Milestones in Surf History Part Seventeen (#105 - #111)

Milestones in Surf History Part Seventeen (#105 - #111)

by Sam Bleakley

#105 : 1960s Spread of Surfing and the Great Peter Troy : Surfing grew considerably between 1959 and 1967, and was spread globally by a number of eccentric travelling Americans, Australians and South Africans. Upon examination, most coastal areas with a historical fishing culture display evidence of wave-riding, either prone, on canoes, or with stand-up paddles, and because coastal tourism throughout the 1960s was booming, the context was perfect for the emergence of surf culture in many places. LA born shaper Tak Kawahara introduced modern surfboards to Shonan and Chiba in Japan in 1964. At the same time, Californians surfed in Vancouver Island, Canada, and a local scene took root. Dorian Paskowitz travelled to Israel where hasaki (a hollow-timber wave-riding craft with a double-bladded paddle) were already in use. Paskowitz left his Hobie in Tel Aviv, a future powerhouse of Mediterranean surfing. Further afield, US Peace Corps volunteers started surfing in El Salvador, while military servicemen rode waves in Morocco, the Philippines, Vietnam and Guam. Rusty Miller styled in Portugal and Sri Lanka. And wherever a local surf industry took hold, the model was California. But without doubt the biggest early 1960s surf adventure was achieved by Australian Pete Troy. Raised in Torquay, Victoria, Troy helped launch the Bells Beach Boardriders Club in 1958 and cofounded the Bells Beach surf contest in 1962. In 1963 he began an epic four year trip through the UK, Italy, Spain, Morocco, France (where he placed first in the ‘international division’ at the European Surfing Championships), the Canary Islands, the Virgin Islands, mainland America, and Hawaii. Moving on to South America, Troy made the finals of the 1964 Peru International. Out of cash in Peru he shaved his blonde locks and sold them to a wigmaker for $200. He surfed in Argentina. Then in Copacabana, Rio, Brazil he met the son of the French ambassador who had just received a board for his fifteenth birthday. Troy took it for a surf and raised an audience of 2,000 people. “That little surf session made all the papers,” said Troy. “I was a ‘god walking on water’. I was feted, wined, and dined; and they took me to see Pele play football. It was the most amazing experience in my life.” After returning to Peru to compete for the Australian team in the 1965 World Championships, Troy crossed the Panama Canal, traversed the Atlantic and the Greenland Sea, and visited the Spitsbergen Islands. Dropping down through Europe into Africa, he passed through the Middle East (gaining a black ‘ejection’ stamp in Syria on drug-smuggling charges), joined an anthropological expedition in Angola, walked the Kalahari Desert, and rode Jeffreys Bay. Arcing back to Australia, Troy visited Mauritius. Three years later, he returned to Tamarin Bay with Wayne Lynch and filmmaker Paul Witzig to shoot footage for ‘Sea of Joy’ (1971). In the mid-'70s, Troy explored Bali and Java, and in 1975 he was one of the first to ride Lagundri Bay, Nias. In a 1987 interview, Troy said that he'd visited 130 countries, including 38 in Africa. His annotated travel map above oozes adventure.

#106 : 1965/66 Noseriding Zenith : By the mid 1960s riding the nose had become surfing’s ultimate objective and board design became centred around maximising tip-time. In 1965 Tom Morey organised a timed noseriding invitational contest at Ventura in California with $1,500 prize money. It was the first prize money event. People turned up with wacky creations, including plywood and brick-weighted tail extensions, squared-off noses and winged fins. The front quarter of the boards were spray-painted fluorescent red and Mickey ‘The Mongoose’ Munoz (the smallest competitor in the field) clocked up the most time in the zone to win. But when ‘Surfer’ magazine asked Phil Edwards to pick the World’s ten best noseriders in the same year, he placed David Nuuhiwa on top. The Hawaii-California transplant took 1960s nose riding to its zenith with a an epic ten-second high line hang five soul arch at the 1966 US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach (pictured here by Ron Perrott). The dangers of ‘shooting the pier’ encouraged the City Police to demand that all competitors wore helmets (for insurance purposes). Nuuhiwa was good because his walking matched his poise on the nose, and he never hesitated, confident that he could pull it off. He linked his visualisation and his body to read the wave ahead of time. Nuuhiwa mastered the Zen paradox of noseriding – apply weight, remaining weightless. Nuuhiwa was expected to win the 1966 World Championships had it not been for Nat ‘The Animal’ Young. The Australian blew everyone away with his aggressive style, carving arcs and ‘S’ turns on a revolutionary shorter board with a George Greenough built dolphin-like fin. It was a lesson in the future of surfing and heralded the shortboard era, leaving nose riding in the dust until the resurgence of longboarding in the mid 1980s.

#107 : 1963/66 : The Endless Summer : In 1963 director Bruce Brown and Californian surfers Mike Hynson (a stylish slick-haired blond regularfooter) and Robert August (a nimble dark-haired goofyfooter) set out on a three months long around the world trip in "search for the perfect wave" through Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii and California. In a hilarious scene (for contemporary surfers) they arrive at LA airport wearing suits and ties – but that’s how you travelled then. Air flights were like going out to a fancy restaurant. In Ghana Hynson and August give lessons to crowds of local kids. In the grip of the Cold War, 1960s world leaders could have learned a lot from this social icebreaker. No politics or false diplomacy, just the universal language of laughter and shared skill. Surfing so often transcends politics in a search for a simple, often healing, cultural exchange. In the edit, Brown made it look like the whole fishing community was so enthralled that they chanted, “Hang ten! Hang ten! Hang ten!” as if it would be the ultimate objective in their lives, or at least a mantra guaranteeing good times. Of course, the ‘discovery’ of “the perfect wave” at Cape St Francis, South Africa is the stuff of legend (and more crafty editing). The budget was $50,000 and the film was shown in the summer of 1964 in the same style as Brown's previous films, on the California beach-city circuit, with Brown driving from auditorium to auditorium to do live-narration screenings. He added a recorded narration in 1965 and showed the movie in Wichita, Kansas, where for two weeks it outsold ‘My Fair Lady.’ In 1966 ‘The Endless Summer’ was blown up to 35-millimeter, re-edited, and put into movie houses across the US. ‘Newsweek’ named it one of the 10 best films of 1966. ‘Time’ magazine called Brown the "Bergman of the boards." The film reached out to social worlds beyond surfing and generated a positive image that reverberates to this day. The surfer became a symbol of health and adventure. Above all, the perfect wave became the archetype of the travelling, lured by the promise of pristine peelers just around that next headland. But this scenario is, of course, relative. It is relative to your level of ability and experience in the first instance, but also relative to the opportunities you might generate for travel. Your Endless Summer right on your doorstep. Go look.

#108 : 1966-69 The Shortboard Revolution : David Nuuhiwa unexpectedly lost to wildfire Australian Nat Young at the 1966 World Championships in San Diego. Nat’s friend George Greenough, riding short and stubby kneeboards, was showcasing on his knees what could be done standing up. He thought that surfing could move from straight lines to short arcs, but the big boards would not allow vertical turns and the use of a low centre of gravity. Greenough’s ideas were also part of a wider movement when lifestyles were pushed into experimental places, minds often fuelled by psychedelics or spiritual practices like yoga and meditation. Greenough inspired a handful of young Australians to build shorter boards. Once the boards got smaller, vertical thinking (the mind going tall) then took over from horizontal thinking (cruising along the wave face) and surfing followed. With vee-shapes on the bottom the new boards had deep, flexy single fins, inspired by dolphins. Their turning ability allowed both tight direction changes and carving arcs. Surfers could ride the steeper area of the wave. Nat’s secret was his big feet. They spread like a frog’s webbed feet across the deck and stuck like glue. It was as if the power that Nat generated in his turns flowed upwards from those giant soles. Nat, Bob McTavish, Greenough, Ted Spencer, Russell Hughes and Keith Paull travelled to Hawaii with these boards in 1967 and an aggressive style of riding, quite different from the fluid surfing personified by Gerry Lopez, Reno Abellira, Jeff Hackman and Barry Kanaiaupuni at the time. It inspired an overnight revolution in surfboard size. Dick Brewer built Lopez an 8' 6" right after he saw the Australian vee-bottoms, and based his minigun on the hydrodynamic principles of the water-ski. It became the big wave surfboard of choice for the Hawaiians. Surfers around the planet witnessed what was happening in Hawaii in 1967 through Paul Witzig’s film ‘The Hot Generation’ featuring McTavish and Nat on speedy big waves at Honolua Bay in Maui. As boards got shorter and more pointed in shape, in the late summer of ’68 Witzig filmed Nat, Wayne Lynch, Ted Spencer and David Treloar tearing apart La Barre, France in this white-hot new style. The footage was released in the 1969 film ‘Evolution’. Lynch had unlimited natural talent, taking surfing under, above, behind the curl and into the tube. These were the most influential surf films of the era. And ‘Sea of Joy’ was a worthy follow up.

 

#109 : 1960s Rick Griffin Surf Art Guru : A revolution in board design in the late 1960s ushered in shortboards. As boards contracted, so minds expanded. ‘Thinking with a surfboard’ required a new mindset of liberation from the smooth flow of longboard surfing to think in smaller, tighter arcs. ‘Surfer’ magazine cartoonist Rick Griffin fantasised in his panel that some day a board would be flipped all the way over, a head-over-heels turn, right inside the tube. Griffin had invented the first surfing cartoon hero – Murphy, a goofy longboard kid who became the surf world mascot and made the cover of ‘Surfer’ in 1962. A 1963 car accident left Griffin with a damaged left eye, long scars on the side of his face and perhaps psychological scars. Murphy and Griffin morphed into one. Then Murphy reappeared in an acid discovery in the late ‘60s to create some of the first psychedelic cartoons. At ‘Surfer’ magazine an overnight revolution changed the graphic design from hip and cool jazz-inflected advertising to acid-soaked fantasy. Between 1965 and 1967 Griffin illustrated the epic Griffin-Stoner adventures for ‘Surfer’, providing a social tapestry to the counterculture scene he was leading in San Francisco. Griffin also created the original logo for ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine, and produced album covers for the Grateful Dead (Aoxomoxoa), The Eagles (On the Border), Jackson Browne (Late for the Sky) and Quicksilver Messenger Service (Sons of Mercury). Griffin's cartoons were also published in the underground magazine founded in 1967 by cartoonist Robert Crum, ‘Zap Comix’. Alas, Griffin burned out early, a casualty of rock ‘n’ roll and a love of motorcycles. He died in a motorcycle accident in 1991, aged 47. But Griffin’s surf film posters for ‘Pacific Vibrations’ (1969), ‘Five Summer Stories’ (1972) and ‘Blazing Boards’ (1983) are powerful sources of inspiration for surf artists around the world, leaving a legacy of an hallucinatory style to cartooning where meticulously detailed black and white shading turns into full colour living wet dreams, deeper than deep barrels and outlandishly radical performances.

#110 : 1960s The Invincible Joyce Hoffman : Trailblazing Californian regularfooter Joyce Hoffman started surfing at age 13, soon famed for regular six hour long sessions and a driving determination to win. She was hyper competitive, and between 1964 to 1967 was nearly invincible in surf events, winning multiple US Championships, Makaha Internationals and back-to-back World Titles in Lima Peru in 1965 and San Diego in 1966. She was also four-time ‘Surfer’ magazine readers poll winner. In an interview filmed by Greg MacGillivray, Joyce explains in a typically pragmatic way, “I enjoy surfing because it is a wonderful, exciting and exhilarating sport. And yet it is one that a woman can enjoy because you can still maintain your femininity while participating in it. It is a sport that, although it is difficult, it is not so difficult that a girl cannot go out and have a great deal of fun and become proficient at it.” Surf historian Matt Warshaw explains that following her World Championships victory in ‘66, “the 19-year-old Hoffman made the cover of ‘Life’ magazine, and was featured in ‘Seventeen’, ‘Look’, ‘Teen’ (who described her as a ‘blonde surf goddess’), and ‘Vogue’, and was named the sporting world's ‘Woman of the Year’ by the ‘Los Angeles Times’. Hobie Surfboards introduced the Joyce Hoffman signature model surfboard in 1967, while Triumph gave her a Spitfire coupe. Not until the 1990s, with the arrival of four-time world champion Lisa Andersen, did a woman surfer come close to matching Hoffman's popularity.” Joyce was a regular at Sunset Beach in the ‘60s, but was incredible in small and medium sized waves with fast footwork, flamboyant moves, striking poses and arcing turns. In 1968 Joyce handed over the mantle to Margo Oberg at the World Championships in Puerto Rico, a milestone to come. Joyce became a motocross rider in the 1980s before returning to surfing in 1987. She is pictured here in classic form by Ron Stoner at the 1966 World Championships.

#111 : 1968 Margo Oberg Bursts onto the Scene : Joyce Hoffman had been dominating women’s surfing from the mid 1960s, then in 1968 pencil-slim regularfooter Margo Oberg repeatedly took first place with a loose and future-facing style, leading to a brilliant victory at the World Championships in Puerto Rico. Born Margo Godfrey, she started surfing in La Jolla, San Diego and was expertly tutored by the great Mike Doyle. In 1969 Margo became the first women surfer to earn prize-money - $150 for winning the Smirnoff Pro-Am at Steamer Lane, Santa Cruz. But Margo’s subsequent second place in the 1970 World Championships in home waters in San Diego was a heavy blow. "I had to go back to high school and live through the 11th and 12th grades not being world champion," she said. "People kept asking, 'What happened, why didn't you win?' It was all so devastating that I retired." Margo separated herself from the surf scene, married and moved to Kauai, developed a more powerful bigger wave style (proclaiming “I want to ride the biggest waves any woman has ever ridden”), and using a new low-centre-of-gravity-arms-splayed style, easily won her competitive return at the 1975 Women's International Professional Championships at Malibu. By now she was a regular at solid Sunset Beach and launched the Margo Oberg Surfing School in 1977. The same year a women's division was added to the nascent world pro tour. Margo won in 1977, placed second behind Hawaiian Lynne Boyer in 1978, took 1979 off, and won in 1980 and ’81. She wrote a weekly surfing column for the ‘Honolulu Advertiser’, a column on the women's pro tour for ‘Surfing’ magazine, and also did surfing event commentary for ABC's ‘Wide World of Sports’. In 1981 she retired from regular competition aged just 29. Incredibly she finished second in the 1982 World Cup just three months after giving birth to her first child. Here Margo is pictured at Sunset in 1968 by Greg MacGillivray.