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LEGENDARY SURFERS

Date: Mon, 08 Feb 1999 21:05:41 -0800 From: LEGENDARY SURFERS Reply-To: malcolm@legendarysurfers.com Organization: Legendary Surfers '65-38 Turns out, Doyle's design didn't work all that well, anyway and he ended up finishing well behind the leaders. Rusty's bricks didn't work, either. Halfway through the contest, Morey wrote, he was seen behind the judge's stand sledging them off with a big rock. Morey's man Ross Cave didn't do all that well, either. Interesting enough, Morey noted, two red-hot goofy footers, David Nuuhiwa (16-years-old, riding some off-the-shelf production board) and Corky Carroll (17, riding the Hobie special) clocked more nose time than all but a few of the regular footers. The climax of the contest came in a duel between Mickey Munoz and Mike Hynson, during which time the waves were dying to almost complete non-existence. Mickey Munoz got a phenomenal ride of 9.9 seconds, documented Doyle. Corky Carroll, a goofy footer, nearly matched him with 9.6 seconds. With their accumulated time, those two ended up winning their respective divisions and taking home cash prizes of $750 each. Complete contest results: Regular Foot: Mickey Munoz, 67.0 seconds Mike Hynson, 66.3 seconds Skip Frye, 62.6 seconds Googy Foot: Corky Carroll, 62.2 David Nuuhiwa, 53.0 seconds Robert August, 42.2 seconds Longest Single Nose Rides: Mickey Munoz, 9.9 seconds Corky Carroll, 9.8 seconds Terry Jones, 5.1 seconds Nose riding, concluded Doyle, was only one element of surfing and, looking back on it now, maybe not a very important one. But at least we had a contest with some objective standards to judge it by. -- LEGENDARY SURFERS ©1996-99 by Malcolm Gault-Williams. All Rights Reserved. http://www.legendarysurfers.com

Date: Tue, 09 Feb 1999 21:27:17 -0800 From: LEGENDARY SURFERS Reply-To: malcolm@legendarysurfers.com Organization: Legendary Surfers'65-40 East Coast Promotionals A lot of California surfers who did East Coast tours in the Sixties to promote surfboards or beachwear hated every minute of it, recalled Mike Doyle. They hated being away from the beaches in California, and they hated having to smile and shake hands with people they didn't know or want to know. But for me, the Catalina promo tours were a lot of fun. I've always liked to travel, and on those tours I got to see a different town every two or three days. And every situation in every town was totally different. In Atlanta, Doyle recalled, the Catalina rep happened to be a real swinger. Everybody who came to his town had to have a good time. He set me up with this woman who was about thirty. He had his own girl, too, and we all went to dinner way out in the country someplace where they served fried chicken, and black kids danced on the tables. The next morning I was at some department store in downtown Atlanta, giving away autographed eight-by-ten glossies of myself and showing my seven-minute surf film. The parents walking by would grab the free photo and say, ëHere, sign this for my kid. He loves surfing. They had no idea who I was or what surfing was all about. Three days later, in Miami, I was right in there with the Goldbergs, a husband-and-wife rep team. They took me home to meet their kids, I ate at their table, and slept in the back bedroom. We all went to the movies together, and I held their daughter's hand in the dark. A few days later, Doyle went on, I was in Cincinnati, where the local rep was a single guy, about twenty-four, driving a sharp El Camino. He didn't know Mike Doyle from Arnold Palmer. It was about eight in the morning, but behind the driver's seat he had a big ice chest full of beer; he handed me a cold one and said, Hey, Doyleá Is it Doyle? Today we're surfin the Ohio! I laughed and said, You gotta be kidding me! He downed his beer in two swallows, then crushed the can on the dashboard. Nope, I got a forty-foot boat lined up. Macy's is puttin up the money. We got a restaurant here in town to cover the food. Channel 8 and Channel 10 are both gonna be there. Surfing's a big deal in this town, Doyle! Next thing I knew, I was on the Ohio River, riding the wake behind a big yacht, smiling for the TV cameras, and doing my best to dodge things in the water that looked a lot like floating turds. -- LEGENDARY SURFERS ©1996-99 by Malcolm Gault-Williams. All Rights Reserved. http://www.legendarysurfers.com

Date: Mon, 08 Feb 1999 21:06:48 -0800 From: LEGENDARY SURFERS Reply-To: malcolm@legendarysurfers.com Organization: Legendary Surfers'65-39 Slipcheck Several days after the contest, Tom Morey wrote of the time right after the Tom Morey Invitational, a board came out of our glass room for William Blinky Hubina, foreman of the shop. Blinky had been the one doing all of the painting on noses for the contest, so naturally when his board was ready to surf, he taped off and lightly sanded away the gloss of his nose. Finding perhaps that there was not enough leftover paint to do the nose, he took his board next door to the Ventura County Street Department where city street barricades were regularly painted bright highway centerline yellow. He painted what he wanted and within a few minutes had a free, vividly colored bright yellow, flat textured nose. After pulling the tape and letting the paint dry thoroughly, he noticed how attractively rough was the texture. That evening, he and his buddy Bill Delaney (sander at the time and more recently famous for his 1990 surf classic Surfers) drove up to Stanley's Diner (local beach break) [destroyed when the Highway 101 was expanded to include on/off ramps for Seacliff and the oil depot at another surf spot that became known as oil piers because of the oil piers built there and, as of this writing, being dismantled there] for a late evening go out. When it came time to wax up, Blinky left the nose alone thinking perhaps the paint alone would give adequate traction. Sure enough, he found the grip superb. Delaney tried it and was also impressed. One of them came up with the name ëSlipcheck. On the following morning, Morey remembers, they showed Slipcheck to me, explaining they intended to buy a compressor and spray custom boards in Stanley's parking lot on weekends. I mulled over the situation, then suggested a better way to go might be to let me take a crack at getting the stuff aerosol packaged in L.A., pay them royalties on every can sold and wholesale Slipcheck to surf shops worldwide. The details were worked out and Slipcheck became THE traction standard among surfers. Thousands of cans were sold until boards got extremely short and nose riding temporarily lost its popularity. However, now as the result of a synergetic combination of painted noses for time, Hynson and Frye's innovative high traction deck covering [used at the Tom Morey Invitational] and Blinky's discovery, there are Ultra Grip, Gorilla Grip, Astro Deck and all the other traction materials and systems now standard on practically every board made; both short and long. Morey added: The boogie board would probably never have been created had I never seen those Frye/Hynson square noses and the superb riding turned in by these two.

Duke Surf Team / Makaha Surf Team Up until the Makaha International Surfing Championships, begun in 1953, there were no international or world surfing events. Prior to Makaha, the most prestigious surfing contest had been the Pacific Coast Surf Riding Championships, 1928-41. As the name implies, it was strictly a Mainland affair. The Makaha International broadened the field of contestants considerably, at the same time entering the big wave factor to surf contests. Up until the the World Surfing Championships that began in the mid-1960s, if you were a major force in the world of surfing, you made your mark at Makaha. As renowned big wave surfer Fred Hemmings put it, "The Makaha Championships was the contest that laid the foundation for international competition. The event was a labor of love for the Waikiki Surf Club. The surfers who worked so hard in the early days of the Makaha event to make it a reality included Wally Froiseth and his wife Moku, John Lind, Rudy Choy, Russ Takaki, Johnny McMahon, David Klausemeyer, and Clarence Maki, among others. The first event in 1954 was an immediate success. Chinn Ho, the famous businessman who had interests in developing Makaha Valley, contributed substantially to the event. Community organizations in Waianae like the Lions Club helped out. Even friends from Lima Peru such as Poncho Weise and Edwardo Arena and Les Williams of California would show up in Hawaii and assist with officiating the Makaha Championships." "The Outrigger Canoe Club is where I spent the days of my youth from about 1953 till the club moved to its new site at Diamond Head in 1964. Those years were magical. At the old Outrigger, there were about 150 vertical wood lockers, where every imaginable type of surfboard was stored. "… I can vividly recall a wide variety of surfboards in the lockers, including a swallow tail, a concave, various balsa designs, wooden removable fins pounded into a wooden box, even hollows and boards so old they were varnished. Some of the old-timers thought the new invention - fiberglass - was 'waste time,' meaning humbug." "Small-kid time is also when I learned the etiquette of surfing," Fred wrote in 1997. "Now, 40 years later, it seems chivalry and surfing etiquette have disappeared. "When I first ventured out to Canoes surf, I lived in mortal fear of getting in the way of the old-timers. "I would sit inside, near the edge of the break. The old-timers would catch the bigger waves outside, turn their boards, and remain frozen in a stance as they rode across the face of the wave. They stood like car hood ornaments, poised on their boards. They would yell, 'coming down,' if they suspected one of the kids inside wanted to take off in front of them. I never did translate 'coming down' exactly, but I knew what it meant. Back then, 'coming down' meant 'don't you take off in front of me, small kid, or I run your sorry little okole over with my big old balsa board.'" Fred gave an insight into the kinds of food Hawaiian surfers ate in those times: "Surfers are notorious chow hounds," he acknowledged. "We would surf for countless hours and then find as much food as possible for the least amount of money. Near Ala Moana was an eatery named Kapiolani Drive-In. This was in the days before fast foods. Kapiolani Drive-In had a special - five hamburgers for a dollar. The hamburgers would not win culinary awards. All they consisted of was a thin patty of hamburger and a bun and nothing else, not even butter… we would add catsup and each of us would eat five. That was our $1 lunch. The hamburgers would sit in our stomachs like cannonballs, forcing us into a semi-state of hibernation." "There were no exotic energy foods or high-performance drinks," Fred went on. "Our energy food in Hawai`I was rice - still is. Primo beer was the high-energy beverage. Primo seemed to work better in the evening. Maruzens in Moili`ili served a pipi (beef) stew (mostly gravy) with a bucket of rice. If you wanted, you could get refills of rice till you were full. We did. Another favorite spot was a greasy spoon plate lunch stand named Yanai's. Yanai's had a few 'specials,' like fried bologna and rice, side of macaroni salad, or the island staple - fried spam, rice, side 'mac' salad. Haleiwa featured Jerry's Sweet Shop as a pit stop (double entendre intended) for hungry surfers. Jerry's was torn down in 1978. Just as well - it would have fallen down. All plate lunches served with rice had a side scoop or two of macaroni salad that included enough mayonnaise to clog an elephant's arteries. Cholesterol was not in the vocabulary. The three major food groups in the Hawaiian diet are rice, macaroni salad, and bread." "M's Ranch House was a family dining establishment," Fred wrote. "They staged a promotion that went like this. They would serve a 64-ounce steak (4 pounds), soup, a salad, vegetable, a whole baked potato, fruit punch or iced tea, and a dessert. You would get the meal for free if you could eat it all in an hour or less. Buzzy Trent was the record holder. When M's Ranch House discontinued the wager, they said it was because surfers were wiping them out. "The Waikiki gang ate at the Sea View Inn or Joe's. Joe's was an interesting place, as it opened real early in the morning. Often there were beachboys on the way home from nocturnal maneuvers and beachboys up early to go surfing in the restaurant at the same time. The beachboys also frequented the Sands, an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. It was conveniently right next to the Merry Go Round Bar. Incidentally, I observed at the Merry Go Round Bar that you don't ever want to drink at a bar that already is going around in a circle." As for Fred's regular "Breakfast of Champions," it consisted of "two eggs over easy on top of two scoops of rice and a double side of Portuguese sausage, all covered with catsup and… a side of two scoops 'mac' salad, of course." Fred added, "Now, similar gourmet delights are called 'loco moco.'" "I worked every summer and kept 10 percent of my salary. The rest went to my family to help pay the bills. I did everything from being a surveyor's helper, or stacking heavy boxes of pineapples at the cannery, to being a beachboy. When I was 16, I got the all-time summer job - being a beachboy. My 'boss' was the late James Koko. The entire beach services was run by Harry Robello, a handsome gentleman surfer of Portuguese ancestry." "Buzzy Trent, Fred Van Dyke, and even Marge Calhoun and Marge Phillips lived in 'surf' vans. This was way before anyone ever dreamed of recreation vehicles. When I was very young and infected with the surf fever, I planned my whole life. I drew a very detailed layout of my fantasy van that could accommodate two surfboards, a bed, and a storage area. I made a detailed monthly budget. The way I had it planned, I could live the rest of my life surfing and living in the van for about $400 a month…" "Imagination is one of children's greatest toys," wrote Fred Hemmings in his 1997 book The Soul of Surfing is Hawaiian. "Most kids have imaginary friends and make imaginary forts or doll houses to play with. I bet many surfers, when they were small kids, spent hours imagining the ultimate surf paradise. The great thing about being a kid growing up in a playground called Waikiki was that I lived in a surfing paradise. I used to draw maps of the surf sites in Waikiki, putting in detail every coral head, sand bar, and current." "My earliest recollections of surfing," Fred went on, "come from the shores of Waikiki at the Outrigger Canoe Club. The Outrigger was the first truly modern day surf club. It was founded in 1908 on the banks of Apuakehau stream. The rustic setting was on the beach between what is now the Royal Hawaiian and the Moana Hotel. The first club house was a grass shack. The club was dedicated to surfing, outrigger canoe surfing, canoe racing and social intercourse… Soon after the founding of the Outrigger in 1911, the Hui Nalu was started. These two clubs have produced some of Hawaii's most notable ocean athletes." The first real Makaha International Surfing Championships was held in the Winter of 1954, during a period that, in ancient times, would have been part of the Makahiki festivities. "The Makaha International Surfing Championships was actually a water sports carnival," wrote Fred Hemmings. "Events included women's open, senior open and junior men championships, body surfing, paddleboard races, tandem surfing, and for several years they even held 'mat' surfing competition. 'Mats' were inflatable mattress-like vehicles a little longer than a modern belly board. Filled with compressed air they became rigid." Peru and Australia were represented. Contestants included: George Downing, Wally Froiseth, Buffalo Keaulana, Joe Quigg, Walter Hoffman, Rabbit Kekai, a very young Donald Takayama, Tommy Zahn, Ed "Blackout" Waley, Bobby Patterson, Kimo Hollinger, Butch Van Artsdalen, Squirrely Corvallo, Warren Harlo, Robin Grigg, Mud Warner, Jodie Hamisaki, Mosel Angel, and woman surfing pioneer Mariane Midkiff. Twenty years later, the 20th annual International Surfing Championships at Makaha, sponsored by the Waikiki Surf Club boasted an impressive history of surfing greats. According to the program guide for the 20th contest, the list of winners read as follows (name spelling corrected and nicknames added where known): 1953 - no surfing contest held. "Only flat water events were held due to poor surf conditions." 1954 · George Downing, Senior Men · Alan Gomes, Junior Men · -- Senior Women not scheduled · Walt Hoffman and Joan Jones, Tandem 1955 · Rabbit Kekai, Senior Men · Alan Gomes, Junior Men · Ethel Kukea, Senior Women · Ed "Blackout" Whaley and Nancy Boyd, Tandem 1956 · Conrad Cunha, Senior Men · J. Raydon, Junior Men · Ethel Kukea, Senior Women · Robert Krewson and Kehau Kea, Tandem 1957 · Jama Kekai, Senior Men · Timmy Guard, Junior Men · Vicky Heldrich, Senior Women · -- Tandem not held 1958 · Peter Cole, Senior Men · Joseph Napoleon, Junior Men · Marge Calhoun, Senior Women · Rabbit Kekai and Heidi Stevens, Tandem 1959 · Wallace "Wally" Froiseth, Senior Men · Paul Strauch, Jr., Junior Men · Linda Benson, Senior Women · Ed "Blackout" Whaley and Diana Moore, Tandem 1960 · Richard "Buffalo" Keaulana, Senior Men · Eric Romanchak, Junior Men · Wendy Cameron, Senior Women · Mud Werner and Robin Grigg, Tandem 1961 · George Downing, Senior Men · Fred Hemmings, Jr., Junior Men · Anona Naone, Senior Women · Rabbit Kekai and Lucinda Smith, Tandem 1962 · Bernard "Midget" Farrelly, Senior Men · Peter Kahapea, Junior Men · Nancy Nelson, Senior Women · Joseph Napoleon and Sue Ellen Ketner, Tandem 1963 · Joey Cabell, Senior Men · Fred Hemmings, Jr., Junior Men · Nancy Nelson, Senior Women · Mike Doyle and Linda Merrill, Tandem 1964 · Fred Hemmings, Jr., Senior Men · Joey Gerard, Junior Men · Joyce Hoffman, Senior Women · Mike Doyle and Margie Stevens, Tandem 1965 · George Downing, Senior Men · David Nuuhiwa, Junior Men · Nancy Nelson, Senior Women · Mike Doyle and Danielle Corn, Tandem 1966 · Fred Hemmings, Jr., Senior Men · Reno Abellira, Junior Men · Joyce Hoffman, Senior Women · Pete Peterson and Barrie Algaw 1967 · Joey Cabell, Senior Men · Reno Abellira, Junior Men · Martha Sunn, Senior Women · Bob Moore and Patti Young 1968 · Joey Cabell, Senior Men · Keone Downing, Junior Men · Marge Godfrey, Women · Leroy Ah Choy and Blanch Benson, Tandem 1969 · Paul Strauch, Senior Men · Keone Downing, Junior Men · Martha Sunn, Women · Bob Moore and Blanch Benson, Tandem 1970 · Peter Drouyn, Senior Men · Craig Wilson, Junior Men · Martha Sunn, Women · Steve Boehne and Barrie Algaw, Tandem 1971 · Paul Akiu, Senior Men, 1st place · Larry Bertleman, Junior Men, 1st place · Becky Benson, Women, 1st place · Leroy Ah Choy and Becky Benson, Tandem, 1st place · Mark Sedlack, Professional, 1st place · Henry Declue, Senior Men, 2nd place · Michael Ho, Junior Men, 2nd place · Martha Sunn, Women, 2nd place · John Ohye, Tandem, 2nd place · Mike Purpose, Professional, 2nd place · Dennis Pang, Senior Men, 3rd place · Mike Smith, Junior Men, 3rd place · Annella Sunn Gardner, Women, 3rd place · Roy Uyehara & Karen Bell, Tandem, 3rd place · Rodney Sumpter, Professional, 3rd place -- LEGENDARY SURFERS ©1996-99 by Malcolm Gault-Williams. All Rights Reserved. http://www.legendarysurfers.com

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