hollow board to
Australia in 1934, Snowy turned to
the surfski as his preferred wave riding craft.
Another noted surfer of this formative period in Australian
surfing was Adrian Curlewis. Around 1923, Curlewis bought a used 70 pound board
from Claude West, so he could surf regularly at
Palm Beach. This board was replaced by one of
similar design in 1926, a board built by Les V. Hind of
North
Steyne for five pounds and fifteen shillings, including delivery.
Curlewis became a noted surf performer, becoming somewhat of a star thanks a
photograph printed in an Australian magazine in 1936.
Sir Adrian Curlewis was born in 1901. He graduated from
Sydney
University
and was called to the Bar in 1927. He served in
Malaya
in
World War II and was a prisoner of war from 1942
to 1945. He held the Presidency of the Surf Life Saving Association of
Australia from 1933 to 1974, his position as sole Life Governor of that
Association from 1974, and his Presidency of the International Council of Surf
Life Saving from 1956 to 1973. Curlewis served as a New South Wales District
Court Judge from 1948 to 1971, retiring at the age of 70.
Perhaps because of his early board riding experiences and long association with
surf lifesaving organizations, he was a noted 1960s opponent of the growth of
an independent surf culture centered on wave riding.
At Coolangatta, boardriding continued to expand during the
1920s. Basic competitions (using a standing take-off) were organized and riders
included Clarrie Englert, Bill Davies, “Bluey” Gray and later, Jack Ajax. Bluey Gray, in fact,
wrote to Hawaiian and Californian surfers in an attempt to learn more about
current developments in the sport. Problems in sourcing suitable redwood saw “Splinter”
Chapman, one of the coast’s top riders, use local Bolly gum to build boards.
North of Coolangatta, the first full-sized board was probably
owned by John Russell of the Main Beach Club, circa 1925.
Circa 1925,
Sydney rider Anslie “Sprint”
Walker surfed at
Portsea, Victoria.
When he encountered trouble transporting the board between Portsea and home, he
solved the problem by leaving his board at the beach, buried in the sand. The
board was eventually donated to the Torquay Surf Live Saving Club, but was
later destroyed when the club house burnt down in 1970. Sprint solved this
problem, too, by building a replica from Canadian redwood with an adze, the way
it had been done originally.
The North Steyne Surf Life Saving Club promoted their 4th
annual carnival, scheduled for December 19, 1925 at 2:45 p.m., with a flyer
printed by the Manly Daily Press. The noted “Surf and Beach Attractions”
included: “1200 Competitors, 18 Leading Surf Life Saving Clubs Participating -
Surf Boat Races, Thrills and Spills, Board Exhibitions, All State Surf Swimming
Champions Competing.”
The Australian Surf Life Saving Association promoted their
annual surf championships, scheduled for February 27, 1926 at 2.30 p.m., with a
flyer printed by the Mortons Ltd. Sydney. It emphasized: “Surf Boats, Surf
Shooting and Surf Board Displays by Real Champions.”
In the late
1920s, Collaroy SLSC member Bert Chequer
manufactured surfboards commercially and 15 shillings cheaper than
North Steyne builder Les Hind.
In the early 1920s, Chequer had been captivated by the likes of board riders
such as Weary Lee, Chic Proctor and Ron Harris and made his first surfboard at
17 using a design similar to Buster Quinn’s. As the years progressed, Chequer
refined Quinn’s design, producing a board which was held in high regard by many
other board riders in the Club. Dick Swift requested he build him a board (the
board is still in the Club house) and with delivery of the board a flood of similar
requests came his way. So, with this development and little work in his father’s
building business to keep him busy, Chequer decided to try his hand at
commercial surfboard building – one of the earliest such enterprises in the
country. The cost of a Chequer board was £5 which included delivery.
Chequer bought his timber from
Hudson’s timber merchants where it was kiln
dried before delivery. While he preferred cedar, its expense meant that he was
forced to use Californian Redwood. The board was crafted from a single piece of
wood, meaning that Chequer’s small workshop was usually a sea of wood shavings.
A board took just two days to build and was totally shaped by hand. Once
shaped, the board was coated with Linseed oil, before two coats of Velspar yacht
varnish was applied. In his initial experimentation with the varnish on his own
board, the yellow finish it gave off prompted the board to be known as the “Yellow
Peril.” Boards were usually intricately marked either with a name, the initials
of the owner, or with the Club emblem.
Chequer was soon supplying individuals and clubs up and down
the
New South Wales coast and as far away as
Phillip Island
in
Victoria. While
the business was relatively successful, there was a downside for Chequer. Because
he was a surfboard manufacturer, making money out of what was now regarded as a
piece of life saving equipment; the Association claimed he was no longer an
amateur by their definition. He was therefore prohibited from surf life saving
competition between 1932 and 1936.
In the late 1920s, T.A. Brown and A. Williams used a corkwood
board from
Honolulu
at Byron Bay NSW.
Eric Mallen purchased a cedar slab that was once the counter of
the Commerical Bank, and had it shaped into a fouteen foot board by Jack Wilson.
Proving to be too unwieldy, the board was later cut down, decorated and named “Leaping
Lena.” On large days, Eric Mallen would leap off the end of the large jetty
that ran out from
Main Street to save
paddling.
On Sunday, April 26, 1931, a belt and reel rescue attempt at
Collaroy in extreme weed and swell conditions resulted in the death of Collaroy
SLSC member, George “Jordie” Greenwell. Even though the use of the reel was
questionable in thick weed and high swell conditions, the inability of
Greenwell to release himself from the belt was the main reason for his demise. Despite
demands on the SLSA’s Gear Committee, the “Ross safety belt” – designed to
ensure the lifesaver from just such an entanglement – did not become compulsory
for member clubs until the 1950s. Greenwell was posthumously awarded the Meritious
Award in Silver, the SLSA’s highest honor.
While Greenwell’s drowning resurrected the debate on surf
belts, there were two more immediate and positive developments from the drowning.
The first was an intensification of Association trials using waxed line to see
if it would “overcome the difficulty of seaweed.” The other was the Association’s
endorsement of the use of surfboards as life saving equipment. In the Greenwell drowning itself, the surfboard
had proved its usefulness in surf with a high seaweed content.
In the 1920s, surfboards had been used by a number of clubs as
rescue apparatus. While the line and reel remained the predominant rescue
technique, the surfboard rivaled the surf boat for the number of rescues
accorded to it each season. Such use, however, had been against the wishes of
the Association and lifesavers like Manly’s Claude West were reprimanded for
their use.
During the 1929-30 season, the Collaroy Annual Report recorded
rescues performed using surfboards, noting two such. The following season, four
surfboard rescues were recorded. The figure was probably much greater, in
reality, due to the fact that surfboards were often used to assist tired
swimmers before they got into actual difficulties. While confined almost
exclusively to surf club use, surfboards were usually only used by members who
were not on patrol duty.
The data in club annual reports demonstrated to the Association
that most clubs saw surfboards as useful rescue craft. Within the Association,
individuals such as Greg Dellit, Adrian Curlewis and Bert Chequer (who had
joined the Board of Examiners) began to champion the surfboard. Eventually,
interested parties agreed that surfboards should be trialed so their usefulness
could be gauged. These trials were held in the swimming pool of the Tattersals
Club in
Sydney.
The trials confirmed the usefulness of surfboards as flotation devices in
multiple and lone lifesaver rescues. The fact they mostly went over rather than
through sea weed was also noted.
Long Beach, USA, 1910-1927
By the start of the 1930s,
Southern
California’s surfing epicenter was located at Corona del Mar. But
SoCal surfing had begun up the coast first at
Venice
in 1907, then Redondo and
Huntington,
spreading out from those beaches.
Surfing’s evolution in the Los Angeles
area can be seen in a reading of the local newspapers of the period, especially
the ones around Long Beach. Surfing in Long Beach? It is hard to imagine today, but
once upon a time – before the breakwater was built in the early 1940s and
before the area’s massive landfill was undertaken – not only did excellent surf
break upon its shores, but Long Beach was once
considered “the Waikiki of the Pacific Coast.”
Today, despite the disappearance of the long
beach that gave the city its name, some surfers still
remember the old days and for those of us a bit younger, we have the newspaper
record:
Long Beach Press,
April 7, 1910 – “SUGGESTS USE OF SURF BOATS: VISITOR JUST IN FROM HAWAII FAVORS NEW AMUSEMENT FOR LONG BEACH
“W.P. Wheeler of Monroe, Mich., who has arrived in Long Beach
to spend the summer after a winter in Hawaii,
suggests that some enterprising man with a little money build and put in
operation a lot of surf boats, for which Waikiki beach, Honolulu is famous.
“Mr. Wheeler says that Long Beach
is the only beach he has ever seen which can compare with the famous Waikiki, and that the surf rolls here exactly as it does
at that beach.
“‘When I saw those catamarans, or surf boats, operated at
Waikiki,’ said Mr. Wheeler, ‘I wondered why the Pacific
coast beach resorts did not take to them. I was told while in
Honolulu,
by an admirer of Waikiki, that no beach on the
California
coast was as shallow and long as
Waikiki. Now
I know that the fellow was not well informed, for the beach here is exactly
like the Hawaiian beach.’”
To my knowledge, the first recorded lifesaving action using
surfboards in U.S. Mainland waters took place on September 3, 1911:
Daily Telegram, September 4, 1911 – “TWO LIVES SAVED BY
SKILLFUL USE OF HAWAIIAN SURFERS
“One of the most novel rescues every pulled off in the surf at
Long Beach was accomplished yesterday afternoon on the beach west of Magnolia
Avenue when Paul Rowan of Long Beach and a stranger who slipped away before his
identity could be discovered, were saved from drowning by Charles Allbright and
A.J. Stout.
“The two rescuers were also nearly exhausted and were helped to
the beach during the latter part of their spectacular trip by the hotel life guard,
John Leonard, who was unaware of the trouble until he saw the men struggling to
reach shore against a strong rip tide.
“Both the rescuers met and became close friends in Honolulu and brought
Hawaiian surfboards over with them recently to try them out in the local surf. Paul
Rowan, who is a strong swimmer, was out beyond the end of the lifelines, which
extend from the beach to a point beyond the breakers. He was swimming about,
enjoying the exercise when he heard a cry from a man who was nearer the shore,
but just beyond the breakers.
“‘For God’s sake, help me. I have a wife on shore,’ gurgled the
stranger, a man of about thirty years of age, as he began to sink.
“Rowan went to his help with a swift overhand stroke and caught
him just as he was sinking a second time in the strong offshore current.
“The stranger immediately grabbed hold of Rowan and held him so
that he had to fight to free his arms. Rowan was also dragged under. It was at
this point that Allbright and Stout, on their surfboards, became aware of the
situation.
“Allbright grabbed Rowan, who was dizzy from his forced
immersion and placed him on his surfboard. Stout did the same for the stranger.
Just then a succession of big breakers came along and the two men, with their
burdens, coasted magnificently inshore against the rip tide.
“The peculiarity of the Hawaiian surfboards was to a large
extent responsible for the effectiveness of the rescue of both the stranger and
his first rescuer, Paul Rowan. The boards are made of the beautifully grained
koa wood of the Hawaiian Isles and are six feet long. They are three inches
thick and eighteen inches wide.
“Both Allbright and Stout are expert surfboard riders and for
years coasted on the foaming breakers which run in on the beach between Diamond
Head and Honolulu.
There the mountain high breakers travel at great speeds for a distance of
nearly half a mile. Yesterday they were riding the breakers with the greatest
ease in front of the Virginia Hotel
and a large crowd was watching them as they stood up on the boards and coasted
rapidly ashore. The rescues yesterday were probably the first of the kind. The
success of the men with their boards may result in the general use of the same
type at the beach.
“Both Allbright and Stout made light of the incident, and from
information supplied from other sources it was learned that they frequently
make similar rescues out in the
Hawaiian Islands.”
Long Beach Press, February 26, 1921 – “NOVEL SURF BOARD
AND CANOES MADE
“Surf-boating has made such an appeal to visitors to Long Beach during the past
year that Victor K. Hart, manager of Venetian
Square; and T. Bennett Shutt, local building
contractor, have completed arrangements to manufacture surf boards and surf
canoes here in quantity. A temporary factory has been opened and twenty of the
surfboards and a dozen canoes are now being built.
“Erection of the flood control jetties has checked the ocean
currents to such an extent that splendid surf-boating is now to be enjoyed on
the west beach. The surfboards under construction here were designed by Hart
and Shutt and are said to be lighter and different in shape to the Hawaiian
island boards.”
One of Long Beach’s
first surfers was Haig (Hal) Prieste, who won an Olympic diving medal at the
1920 Olympics. There, he met Duke Kahanamoku and accepted an invitation to
visit him in Hawai‘i, where he took up surfing and became an honorary member of
the Hui Nalu:
Long Beach Press,
May 3, 1921 – “LOCAL BOY TO ENTER BIG MEET IN HAWAII
“Haig Prieste, Long Beach boy
and former Poly High student, winner of third place in the Olympic games diving
contests, leaves Friday for San Francisco en
route to the Hawaiian islands, where he will enter the junior national high
diving contest which is to be a feature of a big aquatic carnival to be held in
Honolulu. Prieste
will be the only swimmer to enter the meet from the mainland, a special request
for his presence having been made by the swimming officials at Honolulu.
“Following his appearance at
Honolulu,
Prieste may continue to the
Antipodes where he
has been requested to enter a number of contests with the best of the Australian
swimmers and divers. Whether he will make this trip or not depends upon
contracts which he has with motion picture concerns. Prieste formerly was
connected with Mack Sennet and with the Rollin and Gasnier studios doing ‘dare
devil’ stunts in comedy productions. He has achieved quite a reputation locally
as a sleight of hand entertainer in addition to his prowess as a high diver.”
Daily Telegram, August 15, 1921 – “HAIG PRIESTE HOME
FROM THREE MONTHS OF HAWAIIAN TOUR: HAS MAMMOTH SURFBOARD GIVEN HIM
“Haig Prieste, Olympic diving champion, returned to Long Beach with a ukulele, an oversize surfboard and an
interesting story of three months in the Hawaiian Islands.
He intended to remain three weeks when he left as the only American entrant in
the Hawaiian carnival staged in the latter part of May. The charm of the
islands, the determination to master Hawaiian surf board riding – and the
ukulele – and an opportunity to gather a couple of spare diving championships
kept him several weeks overtime.
“He won the junior national high diving title and the
springboard diving championship of a half dozen islands. He brought with him
the Castle and Cook trophy and several others of lesser significance. He was
the guest of honor and an honorary member of the Hui Nalu swimming club, the
leading aquatic organization of the islands.
“Prieste and Duke Kahanamoku palled around together at Hilo for a time. Prieste
astonished the natives when he learned to ride the gigantic surfboards standing
on his hands. ‘It’s the greatest sport in the world,’ he said today.
“Prieste says that the expert Hawaiian surfriders are able to
ride for three-quarters of a mile on their boards. They have grown up with a
surfboard in one hand, and by learning the formation of the coral reefs and the
various currents, they are able to pilot their boards for great distances in a
zigzag course. The waves bowl them along at a speed of 35 miles per hour. There
is a great knack in catching the wave at the proper angle, Prieste says. Unless
the board is pointed diagonally at the correct angle at the correct moment both
board and rider will be dumped on the coral floor of the ocean. Prieste spent
from 8 to 10 hours in the water each day.”
Press-Telegram, December 31, 1926 – “BEACH GREATEST
“Board surfing has been growing in popularity year by year. While
most of the boards used are short and only for the surf after it has broken,
yet there have developed some who have learned to ride the waves while they are
still huge and green without any white water. Some of the beach guards have
mastered an art before confined to the surfing beaches of the Hawaiian
Islands.
“Even some of the
Long
Beach girls have become proficient in this exciting
water sport.”
Early California
tandem surfing:
Press-Telegram, March 18, 1927 – “TWO DARE DEATH
“A special exhibition of fancy riding on surfboards will be
performed by Elmer Peck and Miriam Tizzard at Alamitos Bay. Peck has attained national
stunts that he has performed in all parts of this country as well as in the
waters off Hawaii
and the South American republics.
“Miss Tizzard is a local girl and though she has only been
under Mr. Peck’s direction for two weeks he regards her as one of the most apt
pupils that he has ever trained. He says that she is perfectly at home on the
elusive surfboard. Special stunts in which the two combine will be a feature of
the program offered.”
Corona
del Mar,
1923-1927
Although there were small numbers of “Roaring ‘20s” surfers
riding waves at a limited number of breaks from Santa
Monica to San Diego,
the most popular break was Corona del Mar. This had probably as much to do with
the nightlife at Balboa, north across the channel leading to Newport Harbor,
as it was to Corona’s
exceptionally nice set-up, surf-wise. The good surf at Corona was all about the south jetty.
Although not originally intended for surfers, the cement jetty
at Corona del Mar was a boon for surfriders. The 800-foot long jetty stretched
from the rocks at Big Corona all the way to the beach. When the swells were
running, a surfer could launch from the end of the jetty, ride in next to it
for approximately 800 feet, then climb up a chain ladder, run out on the jetty
and do the same thing all over again. Perhaps more importantly, waves jacked up
at Corona
unlike they did anywhere else – also due to the jetty.
In 1923, two beacon lights were installed at the jetty
entrance. These were written about in a Long Beach Press article, in
December: “The two beacon lights at the end of the jetty protecting the
entrance of Newport
harbor are complete and have been turned over to the care of Antar Deraga, head
of the Balboa life saving guards… The lights are about thirty feet above the
ocean level and can be seen by all ships passing on the east side of Catalina.
“The outer beacon light is equipped with a three-fourths foot
burner and will burn about 160 days. It flashes one second and five seconds
dark. It is equipped with a sun valve for economy of operation. The inner
beacon light is equipped with a five-sixteenths-foot burner without sun valve.
It should burn 200 days. This beacon flashes every two and a half seconds.
“The government lighthouse service will also supply the keeper
here with a lifeboat for use in rescue work. It will be in charge of Mr.
Deraga, who is known as one of the most efficient lifeguards on the coast. Before
coming here he made an enviable record in Europe and has recently been made a
member of the Royal life saving guards of
England
and given a service medal in recognition of heroic service in the
English Channel and also for saving the life of an
English lady in this harbor last summer.”
Antar Deraga was also one of those who, along with standout
surfer and Olympic champion Duke Kahanamoku, helped rescue the majority of the
crew of the Thelma when it floundered off Newport Beach in 1925:
“Battling with his surfboard through the heavy seas in which no
small boat could live, Kahanamoku, was the first to reach the drowning men. He
made three successive trips to the beach and carried four victims the first
trip, three the second and one the third. Sheffield,
Plummer and Derega were credited with saving four; while other members of the
rescue party waded into the surf and carried the drowning men to safety…
“The accident occurred at the identical spot near the bell buoy
where, almost to a day a year ago, a similar accident occurred and nine men
were drowned. Two of the bodies were carried out to sea by the undertow and
were never recovered.
“Captain Porter expressed the belief yesterday that at least
eight or ten more would have been drowned had not Kahanamoku and Derega been
ready with immediate assistance…
“The Hawaiian swimmer was camped on the beach with a party of
film players and was just going out for his morning swim when the boat was
wrecked. The lifeguards were just going on duty.”
There was an established record of difficulty for boats leaving
and entering the Newport Channel on a good swell. In 1927, the city of
Newport voted $500,000 for
a harbor expansion that included changes to the jetties. In 1928, the city
approved $200,000 for work on both the west and east jetties. It was this later
work that would forever change surfing at Corona del Mar – especially the surf
adjacent to the east jetty – and be lamented by surfers who considered
Corona the main surfing
beach of Southern California.
Surfing’s first dedicated surf photographer
Doc Ball eulogized
the early surf scene at Corona del Mar, when he later wrote in 1946: “We who
knew it will never forget buzzing the end of that slippery, slimy jetty, just
barely missing the crushing impact as the sea mashed into the concrete. Nor
will we forget the squeeze act when 18 to 20 guys all tried to take off on the
same fringing hook. And do you remember the days when you waited near that
clanging bell buoy for the next set to arrive?
Corona Del
Mar’s zero surf was hell on the yachtsmen but – holy cow – what stuff for the
Kamaainas. Yes! Those were the days.”
During the area’s boom-days of the 1920s, a housing development
originally named Balboa Bay Palisades was created in 1923 and morphed into what
we now call Corona del Mar. During that decade, the area’s income came mostly
from the Rendezvous dance hall, gambling and bootleg liquor. The Rendezvous
Ballroom was the place to be and a major destination for touring big bands of
the time. On a Saturday night the town bore a resemblance to
Bourbon Street, in
New Orleans, during Mardi
Gras. A number of businesses were involved in gambling. More on the Rendezvous
when we get to talking about
Gene “Tarzan” Smith.
The First Pacific
Coast Surfriding Championship, 1928
While Corona del Mar was in its glory days as the center of Southern California surfing, history was made there with
the creation of the Pacific Coast Surfriding Championships. Word of it began on
July 16, 1928 when a Long Beach
Press-Telegram announced: “SURFBOARD CLUB WILL HOLD TITLE MEET AT
HARBOR.” The article read: “The Corona Del Mar Surfboard Club, which claims to
be the largest organization of its kind in the world, will hold a championship
surfboard riding tournament at the Corona Del Mar beach at the entrance to Newport Harbor on Sunday,
August 5.
“Some of the most notable surfboard riders in the world are expected
to compete, including the famous swimmer and surfboard rider, Duke Kahanamoku,
Hawaiian champion;
Tom Blake of Redondo, who won two championships, and Harold
Jarvis, long distance swimmer of the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Some of the
surfboard riders are predicting that new world records will be made here during
the meet. So far fifteen surfboard artists have signed up, including some from
as far away as
San Francisco.
It is planned to make it an annual event.”
On the day of the contest, August 5, 1928,
the
Press-Telegram reported: “PLANS COMPLETED FOR SURFBOARD RIDING TILT.”
It went on: “Preparations have been completed for the Pacific Coast surfboard
riding championship tournament, to be held at Corona Del Mar, the entrance to
Newport Harbor today. Part of the entrance to the harbor is said to be only
surpassed by some Hawaiian beaches for surfboard riding.
“Duke Kahanamoku and other well-known surfboard artists will
compete. Besides surfboard riding the program will include canoe tilting
contests, paddling races and a life-saving exhibition by surfboard riders. In
addition to Kahanamoku, other well-known members of the club include Tom Blake
of Redondo, Gerard Vultee and Art Vultee of the Los Angeles Athletic Club,
Clyde Swedson of the Hollywood Athletic Club, and others.”
More important than the results of who won what, the big story
of this first-ever surf contest on the U.S. Mainland was the first-ever
unveiling of the hollow surfboard in competition. Tom Blake brought his
drilled-hole hollow board innovation and a regular 9-foot 6-inch redwood
surfboard back with him by boat from Hawai‘i. Armed with his partially hollow
olo
replica, Tom subsequently won the first Pacific Coast Surfriding Championships
– which he had also helped organize.
Held under direction of Captain Scheffield of the Corona del
Mar Surfboard Club, the championship’s main event was a paddle race from shore
to the bell buoy, followed by a surf ride in.
“500 yards and back; 1
st back to win,” Tom remembered.
In later documenting the event for his protégé
Tommy Zahn in 1972, Tom wrote: “Situation:
about 8 or 10 men, including Gerard Vultee (late co-founder of Lockheed; an
aeronautical engineer; designer of aircraft and surfboards). He had the longest
board; 11-feet. I had a 9’6’ broad riding board. I figured he would be 1
st
out at the break and therefore should get the first wave in.
“I had this (1st one only) 15-foot paddle board with
me for the paddling race (115 lb.). So I decided to use both boards in the
surfing race. Had them both on the beach as the starting gun went off. Everybody
got a good head start; Vultee in the lead. I slowly proceeded to put the 15’
P.B. in the water, then went back to get the 9 ½ job; placed it upon the P.B.
and started after the field, now 50 yards out. Slowly caught and passed them at
300 yards and arrived at the starting break [the bell buoy] alone with a minute
to spare – discarded the long board and lined up for the 1st wave. They
were about 6 or 7 feet high; not large, but strong.
“Vultee arrived first, then the rest; we all had to wait a few
minutes for a set of waves. Vultee and me took after the first one. He got it
and took off on the
left side, for shore. But, the second wave was a bit
bigger. I got it and slid right. Vultee’s wave petered out in the channel; mine
carried me all the way in, opposite the jetty and to shore for a win. There was
a movie outfit there; a newsreel deal. I later saw the ride and had a close-up
[made]; someone probably still has it.”
Tom used two boards that historic day – a first, in itself. He
used the drilled-hole hollow board for paddling out and a more conventional
board for riding waves in. Having a board strictly for paddling was unheard of
up to this point. Up to this point, everyone had competed in paddling races on
surfboards. Some
California
old-timers recalled of that day that it was the first time they had ever seen a
surfboard turned. Dragging either the left or the right leg in the water
accomplished this. His surfboard was 9-feet, 6-inches long, but the paddleboard
was 16 feet and weighed 120 pounds.
Blake wrote of his huge drilled-hole
olo design paddleboard: “When I
appeared with it for the first time before 10,000 people gathered for a holiday
and to watch the races, it was regarded as silly. Handling this heavy board
alone, I got off to a poor start, the rest of the field gaining a thirty-yard
lead in the meantime. It really looked bad for the board and my reputation and
hundreds openly laughed. But a few minutes later it turned to applause because
the big board led the way to the finish of the 880-yard course by fully 100
yards.”
“Later,” after the main event, “they held a 440 yard board
race, paddling. I let Vultee lead for most of it, then breezed by him on the
new semi-hollow paddle board. Received a statue of a swimmer and a cup. Still
have the statuette of a swimmer; the cup is held by some club; don’t know who. It
has Pete’s [Peterson] name on it for many later winnings.”
Next day, the Long
Beach Press-Telegram announced: “LOS ANGELES
MAN, TOM BLAKE, WINNER OF EVENTS OF SURFBOARD CLUB.” The article continued: “The
aquatic powers of Tom Blake, bewhiskered athlete of the Los Angeles Athletic
Club, enabled him to win over an assemblage of swimmers in the meet held
yesterday afternoon in front of the Starr Bath House on the Corona Del
Mar beach. Blake took two of the first places, winning easily the surfboard contest
and the paddling race. He was awarded silver trophies for his championship.
“Several hundred people lined the beach to witness the contest
held under the auspices of the Corona Del Mar Surfboard Association. The fact
that Duke Kahanamoku, famous surfboard rider, could not be present did not
detract from the excitement of the day.
“The Corona Del Mar Surfboard Club has been sponsored by
Captain D.W. Sheffield, manager of the Starr Bathhouse. It is said to be the
only organization of its kind on the Pacific Coast.
“The results of the contest were as follows: Quarter-mile
surfboard race, won by Tom Blake, L.A.A.C.; second, Gerard Vultee,
Corona Del Mar; third
Dennie Williams,
Corona
Del Mar. Paddling race was won by Tom Blake; second,
Dennie Williams.”
The first first-place PCSC trophy “was first won by Tom Blake
in 1928 at
Corona Del
Mar,” confirmed Doc Ball in his classic collection of early
California
surfer photos,
California
Surfriders, 1946.
Because the original trophy was not much to speak of, Blake had a nicely
embossed trophy cup made in order to pass on to succeeding winners.
He donated this trophy “to be the perpetual cup for the above mentioned event. Winners
since 1928 are inscribed on the back of it.” A good photograph of it appears in
Doc’s book. He added that “World War II precluded any possibilities of a
contest from 1941 through 1946.”
The Pacific Coast Surfriding Championships became an annual
event, dominated for 4-out-of-9 years by
Preston “Pete” Peterson, who reigned
as
California’s
recognized top surfer throughout the 1930s. Other early winners of the trophy
included Keller Watson (1929), Gardner Lippincott (1934),
Lorrin “Whitey”Harrison (1939) and Cliff Tucker (1940).
As for
Tom Blake, although he met with competitive success on
the U.S. Mainland, his eyes were mostly on the
Islands.
“My dream was to introduce, or revive, this type of board in
Hawaii where surfboard racing and riding is
at its best,” he wrote in his 1935 edition of
Hawaiian Surfboard, the
first book ever published solely about surfing. “This seems to have
materialized...”
Blake – originally a competitive swimmer – rose to prominence in
the emerging world of surfing, following his restoration of traditional
Hawaiian surfboards and his creative innovation of those designs into what
became known as “the hollow board” – both surfboards and paddleboards.
After restoring Chief Paki’s boards for the
Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum,
Blake built some replicas for himself. In an article entitled, “Surf-riding –
The Royal and Ancient Sport,” published in a 1930 edition of
The Pan Pacific,
he wrote: “I... wondered about these boards in the museum, wondered so much
that in 1926 I built a duplicate of them as an experiment, my object being to
find not a better board, but to find a faster board to use in the annual and
popular surfboard paddling races held in Southern California each summer.”
During the
1920s, surfboards weighed between 75 and 150 pounds.
Because of the length of the board and the wood it was made of, Paki’s
olo
was considerably heavier than the heaviest
Waikiki
board of the day, all of which were of solid wood construction. On a whim,
Blake took his 16 foot
olo replica board and, in his own words, “drilled
it full of holes to lighten and dry it out, then plugged them up. Result:
accidental invention of the first hollow surf-board.”
Blake’s “holey” board ended up exactly 15 feet long, 19 inches wide and 4
inches thick. Because it was partially hollow, this board weighed only 120
pounds.
This was the “hollow” board he used in the first Pacific Coast Surfing
Championships at Corona del Mar.
Following his win of the first Pacific Coast Surfing
Championship at Corona del Mar in 1928, Blake took his hollow board back to
Hawai‘i with him and took on the famous races held at the Ala Wai
Canal
annually. By this time, he had given up on filled-in drilled holes in favor of
a hollowed-out chamber approach.
“I introduced at
Waikiki a new
type of surfboard,” Blake wrote of his hollow board. It was, “new so the papers
said, and so the beach boys said, but in reality the design was taken from the
ancient Hawaiian type of board,” his 1926 replicas of them, and “also from the
English racing shell. It was called a ‘cigar board,’ because a newspaper
reporter thought it was shaped like a giant cigar.”
Of Blake’s hollow
olo-inspired design, Dr. D’Eliscu of
the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin wrote that “The
old Hawaiian surfboard has again made its appearance at
Waikiki
beach modeled after the
boards used in the old days. A practice trial was held
yesterday at the War Memorial Pool, and to the surprise of the officials, the
board took several seconds off the Hawaiian record for one hundred yards.”
Blake referred to this modern
olo design as the racing model; in essence
a true paddleboard. He built his surf riding model surfboard, “Okohola,” a
month later, in December 1929.
The hollow paddleboards and surfboards Blake now made, “differed
from the olo in that they were flat-decked, built of redwood, and hollow,”
wrote Finney and
Houston
in
Surfing, The Sport of Hawaiian Kings, many years later. “They were
excellent for paddling and also successful in the surf. Like the olo they were well adapted to the
glossy rollers at
Waikiki. A man could catch a
wave far out beyond the break, while the swell was still a gentle,
shore-rolling slope, and the board would slide easily along the wave, whether
it grew steep and broke, or barely rose and flattened out again.”
Duke Kahanamoku told his biographer that Blake’s first
experiments had actually been initially “predicated on the belief that faster
rides would be generated by heavier boards. But the turning problem became
bigger with the size of the board; a prone surfer was compelled to drag one
foot in the water on the inside of the turn, and this only contributed to loss
of forward speed. If standing, he had to drag an arm over the side, and with
the same result of diminishing momentum.
“Paddleboards are still with us today, and they are obviously
here to stay,” Duke affirmed. “Some fantastic records have been established
with them. And the sport of paddleboarding has naturally drawn some outstanding
men to its ranks. It is a long list, a gallant list.”
Recapping its initial evolution, Blake said his first hollow
board “was purely for racing, and I soon followed it with a riding board
sixteen feet long. The new riding board model was a great success [‘Okohola’].”
Blake added with some pride that “Duke Kahanamoku built his great 16-foot
hollow redwood board along about the same time…”
Tom Blake set his first world’s record in paddling at Ala Wai
in December 1929. It came after years of discipline and development of skill in
racing under stress. He had swum in hundreds of races during the eight years
previously and won the first official California
surfing contest (the PCSC) just the year before. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin
from December 2, 1929, reported the event the day after: “BLAKE SETS 100-YARD
SURFBOARD PADDLE MARK. Big Crowd On Hand To Take In Sunday Races; Outrigger
Club Clean Sweeps In Ala
Wai Program of 18 Popular Events.” The Honolulu Star-Bulletin went on:
“Demonstrating
the possibilities of such a surfboard, Tom Blake of ‘cigar surfboard’ fame,
yesterday paddled his pet water rider to a new 100-yard Hawaiian record (world’s
record) at the Ala Wai where he negotiated the distance in 35 1-5 seconds,
bettering the old mark by five full seconds in an exhibition witnessed by a
crowd of 1000.
“The former record was 40 1-5 seconds made last year by Edric
Cooke. More plumes are added to his [Blake’s] achievement when it is considered
that he had to paddle through the water against a stiff wind and a tide.
“The ‘cigar surfboard’ just glided through the water without a
splash and it was an uncanny sight. Blake was in excellent shape and worked his
arms tirelessly to set the new world record.”
“The exhibition,” continued the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, “was
the feature to a program of surfboard races staged by the recreation commission
of the city. The events were put on to prepare those interested in surfboard
paddling for the big races to be held during the Christmas holidays.
“The number of automobiles and the large crowds that gathered
on both sides of the canal surprised the officials who helped revive the
interest in an activity which typifies the islands…
“Sixteen paddle events were conducted in two hours and the
timers, judges, clerks and other officials were kept running up and down the
banks following the start then taking the finish…
“The Outrigger Canoe club, under the guidance of George (‘Dad’)
Center, romped away with all the honors, as the other organizations did not
believe that a contest of this kind would be successfully held.
“The appearance of the smoothness of the cigar-shaped board,
and the quiet, reserved and impressive showing of its maker and paddler,
TomBlake, attracted more than usual interest. Everybody wanted to use that type of
board and the success and speed of this board showed itself in the number of
races that were won by the individuals using it.
“Never before in any open races have so many boards been
collected in one place. It required a private truck to haul all the surfboards
from the Outrigger and Hui Nalu clubs to
Ala
Wai...”
Perhaps as significant as the wins that day, were resentments
by some surfers and paddlers toward the hollow board and its creator. The Honolulu
Star-Bulletin noted the resistance to this new type of watercraft: “The
question was raised by the officials as to a standard board to be required in
all future open competition. The feeling was against this proposal. The
officials felt that no board designed to ride the surf could be barred from any
of the races scheduled.
“The result of Sunday’s special events assures a number of new
records on Christmas Day, when a special program will be held for surfboard
followers…”
“This board was really graceful and beautiful to look at,” Tom
wrote proudly of his carved chambered paddleboard, “and in performance was so
good that officials of the Annual Surfboard Paddling Championship immediately
had a set of nine of them built for use...”
Not everyone enthusiastically embraced hollow paddleboards and
hollow surfboards. Later, when hollow boards became the standard at many
beaches, solid boards were still preferred by some surfers. Doc Ball’s California
Surfriders, featuring photographs taken primarily during the 1930s, shows a
large number of solid boards in use.
Blake’s world record-breaking wins in both the 100-yard and
half mile paddling events of the Hawaiian Surfboard Paddling Championships actually
put him into disfavor with some Hawaiians. Resistance to his new designs hit a high point in the December
1, 1929 race. There was an initial attempt to disqualify him, some saying that
he was not using a surfboard. Well, they were right on that account. Up until
the Pacific Coast Surfing Championship the year before, there had been no such
thing as a “paddleboard” specifically used for paddle racing.
Popular local Tommy Keakona, himself a champion of the 1928 Ala
Wai races, refused to compete against Tom in protest over his use of the hollow
paddleboard.
Other “purist” Hawaiian surfers and distance paddlers demanded that only
conventionally shaped and solid paddleboards be allowed to race. Other paddlers
lobbied for the new design, claiming, rightfully, that it “marked the beginning
of a new era in surfing and paddling.”
The hollow board’s detractors were not sufficient in number to
keep Blake from competing, that day, nor the other paddlers using hollow boards.
Referring to Blake’s board as “The Cigar Water Conqueror,” a Honolulu
Star-Bulletin article written by Francois D’Eliscu documented Tom’s win
with this headline: “3000 WATCH SURFERS RACE UPON ALA WAI CANAL. Every Record
in History of Sport is Shattered; Cigar Board Comes Into Its Own.” D’Eliscu
went on to write: “More than 3000 spectators crowded the banks of the Ala Wai
this morning to witness the championship surfboard races in which every record
in the history of the sport was shattered.
“Never before was such a contest so keenly fought. Remarkable
times were made in the 10-event program.
“The cigar-shaped board was supreme. Each paddler showed speed,
smoothness and wonderful control in handling the thin, light, fast-moving
planks.
“Tom Blake, originator of the cigar shaped board, staged a
surprise unknown to even his coaches when he appeared with a hollow carved
cigar board. In the first event on the program, the half-mile men’s open, Blake
won in 4 minutes 49 seconds, beating the old record by 2 minutes 13 seconds.
“T. Keakona, last year’s title holder, refused to enter the
races, due to the type of board used by Blake.
“The feature event of the morning was the 100-yard open
championship. Eight men from three of the best surfboard organizations started.
Tom Blake, O.C.C.; Sam Kahanamoku, Hui Nalu; and Fred Vasco of the Queen’s
Surfers, finished in the order named.
“The race was exciting from the gun. Tom with his powerful,
easy, mechanical stroke and perfect balance found Sam a real competitor. The
finish found Blake just a few inches ahead of the versatile swimmer. The time
of 31 3-5 seconds for this race was better than last year’s 36 1-5 seconds.”
Another Honolulu
newspaper article, written by Andrew Mitsukado, also documented Blake’s wins: “EIGHT
RECORDS LOWERED IN MEET. Cigar-shaped
Board Is Big Hit, Tom Blake Is Big Star.” Mitsukado continued: “Eight old
records went whirling into oblivion and two new marks were established at the
sixth annual Hawaiian championship surf board paddling races, sponsored by the
Dawkins, Benny Co., yester morn in the Ala Wai before a monstrous crowd which
was kept on the well-known edge throughout the ten event program.
“The newly devised cigar-shaped surfboards assisted
tremendously in creating the new marks.
“Tom Blake of the Outrigger Canoe Club proved to be the big
star of the meet, winning two individual events – the 100 yards men’s open and
the half-mile open – and paddling anchor on the triumphant Outrigger team in
the three-quarter mile club relay. He used a cigar-shaped board of his own
invention and came through with flying colors.
“All of the races were hard fought and competition was keen,
furnishing thrills after thrills for the spectators…”
“The half-mile record of seven minutes and two seconds was cut
that year,” Tom wrote of the 1929 Annual Surfboard Paddling Championship, “to
four minutes and forty-nine seconds and the hundred-yard dash was reduced from
thirty-six and two-fifths seconds to thirty-one and three-fifths seconds. This
made me the 1930 champion in the senior events and, incidentally, the new
record holder. But as is true in yacht and other similar racing, I won because
I had a superior board. This was the first cured or hollowed out [paddle] board
to appear at
Waikiki. As the racing rules
allowed unrestricted size and design, I staked my chances on this hollow racer
whose points were proven for now all racing boards are hollow.”
But Blake’s win “was a ‘hollow’ victory,” underscored Tom’s
friend Sam Reid, who also competed in the Championship. Playing on words in a
surfing memoir published in a 1955 edition of the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
Reid added that “Blake had hollowed out his 16-foot cigar board to a 60 pound
weight, compared with an average 100 to 125 pounds weight of the other 9 boards
in the 100.”
“Oh, yeah!”
Santa
Monica lifeguard Wally Burton told a little bit about
what was behind the resentment, adding his own take on it. “He was very innovative.
Yeah, he had a good, active mind and… when he was over in the
Islands
there, he was winning everything. You know, the Duke was the all-time great
over there, at that time. And he [Tom] went over there and he took everything
away from the Duke. As a matter of fact, they didn’t like Tom too well over in
the
Islands [after his competitive wins],
because Duke was the hero.”
“Reverberations of the ‘hollow board’ tiff were heard from one
end of the Ala Wai to the other,” recalled Sam Reid around 1955, “and echoes
can still be heard at Waikiki even today – 25 years later. At a meeting of the
three (surfing) clubs, Outrigger, Hui Nalu and Queens, held immediately after
the disputed races… it was decided that… there would be no limit whatever on
(the design) of paddleboards.”
It is a sad fact that much resentment over his lightweight designs remained
after Tom’s Ala Wai wins. Because of the 1929/1930 Ala Wai controversies, Tom
only entered the race one more time, the following year.
Impressively, Tom’s half-mile record of 4:49:00 stood until 1955. It was broken
by
George Downing, who covered the course in 4:36:00 on a 20-foot hollow balsa
board. Blake’s board had been a 16-foot hollow redwood.
Other long-standing records held by
Tom include the world’s
record for the 1/2 mile open and 100 yard dash in paddleboard racing. They were
held for twenty-five years.
When Tom competed in the Ala Wai contest in early 1931, the Honolulu
Star-Bulletin published word of his participation, some of the history of
the race and a little about surfing’s history in Hawai’i: “Announce List of
Officials to Handle 1931 Surfboard Races,” headlined the article written by
Francois D’Eliscu. “Any Type of Board Can Be Used This Year; Races Will Be Held
at the Ala
Wai on January 4; New Kind of Board Will Be Introduced.
“The seventh annual surfboard paddling Hawaiian championships
to be held Sunday morning, January 4, 1931, on the Ala Wai canal, promises to
be the most interesting event ever held for the paddlers of Oahu…
All of the titleholders of last year are entered and the ruling permitting any
kind of board in the various races means new records...
“Tom Blake, who startled the community with his cigar-shaped
hollow board and smashed all existing records, is reported to have another new
type board that is faster and lighter than the one he won with so easily last
year.”
Under the subheading of “‘Sport of Kings,’” D’Eliscu continued:
“Surfboard racing in Hawaii is known as the ‘sport
of kings’ on account of its association with the history and tradition of
old-time Hawaii
when the chiefs competed on large heavy boards.
“Many of these relics are on exhibition in the museum and it is
here where Tom Blake spent many an hour studying the shape, weights and speed
of the boards, which prompted him to build his cigar-shaped board…
“Committees and officials have been selected to conduct the
meet. The group in charge of the events are: Honorary chairman, ‘Dad’ Center;
sponsors, C.G. Benny and H.L. Reppeto; Gay Harris of the Outrigger Canoe Club;
Charles Amalu from Queen Surfers, and David Kahanamoku, representing the Hui
Nalu swimming club.
“The officials in charge of the meet are as follows: Referee
Duke P. Kahanamoku; clerk of course, David Kahanamoku; starter, G.D. Crozier;
timers, Dad Center,
A.H. Myhre, R.N. Benny,
C.A.
Slaght, R.J. Thomas and William Hollinger.
“Judges, Dr. Francois D’Eliscu, T.C. Gibson, Henry Sheldon and
V. Ligda; recorder, H.L. Reppeto, and Gay Harris will be in charge of the
equipment…
“Cecil Benny, who has been responsible for the continuation of
the surfboard races and competitions, deserves a great deal of public
commendation for his interest in keeping the Hawaiian sport alive.”
Blake’s superior designs were not the only factor in his
success. He was also a tremendous swimmer, paddler and overall competitor. Two
decades later, his protégé Tommy Zahn paddled the Ala Wai, for practice, with
Hot Curl surfer Wally Froiseth’s protégé George Downing. At first he thought
his watch was off because he could not achieve Blake’s times on an evolved
paddleboard with superior training.
During this period, Tom was coming out with a new board every
year. He was driven to refine his designs, and by the end of the 1930s, both
his surfboards and paddleboards were very different from what he had started
out with a decade before. As far as the controversies at Ala Wai were
concerned, Tom learned that good intentions do not always breed good feelings. Because
of his competitive wins, he later said that he became a version of “The Ugly
American.” Specifically, Tom recalled, “I discovered too late that beating the
locals at their own game, in front of their families, could sour relations with
my Hawaiian friends.”
When he had first come to
Hawai’i, he was accepted at the beach,
welcomed by the Kahanamoku’s and the beach boys, and “treated… like a king.” Even
so, he couldn’t shake the fact that he was an outsider and consequently “… they
paid no attention to you,” recalled Tom. “You roamed around there, nobody knew
you, and it’s a wonderful way to live, when you keep a low profile. Like,
nobody’s shootin’ at you, you know? That went on for years, and it’s just like,
I got interested in their sports, surfing and paddling, and managed to build a
little better board than they had, and beat them in their contests. And then
they began to look at you. There’s something we don’t like, and that was the
end of the real good days.”
It may have been the end of the “real good days” for Tom in the
Islands, but he still had many good Hawaiian
days to come. He would continue his love affair with the Hawaiian
Islands – specifically O’ahu – for another 25 years.
Despite the bad feelings surrounding Tom Blake’s wins at the
Hawaiian Surfboard Championships 1929-31, other surfboard shapers began
experimenting with the chambered hollow board concept. “Imagination of design,”
Sam Reid remembered, “ran riot.”
Duke Kahanamoku gave Tom high credit and respect for his
contributions. “Blond Tom Blake... was a
haole who accepted the
challenge,” related Duke to his biographer Joseph Brennan in their 1968 book
World
of Surfing, “and proved to be one of the finest board men to walk the
beach. Daring and imaginative he always was. He, like myself, was driven with
the urge to experiment.” Addressing Blake’s hollow racing paddleboard, Duke
acknowledged that, “He was the one who first built and introduced the
paddleboard – a big hollow surfing craft that was simple to paddle and picked
up waves easily but was difficult to turn. It had straight rails, a semi-pointed
tail, and laminated wood for the deck. For its purpose it was tops.”
Duke’s shaping of a hollow made Tom unabashedly proud. He later
wrote: “Duke Kahanamoku built his great 16-foot hollow redwood board along
about the same time. He is an excellent craftsman and shapes the lines and
balance of his boards with the eye; he detects its irregularities by touch of
the hand.
“I feel, however,” Blake added in deference to the Father of
Modern Surfing, “that Duke has some appreciation of the old museum boards and
from his wide experience in surfriding and his constructive turn of mind would
have eventually duplicated them, regardless of precedent.”
Duke’s Blake-inspired design, shaped around 1930, was a 16
footer, made of koa wood, weighed 114 pounds, and was designed after the
ancient Hawaiian
olo board, as Blake’s had been.
“With his rare expertise and outstanding strength,” Joseph Brennan wrote, “Duke
handled it well in booming surfs. He used to defend his giant board and kid
fellow surfers with, ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff. Reason? Because it’s small
stuff.’”
After Tom’s win at the Ala Wai, some surfboard and paddleboard
builders who had not gone hollow began “using alternating strips of laminated
pine or redwood, instead of one or several planks of the same wood,” historians
Finney and Houston noted, obviously influenced by Blake’s direction to lessen
the weight. “These striped boards combined the strength of pine with the light
weight of redwood and were believed to be more functional as well as more
attractive. About this time lightweight balsa boards were… tried, but were
dismissed as too light and fragile for practical use.”
The 10 foot redwood plank that Duke and the early Waikiki
surfers had ridden since shortly after the beginning of the century had been “in
vogue until 1924,” Duke recalled, “when Lorrin Thurston, one of Hawaii’s most
enthusiastic surf riders, appeared with a twelve-foot board. To Thurston also
goes the credit of introducing the balsa wood board in 1926. It was really a
revival of the wili wili boards used by the old Hawaiian chiefs except for
design. The ten to twelve-foot boards were used exclusively until 1929 when I
built [after Tom Blake] a successful sixteen-foot board, which is handled quite
the same as the old Hawaiian boards, and I feel sure will put surf riding on
much the same scale as it was before the white man came.”
In the progression of the hollow boards’ evolution, Step One (1928)
had been the almost accidental use of drilled holes filled in to make tiny air
pockets. Step Two (1929) saw the implementation of full hollow chambers. Step Three
came in 1932 with Blake’s use of the transversely braced hollow hull. By using
ribs for strength, much as in an airplane wing, Tom brought the weight of the
hollow boards down even further. It is not definitively known for sure, but it
is probable that Tom’s friendship with aviator Gerard Vultee influenced him in
this further development of the hollow board. At any rate, the result of this
design was a strong 40-to-70 pound board, depending on length.
A final refinement to the Blake hollow board would not occur
until the end of the decade, when the board rails began to be rounded. Initially,
Tom’s hollows were built with 90-degree flat-sided rails. Whitewater would
catch these and easily knock a board right out from under a rider, sending him
or her sideways. With the rounded rail, which was an original component to the
traditional Hawaiian boards, water could move over and under the board with
much less resistance.
After 1932, the Blake hollow surfboard and paddleboard spread
worldwide – from as far away as
Great Britain
and
Brazil and even
Hong Kong. Although it would be years after Blake’s death
that true dynamic hollow surfboards could outperform against solid wooden
boards and even foam and fiberglass boards, it did not take long for the hollow
paddleboard to become an essential rescue device in oceans, rivers, and lakes. As
evidence of this, in the later half of the 1930s, the hollow paddle rescue
board was adopted by the Pacific Coast Lifesaving Corps and used by the
American Red Cross National Aquatic Schools for instruction. Today, the rescue
paddleboard can be found on almost any ocean beach protected by lifeguards.
As for the hollow surfboard, it is significant to note that today, many of the
more advanced epoxy boards are of hollow construction. While using technology
undreamed of by Blake, they are nevertheless take-offs on his original hollow
board concept.
Wells, Lana. Sunny Memories – Australians at the Seaside, ©1982, pages
157-158. 1982. Greenhouse Publications Pty Ltd., 385 - 387
Bridge Road, Richmond, Victoria 3126. Hardcover,
184 pages, black and white photographs, Chronology of Events. Geoff Cater wrote: “Expansive overview of Australian beach culture and history,
starting with James Cook’s description of ‘indians’ (aborigines) bathing in
1776. Surfcraft in Chapter 12. ‘Riding the Waves’ is interesting; particularly the sections
on Isabel Letham (sic) page 156, Grace Smith Wootton (1915 Victorian surfer)
page 157 and C.J. (‘Snow’) McAllister page 159; but does not progress much past
1970. The Chronology is useful, but note
the 1964 World Contest at Manly is listed as 1960. Photographic Highlights: “Andrew ‘Boy’
Charlton and Snow McAllister, both wearing V shorts over their bathing suits,
with their boards at Manly, 1926” pages 88-89, ‘St Kilda
Life Saving Club Member with a surfboard ... Manly’ circa 1929, page 151,
‘Grace Wootton Smith’ page 157. See image of Grace Smith Wooton and
Win Harrison, Point
Lonsdale, Victoria,
circa 1916, Wells page 157.”
Brawley,
Sean. Vigilant and Victorious - A
Community History of the Collaroy Surf Life Saving Club 1911 – 1995, ©1995, pages 33-34. Collaroy Surf Life Saving Club Inc., PO Box 18 Cllaroy Beach
2097. Australia.
Hard cover, 410 pages, black and white photographs, Notes, Office Bearers,
Bronze Medallions, Subject Index, Name Index. Geoff Cater wrote: “Highly detailed account of one of Sydney’s first Surf Life Saving clubs and the
growth of its community. Although
boardriding plays only a small part of such an expansive work, the significant
details recorded here are not available from any other source.”
Wells, p. 153.
See also Snow McAlister, Wells
pages 159-160 and Sprint Walker, “Solid Wood Boards and Victorian Surfing,”
Tracks
Magazine circa 1972. Reprinted circa 1973 in
The Best of Tracks, page
191.
Los Angeles Times, June 15,
1925. The Long Beach Press-Telegram
of the same date reported that Duke rescued 6, not 8. Duke Kahanamoku, Antar
Derega, captain of the Newport lifeguards; Charles Plummer, lifeguard; T.W.
Sheffield, captain of the Corona Del Mar Swimming Club; Gerard Vultee, William
Herwig and Owen Hale, were all those who went to the rescue.