Milestones in Surf History Part Fourteen (#84 - #90)

Milestones in Surf History Part Fourteen (#84 - #90)

by Sam Bleakley

#84 : 1954 Nancy & Walter Katin Story : Husband and wife Walter and Nancy Katin opened a small boat cover business called Kanvas by Katin in Surfside, north of Huntington Beach, in 1954. Their canvas boat covers were famously bulletproof, using waxed-nylon thread and nickel ringlets. They were both known for their tireless energy, enthusiasm and positivity. Craftsman Walter wore blue jumpsuits zipped to the neck, and was nicknamed ‘Captain’. California surfer Mike Doyle recalls, “Nancy was a little 89-pound lady who chain-smoked; very nervous and excitable, but the sweetest woman I ever met.” In 1957, 13 year old Corky Carroll walked into the shop to ask for a new kind of short, made specifically for surfing and using the same indestructible canvas they used for the boat covers. Walter made him a pair out of bright red 16-ounce drill canvas, with double and tripled-layered seams sewn with 100-pound-test nylon thread. They worked so well that word of mouth drove many local surfers to Katin for custom cut shorts. Eventually they hired two seamstresses to help keep up with demand. But Nancy made sure that Katin’s shop was small and intimate, with a sofa and a few chairs, so she could sit and chat to the local kids. She became known as the ‘First Lady of Surfing’ because she was a positive force for so many big-name wave-riders. Shaun Tomson, Peter Townsend, Reno Abillero and Gerry Lopez wore Katin because they loved both the shorts and Walter and Nancy. Katins were arguably the strongest most long lasting trunks you could get. In the iconic Quicksilver '70s photo featuring Eddie Aikau, Eddie is actually wearing Katins. Walter died in 1967, but Nancy continued in style, launching the Katin Pro/Am Team Challenge in 1977 at Huntington Beach. Through the 1980s surf boom Nancy kept Katin impressively low-key, despite many offers to sell the brand. She passed away in 1986, leaving the business to seamstress Sato Hughes, who had been sewing trunks for Katin since 1961. There’s a grassroots brilliance to the Katin identity that many surf companies try to foster today.

#85 : 1956 Polyurethane Blank Introduced by Dave Sweet : Santa Monica’s Dave Sweet claimed he built a Styrofoam-core board in 1945, but gave up the process because it was too expensive. He began shaping boards on the beach at Malibu and helped Matt Kivlin and Joe Quigg develop the Malibu Chip. In 1953 after graduating with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Southern California Sweet sourced a block of newly developed Dow Chemical polyurethane foam. He worked tirelessly to figure out foam blowing, obsessed with chemical ratios and reactions, determined to produce a board-shaped foam blank that was cheaper than balsa. He sold his car and went into debt to fund the project, at one point operating an 11 ft long, highly pressurized mould from his living room basement in Hollywood. Three years of trail-and-error ensued. He couldn’t afford to buy in bulk, so ordered the necessary chemicals every other week and poured the latest formula into his mould. He’d mix the base chemicals with several catalysts, an expanding agent, and an emulsifier to stabilize the foam as it rose. He’d then pour the dirty-white batter into the lower half of the mould, clamp down the top, and step away. In a heat-generating rush the mix would blow out to roughly twenty-five times its original size, filling and pressurizing the half-sized surfboard-shaped interior. It was frustrating and occasionally dangerous: the mould would creak and groan if the interior pressure got too high, and on one occasion the steel latch bolts exploded from the hinges and ricocheted like bullets. Ultimately he got it figured. In 1956 Sweet was selling foam-core boards on the beach at Malibu. The following year he opened Dave Sweet Surfboards in Santa Monica (soon the prestige brand among Hollywood-connected surfers in the late '50s and '60s). Sweet made boards for Clark Gable, Dick Van Dyke, Eddie Albert, Peter Lawford and Jack Lemmon. In 1957 in Laguna, Hobie Alter and Gordon Clark began a similar foam-making process, Hobie Surfboards introducing their version in 1958. "At my peak," Sweet recalled, "I was probably selling 800-900 boards a year. Hobie did that in a month." Dave Sweet Surfboards closed in 1974.

#86 : 1956 VIVE LA FRANCE! The Roots of Surfing in Biarritz : When Joel de Rosnay told Surfer magazine in 1964 that Swiss writer Peter Viertel, working in Hollywood, had brought surfing and the balsa board to Biarritz in 1957, he was unaware of the whole story. Research by Paul Holmes revealed in ‘Dale Velzy is Hawk’ details how the role of Richard Zanuck, scion of the Hollywood movie industry and son of producer and studio mogul Darryl Zanuck, founder of Twentieth Century Fox. Young Zanuck had been a hardcore surfer since the early ‘50s, a central part of the Malibu crew. “Zanuck can take credit for introducing surfing to…southwest France,” writes Holmes. “The occasion was the location filming in Northern Spain of the 1956 movie ‘The Sun Also Rises’, the screenplay adapted from the Hemingway novel by Peter Viertel and being produced by Darryl Zanuck. … Screenwriter Viertel lived in Switzerland and Spain but on one of his many visits to Hollywood during the pre-production phase of the picture, he remarked to Zanuck that he had seen waves just like those at Santa Monica and Malibu along the beaches of the Basque country near the film location. Zanuck needed no further prompting. When the studio loaded a charter plane with camera equipment, props and costumes, Zanuck added his surfboard. ‘Peter Viertel and I drove down from Paris for Pamplona. On the way down we stopped at Biarritz. They’d never seen a board before. It was a weekend and I went out and surfed. There were a lot of people there and I was the centre of attention,’ Zanuck reported.” Surfing took root in Biarritz immediately. “After Viertel saw me surfing…he became obsessed…and surfed every day for years,” said Zanuck.”  When filming was over, Viertel remained in Europe, living in Northern Spain with his wife, actress Deborah Kerr. Zanuck left his board with Viertel, who became a regular in the emergent Biarritz surfing scene with the de Rosnay brothers, Jacques Rott, George Hennebutte, Michel Barland, Andre Plumcoq, Robert Bergeruc and the Moraiz brothers, all sharing a small collection of boards in the late 1950s.

#87 : 1956 Malibu Chips at Melbourne Olympics : In the lead up to the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, the Australian surf life saving movement intensively lobbied to have their sport featured as one of two demonstration sports nominated by the host country. They succeeded, and the Surf Life Saving Association of Australia (SLSAA) invited American and Hawaiian lifeguards to compete against Australian, South African, New Zealand, British and Ceylon teams at an international surf lifesaving carnival at Torquay, Victoria, in November of 1956. The American and Hawaiian team included Greg Noll, Tommy Zahn, Henry Shaffer, Tad Devine, Mike Bright, Bobby and Tom Moore, Peter Balding, Tommy Shroeder and Danny De Rego. They travelled with new Malibu Chips, and between paddle racing events, surfed in New South Wales and Victoria, giving Australian surfers widespread exposure to the modern fibreglassed board. "We hit 'em like a comet," said Greg Noll. "Took 'em from the horse and buggy straight to the Porsche." Australian surfers were riding straight for shore on long, hollow paddleboards. Tommy Zahn and the Americans and Hawaiians inspired an instant modernization in Australian surfing. Zahn was a stylist. In the late 1940s he began dating Darrylin Zanuck, daughter of Hollywood studio mogul Darryl Zanuck. Zahn had Santa Monica boardmaker Joe Quigg build her an all-balsa surfboard that was thinner and lighter than anything on the beach. Zahn then commandeered the ‘Darrylin board’, finding it to be quick and maneuverable, and it wasn't long before all the top riders in Santa Monica and Malibu were riding similar boards - soon known as the Malibu Chip. Zahn also dated Marilyn Monroe. Zahn was one of the first surfers to train regularly. "Swimming, surfing, paddling and a bit of rowing and outrigger canoeing was my thing," Zahn said not long before he died of cancer at age 67. "Everything else in life didn't interest me much." This photo from Eric Middldorp of Freshwater SLSC from November 1956 shows Peter Balding, Tom Schoeder, Nadine Kahanamoku, Duke Kahanamoku, Tommy Zahn and Mike Bright.

#88 : 1957 Mike Stange, Greg Noll, Pat Curren, Mickey Munoz and Harry Schurch Ride Waimea Bay : Waimea may have been surfed by ancient Hawaiians, but it hosted a tragic incident in 1943 when Woody Brown and Dickie Cross were forced to paddle from Sunset Beach before dark with a fast rising swell. Cross drowned in the cataclysmic Waimea shorebreak closeouts. Brown survived, although washed up unconscious. In 1957 Harry Church broke the taboo and surfed alone on the same day that Greg Noll led a small group out on a 15 ft swell, filmed by Bud Browne. ‘The Big Surf’ was released in 1958 and Waimea became the undisputed granddaddy of big wave surfing. Dedicated Waimea riders of the late '50s and early '60s included Noll, Peter Cole, Pat Curren (maker of majestic Waimea guns), Buzzy Trent and Ricky Grigg. The most spectacular Waimea event of the period was the 1974 Smirnoff Pro, held in silky clean 30 ft waves, and won by Hawaii's Reno Abellira. From 1967 until his death in 1978, Eddie Aikau was the standout. The Polynesian Voyaging Society was performing a 30-day, 2,500-mile journey to follow the ancient route of the Polynesian migration between Hawaii and Tahiti. The double-hulled voyaging canoe developed a leak and later capsized south of Molokai. In an attempt to get help, Aikau paddled toward Lanai on his surfboard. The rest of the crew were later rescued by the US Coast Guard, but Aikau removed his lifejacket since it was hindering his paddling, and despite the largest air-sea search in Hawaiian history, he was never found. The Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau made its Waimea debut in 1986, won by Clyde Aikau, Eddie's younger brother. In 1977, James Jones became the first to ride inside the tube at Waimea. Elite Waimea riders in the '80s and '90s included  Brock Little, Mark Foo, Michael Ho, Darrick Doerner, Ken Bradshaw, Richard Schmidt, Ross Clarke-Jones, Shane Dorian and Noah Johnson. In 1995 Californian Donnie Soloman drowned here after trying to paddle through a detonating set wave. Jamie Sterling, Mark Healey, Shane Dorian, Greg Long, Grant Baker and Ramon Navarro were among the top Waimea riders in the '00s and early '10s. Pictured here is the latest winner of The Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau, John John Florence, courtesy of WSL / Tom Servais.

#89 : 1950s Brown and Browne Surf Film Pioneers : It’s coincidental that two of the inventors of the surf film (back-to-back surf action, rad music, happy-go-lucky antics, comedy, smooth narration) have almost identical surnames. Bud Browne produced 13 surf movies from 1953 to 1973, while Bruce Brown is best known for the trendsetting ‘The Endless Summer’ (1966). Bud moved to LA in 1931 to study at the University of Southern California, and while working as an LA County lifeguard was nicknamed ‘Barracuda’ due to his bodysurfing skills and elongated physique. In the 1953 he began editing 16-mm footage  shot during summer visits to Waikiki - his first commercial surf film, ‘Hawaiian Surfing Movies’ with live narration at the screenings. Browne produced a film a year (all made for less than $3,000) for the next 11 years, including ‘Surfing in Hawaii’ (1957), ‘Cat on a Hot Foam Board’ (1959), ‘Spinning Boards’ (1961), ‘Cavalcade of Surf’ (1962) and ‘Locked In’ (1964). He made brilliant waterproof camera housings and was regarded as the finest water photographer in the game. In 1973 he released ‘Going Surfin' and also nailed epic water sequences for MacGillivray-Freeman's ‘Five Summer Stories’ and John Milius’ Big Wednesday. The surf film business only covered Bud’s living expenses, "but it was always worthwhile for me," he said (before he passed away in 2008 aged 96), "because I got such a big hoot out of everyone enjoying the films." Bruce Brown watched the earliest Bud Browne films, before Dale Velzy gave him a 16-mm camera and funded his Hawaii trip to shoot ‘Slippery When Wet’, cut to a cool Bud Shank jazz soundtrack. ‘Surf Crazy’ (1959), ‘Barefoot Adventure’ (1960), ‘Surfing Hollow Days’ (1961) and ‘Waterlogged’ (1963) followed. ‘The Endless Summer’ was shot between 1963 and ’64, aired, then re-edited and released in 1966 (another milestone to come). Motorbike beauty ‘On Any Sunday’ (1971) was co-produced by Steve McQueen and in 1992 Bruce began work on ‘Endless Summer II’, a milestone in the '90s.

#90 : 1950s Greg ‘Da Bull’ Noll : Surf historian Matt Warshaw explains that Noll started surfing at age 10, and by the early '50s was one of LA's best hotdoggers. He visited Hawaii for the first time in 1954, aged 17, and was quickly gripped by the slippery surfaces of bigger and bigger waves. In 1957 he tackled Waimea with Mike Stange. At 6’ 2” with a head-down charging matador style, Noll became a big-wave maestro - Da Bull. Watch the likes of Surf Crazy (1959), Gun Ho! (1963), Strictly Hot (1964) and Golden Breed (1968) to enjoy his ATTACK, decked in trademark black-and-white shorts. Noll broke down big wave barriers and pioneered the emerging surf industry in equal measure. His main driver was Greg Noll Surfboards. He also made five ‘Search for Surf’ films from 1957 to 1961. He also published the Surfer's Annual magazine in 1960, Surfing Funnies (1961) and the Cartoon History of Surfing (1962). In 1965 when Noll opened a factory in Hermosa Beach, it was the biggest board-building operation in the world at the time, with eight shaping stalls and a 40-board-capacity laminating room. Noll Surfboards produced 200 boards a week in 1966, many sent to the East Coast. Da Cat was Mickey Dora's signature model, the ad depicting Dora nailed to crossed boards. Aged 32 in 1969 Noll rode a mountain-sized beast at Makaha, surviving the step-off the back as the wave detonated around him. It was a big-wave swan song as Noll then worked as a commercial fisherman for 20 years, before reconnecting with surfing in the retro revival beginning in the late ‘80s, and shaping vintage models. Noll wrote in ‘Da Bull: Life Over the Edge’: “That day at big Makaha was like looking over the goddamn edge at the big, black pit. Some of my best friends have said it was a death-wish wave. I didn't think so at the time, but in retrospect I realize it was probably bordering on the edge.” Da Bull is pictured here by John Severson CHARGING Waimea in 1964.