Milestones in Surf History Part Twenty One (#133 - #139)
Milestones in
Surf History Part Twenty One (#133 - #139)
by Sam Bleakley
#133 : 1976 International Professional
Surfers IPS : Professional surfing was becoming a reality thanks to a world
tour (for men and women) beginning in 1976, led by diplomatic and cool-headed
Hawaiian Randy Rarick and Fred Hemmings. The agenda was drawn up on Rarick's
kitchen counter in October 1976, with Hemmings named as executive director.
Nine previously unrelated contests from earlier in the year were tabulated into
a ratings sheet, with five events still to come. In January of the following
year, Peter Townend was announced as the 1976 IPS world champion. Patti
Paniccia, another tour competitor, was named the IPS Women's Division Director,
and in 1977, the IPS' first full year, there were five rated women's events,
and 14 men's events. Hawaii's Margo Oberg (pictured here by Rus Calish) won the
first Women’s title. South African Shaun Tomson and Wayne ‘Rabbit’ Bartholomew
won the next two Men’s world titles, riding on single fins. Another Australian,
Mark ‘MR’ Richards had revisited the twin-fin (invented by Bob Simmons) fish
shape (first explored in California in 1972). Instead of keeping the fins
parallel to the edge of the board, he angled them to point towards the nose.
With fast, swooping manoeuvres, punctuated by radical turns, MR won four
consecutive world titles between 1979 and 1982. His distinctive style in big
waves in Hawaii is captured in Bill Delaney’s 1977 film ‘Freeride’. For the
so-called Freeride generation, ambitious to turn surfing into a full time
profession, Hawaiian Tom Parish was a leading shaper, and a wide range of
designs from the big wave gun to the small wave fish included one or two fins.
Hawaii hosted the most IPS contests, followed by Australia, South Africa,
Brazil, New Zealand, Florida and soon Japan and California. The man-on-man
format was introduced in 1977 (conceived by Peter Drouyn). Total yearly prize
money went from $77,650 in 1976 to $338,100 in 1982. In 1982 Ian Cairns helped
IPS evolve into the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP), with Cairns
named as executive director. Hemmings later said, "We didn't have a
payroll, we worked out of our homes, Randy and I covered expenses ourselves; I
never made any money on the IPS - I lost money. But I've always thought surfers
could be pro athletes like any other pro athletes, plus I wanted to sell
surfing to the general public. With the IPS we got things started in that
direction."
#134 : 1976 Bronzed
Aussies : During his successful 1976 World Championship campaign, Peter ‘PT’
Townend (aged 23) made just $7,500 in prize money. He worked between contests
as a shaper for Gordon & Smith Surfboards in Australia, and the price of
travel far outweighed his earnings for the year. With tongue-in-cheek bravado
and a burning desire to make a decent living from the activity they loved, PT
and 1976 runner-up Ian Cairns (plus Mark Warren, and journalist and manager
Mike Hurst) formed the ‘Bronzed Aussies’ troupe to push professional surfing,
not only for their own careers, but for surfers everywhere. They modeled
themselves on the 1960s Australian pro tennis trio Rod Laver, Roy Emerson and
John Newcombe. PT was an intelligent and precise performer with a distinctive
soul arch bottom turn and hot pink boards to grab everyone’s attention. He was
also ready to work across the surf industry in equal measure, through surf
writing (with newspaper columns and magazine slots), coaching, publishing,
boardmaking, marketing and surf fashion. Power surfing Cairns delivered with
authority in big waves. He grew up charging the reefs around Margaret River and
inevitably he performed better than any other Australian in the mid 1970s
Hawaiian events. As a media stunt, the Bronzed Aussies concept was first place.
The crew were impossible to ignore, arriving at events in matching black velvet
jumpsuits. Commercially, however, the plan simmered, and Bronzed Aussie
surfwear and surfboards folded. Clean-cut Mark Warren left the troupe in 1978
saying he was "just too much of an individual for a team concept."
White-hot juniors Cheyne Horan and Jim Banks (pictured here in ’78 with Cairns
and PT by Larry ‘Flame’ Moore) came and went. But in the late ‘70s the surfing
styles of PT and Cairns were immortalized as the stunt doubles (a well paid
Hollywood gig) for William Katt and Gary Busey respectively in Warner Brothers'
epic ‘Big Wednesday’ (1978) filmed in 1977. The California links served PT and
Cairns well. In the early 1980s PT trained Tom Curren, Mike Parsons and Brad
Gerlach. Following that he held jobs at ‘Surfing’ magazine and Rusty. Cairns,
meanwhile, went on to found the ASP, working with Ocean Pacific and as a surf
coach, brand advisor, contest director and co-founder of the hugely successful
US Open of Surfing at Huntington. Warren also developed a dazzling career in
the surf industry, across writing, radio, commentary and presenting. Over all,
the Bronzed Aussies succeeded wholeheartedly. They still do what the love.
#135 : 1977 The Free Ride Generation :
Produced by California filmmaker Bill Delaney and showcasing the incredible
water photographer (at 200 frames per second) of Dan Merkel, ‘Free Ride’ (1977)
defined an electric era as Shaun Tomson, Mark Richards and Wayne Bartholomew
pushed performance levels to new heights, particularly at classic Off The Wall
and Pipeline in the Hawaiian winter of 1975–76 (alongside sizzling footage of
Australia, Indonesia and California). Dan Merkel had never shot movie film, but
already ‘Surfing’ magazine's best photographer, he sat tight in the tube like a
master to capture striking action and a never-before-seen level of kinetic
energy, particularly in Shaun Tomson’s sensational tuberiding. "Time is
definitely expanded when you're inside the the tube," says Shaun. Cut
together with Delaney’s shots from the land, and plenty of happy-go-lucky
lifestyle of Wayne Bartholomew, the recipe was dynamite. The superb soundtrack
included Pablo Cruise and Joan Armatrading with a voiceover from Jan-Michael
Vincent (who would soon feature in ‘Big Wednesday’ 1978). ‘Free Ride’ cost
$70,000 (massive for a surf film), but was described by ‘Surfing’ magazine as
"a finely cut and polished diamond." The stars of ‘Free Ride’, Shaun
Tomson, Richards and Bartholomew, are the subjects of the next three milestones
to come…
#136 : 1977 Shaun Tomson Tuberiding
Magician : There’s a magic to Shaun Tomson’s lines behind the curl that can
never be expressed in words. A good starting point is watching ‘Free Ride’
(1977). The 1977 South African World Champion was the complete package:
intellectual, creative, driven, and so skilled that he pioneered a thrilling
new style of tuberiding, following his leading arm, letting it rise and drop
while maneuvering deep inside the barrel through subtle but telling shifts in
weight distribution, not by moving his widely placed feet, but leaning forwards
and backwards to apply pressure over his front and back foot respectively,
working with his arms to climb and drop with balance and control, then
re-emerging with a joyous smile. "I remember certain tubes,” says Shaun,
“where I was so in control of my mind and body, that it actually felt as if I
were controlling the wave itself." Shaun grew up in apartheid era South
Africa, where, in his own words (from ‘Surfer’s Code’ 2006) “I had learned from
my father that sports could bring people together, that a forum like the
Olympics could and should rise above the politics of individual nations. I
strongly believe that today.” Surf historian Matt Warshaw explains, “Tomson utterly
dominated the South African competition scene, and in 1973 won the first of six
consecutive titles in the Durban-held Gunston 500… In early 1975, the dashingly
handsome Durbanite won the Hang Ten Pro Championships in Hawaii, and over the
course of the year earned just over $10,000 in prize money from various
contests, more by far than any other pro that season… His win in the 1975
Pipeline Masters was in itself dramatic, but really just a signifier for the
way he had, in just a few weeks, changed the parameters of high-performance
surfing.” Shaun’s wizardry inside the tube is chronicled at Off the Wall
through the ‘75/76 season in ‘Free Ride’ (1977). Backhand at heaving Pipeline
he was also pioneering the soon to be labeled ‘pigdog’ attack. With reference
to tuberiding, Warshaw concludes, “present-day techniques are almost all based
on lines Tomson worked out in the mid-'70s.” In ‘Surfer’s Code’ (2006) Shaun
writes, “The ocean is alive, they say, and it helps keep us alive so we should
not just take pleasure from it and walk away.” Shaun is pictured here by Dan
Merkel in 1979.
#137 : 1978 The Panache of Wayne ‘Rabbit’
‘Bugs’ Bartholomew : 1978 Australian World Champion Wayne Bartholomew had an
irresistible sense of self-confidence, a carnival style out of the water and
dance-like flamboyance on the wave face. He was a sizzling hotdogger in small
surf, but best known for sweeping into explosive barrels, attacking the tube in
a compressed stance, then nonchalantly bursting from the spit with a cool
arcing kick out, flicking hair. In the winter of 1975-76 Bartholomew was a
pioneer of the backside matador attack at Pipeline, a sudden performance leap
in critical tuberiding. For Tom Curren, Bartholomew was a powerful stylistic
influence. That says a lot. Bartholomew had a tough upbringing on Queensland's
Gold Coast. When his parents divorced in 1966, his mum (a dance teacher)
struggled to pay the bills (Wayne had four sisters), and Bartholomew helped
support the family by stealing wallets from tourists. On the football pitch he
had earned the nickname Rabbit for his speed, and through the early to mid
1970s at regional and national surf events, ‘Bugs’ was fired up by rivalries
with Peter Townend and Michael Peterson. When the International Professional
Surfers (IPS) world tour was formed in 1976 Bugs was a leading advocate,
determined to make a solid career from waveriding. "To actually make a
living from what we were doing," Shaun Tomson said, "I didn't think
it was possible. Rabbit did. And a lot of us were carried along by his
momentum." Hat-wearing Bugs delivered serious panache to the first
generation of fulltime pros, showcased in Dick Hoole and Jack McCoy’s classic
‘Tubular Swells’ (1977) and of course ‘Free Ride’ (1977). He was inspired by
the cutting edge cool of David Bowie and the charisma of Muhammad Ali. He was
usually the life and soul of the party and Mark Richards said people would
"go into a mad scramble" to see who got to sit next to Bugs at
dinner. Beyond his professional surfing Rabbit was a powerful voice in stopping
a destructive harbor development at Kirra, continued to write for surf
magazines (‘Bustin' Down the Door’ (1996) is a must read), and began work with
the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) ultimately becoming President
from 1999 to 2009, co-designing the Dream Tour that placed the best riders in
the world in the best waves in the world, with long waiting periods to maximize
a swell and showcase milestones in performance. Thank you Wayne ‘Rabbit’ ‘Bugs’
Bartholomew. Here he is pictured in 1976 by Jeff Divine.
#138 : 1978 John Milius’ ‘Big Wednesday’.
Director Milius grew up surfing in California in the 1950s and 1960s and
co-wrote the script with Dennis Aaberg. Through the Beat and Vietnam eras (from
1961 to 1974, straddling long to shortboards) ‘Big Wednesday’ uses the changing
Californian seasons as a metaphor for the changes in life, embodied in the
tight friendship between Matt (Jan-Michael Vincent), Jack (William Cat) and
Leroy (Gary Busey). Matt, the ‘natural’, embodies grace, but finds solace in
the bottle. Jack is an achiever, a worker, cautious and competent, who
willingly enlists for Vietnam. Leroy the Masochist is the ‘no brains, no
headaches’ hell-raiser out for a good time. Malibu legend Lance Carson (famed
for his composed noseriding and powerful cutbacks) was the model for the
talented but alcoholic surfer Matt Johnson (whose waveriding is performed in
the film by Billy Hamilton). “He was the best surfer there,” Milius said of
Carson at Malibu in the early ‘60s. “He read the waves better, never made a
mistake, and only fell off deliberately at the end of a ride…or if he was
drunk.” A sketch for film was Aaberg’s part-fictionalised account of his days
at Malibu published in ‘Surfer’ magazine in 1974 called ‘No-Pants Mance’. Matt
is the iconic surf star, but as the film unfolds, he cannot adapt to change, so
Milius tracks the emergence of the ‘quick buck’ in surfing and the exploitation
of laidback surfers with raw talent who would be turned into heroes through the
surfing industry. Warner Brothers hired Greg MacGillivray, George Greenough,
Dan Merkel and Bud Browne to shoot the surfing sequences in Hawaii, California
and El Salvador. At a time when longboarding was old hat, Billy Hamilton, Peter
Townend and Ian Cairns perform like champions as Matt, Jack and Leroy
respectively riding early 1960s style boards. The film climaxes with the ‘great
swell’ (prophesized by the guru-like boom-to-bust shaper Bear, now down-and-out
as “just the garbage-man”) that reunites the boys for a tearjerker scene for men,
putting aside all differences. This is where they will all ‘eat it’, but not
before each has a moment of glory. Heroism is not grounded in war, neither
literally in Vietnam nor in the lost battle against change (symbolized by Gerry
Lopez’s cameo appearance and the shortboard), but in finding kinship through a
common love of the sea. Watching ‘Big Wednesday’ makes you want to go surfing,
desperately. There could be no better accolade for a surf film. You wake up
early the next day, the following Thursday - Thor’s Day - ready to make some
local thunder and lightning.
#139 : 1978 Eddie Aikau Lost at Sea :
Hawaii was bursting with surfing talent in the 1970s and lifeguard Eddie Aikau
was part of this golden generation, charging huge Sunset and Waimea with
flame-red boards and snow-white trunks detailed with a single red stripe. He
was born in Kahului in 1946. "He was high risk at an early age," said
younger brother Clyde. In 1967 Eddie became the first official lifeguard at
Waimea Bay, soon joined by Clyde. They charged every major swell to come
through the North Shore from 1967 to 1978. The brothers worked together at
Waimea for 10 years without a single fatality under their watch. Eddie’s wild
rides at Waimea on November 19th 1967 are still reputed to be some of the
biggest waves ever surfed at The Bay, and he is still regarded as the greatest
Waimea rider of all time. His distinctive low stance was imitated by many, and
Bank of America used an Eddie shot in a nationwide billboard ad campaign in the
late ‘60s. During the early to mid-70s, Eddie traveled the globe in the first
wave of pro surfing events. He was a central figure in bringing people together
from all backgrounds and a pivotal character in maintaining calm and
camaraderie when competition intensified, softening the blow through late night
luaus and fine music. In 1977 Eddie (already a six-time finalist in the event)
won the Duke Kahanamoku Invitational. The following year, aged 31, Eddie was
among a handful selected to join the cultural expedition on a double-hulled
voyaging canoe called Hokule'ai. 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. Hokule'ai met massive swells, developed a
leak and capsized south of Molokai. In an attempt to get help for the stranded
crew members, Eddie paddled toward Lanai on his board. The rest of the crew
were later rescued by the US Coast Guard, but Eddie removed his lifejacket
since it was hindering his paddling, and despite the largest air-sea search in
Hawaiian history, he was never found. In 1984, the Quiksilver In Memory of
Eddie Aikau event was established at Sunset Beach, in his honour. The event
moved the next winter to Waimea Bay and has been a fixture there ever since
because EDDIE WOULD GO
