Milestones in Surf History Part Nineteen (#119 - #125)

Milestones in Surf History Part Nineteen (#119 - #125)

by Sam Bleakley

#119 : 1973 Bells Beach Turns Pro, Jeff Hakman and Rainbow Bridge : In 1973 Rip Curl approached the Australian Surfriders Association, who ran the annual Bells Beach (which had been made the first Surfing Reserve in 1971) Easter contest, to form Australia’s first professional surf event. It was a bold step. While tennis and golf had embraced professionalism in the 1960s, competitive surfing in the early 1970s encased a handful of devoted administrators, skilled riders, but no sponsorship. The first Rip Curl Pro in 1973 was won by the enigmatic Michael Peterson. The following year Rip Curl and Coca-Cola sponsored the first Australian professional tour. Over the coming years the likes of Jeff Hakman, Terry Fitzgerald, Paul Neilsen, Wayne Lynch, Maurice Cole, Shaun Tomson and Reno Abellira would make their mark in clean, overhead Bells, while Nat Young, Peter Drouyn and Rod Brooks never disappointed. In 1976 Jeff Hackman became the first non-Australian to win the event. Hakman was 'Mr Sunset' after he had won the inaugural Duke Kahanamoku Invitational in 1965 held at solid Sunset. He was only 17 at the time. By 1970 he'd developed a joyous, precise and powerful flowing shortboard style. Hakman, Gerry Lopez, Barry Kanaiaupuni and Reno Abellira, all from Hawaii, were the era's top riders. In 1971 Hakman won the inaugural Pipeline Masters. But Hakman, like many other participants in the countercultural revolution of the early 1970s, developed a drug addiction. Evidence is widespread. For example, in Chuck Wein’s cult film ‘Rainbow Bridge’ (1972), centred on a Jimi Hendrix concert at a meditation centre in Maui and chock-full of inspiring surfing by the masters of the time, there is a scene in which a hollowed out surfboard is used to smuggle drugs into the country. When Hakman travelled to Australia to compete at Bells in 1976 he had three ounces of cocaine glassed inside the hollowed-out fin of his contest board, with the idea that he'd trade coke for heroin once he arrived, heroin at the time being far less expensive in Australia than America. Hakman was high when he won the event. Nevertheless, he recognised a business opportunity in the form of Quiksilver, and secured the Quiksilver USA manufacturing license.

#120 : 1973 The North Shore in the Midnight Sun : In 1970 adventurous Edinburgh surfer Bill Batten attended a wedding in Armadale, further north than any of the other Scottish surfers had travelled. He found great waves on the north shore of the Highlands and rode the righthand rivermouth at Torrisdale and the beachbreak at Bettyhill. Batten didn’t find Thurso, but he certainly paved the way. Three years later in 1973 an off-the-beaten-track New Zealand surf-traveller called Bob Treeby explored Caithness and Sutherland counties. Bob documented his discovery of world-class reef and point breaks in an article in ‘Surf Insight’ (the papers first cover pictured here) entitled, “On the north shore in the midnight sun” published in Newquay in the summer of 1973. Pictures of hypnotic waves at Brimms Ness (Nordic for ‘Surf point’), Balnakeil Bay and Thurso Bay inspired many. Treeby wrote poetically about the “the huge groundswells coming out of deep water (there being almost no continental shelf off this coast)…the folding greenery of mountain slopes that melt into white sand and blue sea, all of which have so far been spared the hand of man…Here one will find uncrowded waves and beaches in some of the most fantastic scenery the British Isles has to offer, the only requirement being a sense of adventure and an OS map.” Surfers across the country were stoked reading Bob Treeby’s article, none more so than Liverpudlian Pat Kieran. Once in Thurso Pat struck up friendship with new local Grant Coghill, who had held onto boards left earlier by Bob Treeby. Pat was awestruck by the sheer quality of the surf in Caithness - beaches, reefs and points – as well as the dramatic landscape. He took up residence and surfed all the heavier spots in the area, immediately becoming not only the hot local, but also the only local. Apart from occasional visits by the Fraserburgh and Edinburgh crews, Pat Kieran had Thurso to himself up until 1978, living right in front of the wave, shaping specialist boards for the steep drop and deep tube, and occasionally in desperation burning polyurethane foam cuttings to keep his living room warm. As wetsuit technology improved, coldwater frontiers became the cutting edge of surf exploration.

#121 : 1973-75 Sultan of Speed Terry Fitzgerald : From Narrabeen, Sydney, New South Wales, Terry Fitzgerald is still lauded as one of surfing’s best stylists. He blew everybody away with the speed of his surfing on his first trip to Hawaii in 1971. He was tagged ‘the sultan of speed’. He started a surfboard company called Hot Buttered (after the title of Isaac Hayes's 1969 album ‘Hot Buttered Soul’) – bringing together images of hunger, slippery surfaces, gobbling up, and get ’em before they cool down – perfect metaphors for those hungry for speed on his slim sticks. He surfed with an extraordinarily low centre of gravity, extreme torque, always on an edge, the board often outracing the wave, down-the-line formula one riding. "Electroshock on a surfboard," wrote Drew Kampion. "He seemed to defy or ignore all previous surfing styles, traditions and mannerisms, and took the still-new short surfboard to its limit." Few looked faster than the Sultan at thick inky walls in Jeffreys Bay and Sunset Beach. Fitzgerald’s marriage of surfing and shaping was key to his approach. Hot Buttered Surfboards where narrow, racy, mouthwatering shapes, usually airbrushed in psychedelic colours, his 1974 Hawaii quiver pictured here by Jeff Divine. In 1975 Fitzgerald became the Australian national champion and was also cofounder of the Australian Professional Surfing Association the same year. But Fitzgerald’s enduring performance mark is his appearance in the likes of ‘Morning of the Earth’ (1972), ‘Five Summer Stories’ (1972), ‘A Winter's Tale’ (1974) and ‘Fantasea’ (1978). Perhaps the cutting edge, embodied style is born from an inner joy of simply riding a wave: at age 10 Fitzgerald contracted osteomyelitis, a degenerative bone disease, and nearly had his left leg amputated below the knee. A series of bone grafts saved the limb for the Sultan of Speed.

#122 : 1970s Ferocious Michael ‘MP’ Peterson : Throughout the decade Australian MP was considered by many as the world's most advanced high-performance surfer. He was raised in a tough environment by a single mother in a dirt poor home in Kirra, the freight-train rights on the doortsep his playground, classroom and sanctuary, shared with Wayne ‘Rabbit’ Bartholomew and Peter ‘PT’ Townend. By 1971 MP started winning like wildfire, famously arriving, disheveled-looking, seconds before his heats. He was a ferocious competitor: extremely fast at paddling, carving nonstop turns and determined to beat everyone. But he hated the fame, yet won the first paycheques in surf events, and worked a steady income shaping boards. "Flat-out the best surfer in the world," said Rabbit. His torque, flow, body movement and flair signaled the future of shortboarding, as he took body and board into thrilling places never before visited on the wave. He started to ride the tube for unprecedented distances, staying under the curl for up to ten seconds, punctuated by deep rail carves. In Hawaii he proved to be equally good in solid juice. But MP had an explosive, uncontrollable temper, fighting liked a raged bull with his brother Tom (who became a famous shaper, building Tom Curren’s channel-bottom Fish ridden in perfect 10 ft Indonesian Bawa barrels featured in ‘Searching for Tom Curren’ in the mid 1990s). MP, meanwhile, became a regular drug user and developed paranoid schizophrenia. Reflecting on his mental health, MP told ‘Backdoor’, an Australia-based surf mag, "I don't know the reason why I have a lot of these problems. I can't be bothered being that exposed to the media, because then it seems like I'm being condemned to live like a hermit, to live in a dark room, and just survive. And not come out because as soon as you come out the people start to pick at you." Now increasingly recluse, MP pulled out all the stocks in 1977 at the Stubbies Pro in Burleigh. Although completely stoned he weaved wizardry in front of the 20,000 spectators, beating Mark ‘MR’ Richards in the final. MP stopped surfing in 1982, later arrested for speeding, his mental health finally diagnosed. In 2012 MP died at home following a heart attack, aged 59. The session of MP shot in a cyclone swell at Kirra by Alby Falzon for ‘Morning of the Earth’ reveals a radical step forward in shortboard performance, and a creative bridge between the involvement surfers of the Nat Young, Wayne Lynch generation and the power surfers of the 1980s. MP is pictured here at Burleigh by Hugh McLeod.

#123 : 1970s Pocket Rocket Barry ‘BK’ Kanaiaupuni : Haleiwa’s Barry ‘BK’ Kanaiaupuni became one of the most innovative power surfers of the 1970s Hawaiian stylists, a pioneer of rail-to-rail riding, and a quality shaper to match. He was a sensational ‘60s longboarder, featuring in Bud Browne's 'Gun Ho!' (1963). But it was the spear-like big wave ‘pocket rocket’ shortboards that truly set BK’s surfing alight, and inspired many to push manoeuvres to new limits. He made Sunset into a performance wave, using the bottom turn like nobody before, generating insane speed and catapulting into the future. Mike Armstrong explained, "(BK) turned anywhere he wanted to—and he really hit it hard." He continually pushed his surfing to the edge, and consequently wiped out through experimentation. In contrast Jeff Hakman was exact and precise. The duo dominated at Sunset. For a fine dose of BK on fire watch ‘Five Summer Stories’ (1972), ‘Going Surfin'’ (1973) and 'Tales from the Tube' (1975). But a sequence of BK riding Sunset to Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Chile in ‘Fluid Drive’ (1973) tops the bills as a fine marriage of music and majestic surfing. BK shaped beautiful boards for some of the greats, including Ian Cairns, Shaun Tomson and Rusty Keaulana. BK is pictured here at Sunset by Art Brewer in 1971 on a trademark red pocket rocket.

#124 : 1970s Larry ‘Rubberman’ Bertlemann : Balance through extreme motion became Larry Bertlemann’s trademark. The radical, low-carving Hawaiian was so good that he inspired a new, progressive Californian skateboarding style in the mid 1970s, termed ‘Dogtown’ for its spawning-ground near the derelict neighbourhoods of Venice Beach. Phil Jarratt described Bertlemann as "a truly gifted surfer…with an outrageously overblown ego." Despite his personality traits, super-flexible Bertlemann surfed in an irresistibly low, coiled style, working the rails constantly, but staying fluid smooth through pioneering radical maneuvers. Throughout the ‘70s he was a regular on the covers of surfing magazines, and allegedly started 'signing' autographs with a rubber stamp. 'Rubberman' was the perfect nickname. His Ben Aipa-designed boards were key to his performance breakthroughs (and he also started shaping his own boards). But he practiced all his turns on his skateboard, perfecting the so-called ‘Bert’: a banking cutback so low that the wave face was caressed throughout. He trained hard, using video analysis and experimenting with shorter boards in big waves. Next generation stars Dane Kealoha, Buttons Kaluhiokalani and Mark Liddell were deeply influenced. Bertlemann was also a pioneer in the aerial (modestly self-labeled as ‘Larryials’) in the late '70s. But Bertlemann's fashion-conscious image (the styled Afro, colour-coordinated outfits, a bell-bottom wetsuit) was at odds with many of the waveriding purists of the day. Nevertheless, Bertlemann pioneered corporate sponsorship deals, including Pepsi, United Airlines and Toyota. "I keep my sponsors happy, and they keep me in business," said Bertlemann, and why not. Bertlemann is pictured here at Ala Moana by Dan Merkel.

#125 : 1970s Pipeline Firewalker Gerry Lopez : It’s easy to write eloquently about Lopez, and Matt Warshaw nailed it in ‘The History of Surfing’ as follows : “Larry Bertlemann got the kids excited, and North Shore heavies like Barry Kanaiaupuni and Jeff Hakman inspired awe across the spectrum of waveriders. But there was still a tiny sliver of daylight at the top of the Hawaiian pantheon, and there, slender as Gandhi, was Gerry Lopez – the coolest surfer alive; the Pipeline firewalker; the man who single-handedly raised the tuberide from a mere surfing manoeuvre to an advanced Zen practice. The Lopez-Pipeline union in the 1970s was another one of the sport’s perfect matches, like Mickey Dora at Malibu, and Greg Noll at Waimea Bay. But Lopez added a twist. Where everybody else used the wave as a platform upon which to perform, his idea was to literally disappear into the wave. In his best moments he didn’t seem to be performing at all – or at least not in the way Dora, Noll, and the rest performed. Lopez stood quietly, hands and arms relaxed at his side, knees slightly bent, face calm. He wasn’t the first less-is-more surfer. But he did it in the ionized centre of Pipeline tubes that exploded around him like cannon fire – he made the most difficult thing in the sport appear not just easy but meditative.” Lopez said, "The faster I go out there, the slower things seem to happen." Fellow Pipeliner Rory Russell added, "What he does is poetry. For sheer beauty, no one else even comes close." Photo : Jeff Divine.