History of Surfing

A Surf Tale

An account of surfing's thousand year voyage from the kings of Hawaii,

to the surfers exile from society, to the multi-billion dollar industry of today.

The Sun's radiation heats the upper atmosphere, sending the energy toward the earth's surface and finally mixes with the planet's counter-rotational currents, creating jetstream flows. The winds flow over the ocean's surface creating friction that spawns chops, pushing up the seas forming perfect bands of open ocean swell. Pushed on by gravitational forces, the swells speed away from the winds that they came from, moving across the deeps until they feel the drag of the shallows near the coast. As the swells rise up out of themselves, they peak, curling into the liquid dreams that we surfers ride (Kampton 4).

Surfing is not a sport, and no true surfer would ever claim otherwise. Yes, it requires all the essential elements of a sport; strength, discipline, balance and most of all practice but unlike a sport, surfing isn't a competition. True, even most surfers refer to it as an "extreme sport", but the truth is, we do so because it's impossible to create a word that completely describes surfing. It is an experience in its own class, a spiritual conquest quest, searching for the perfect wave.

Surfing has come a long way since it was first conceived (roughly 1500 years ago). From the Polynesian "watermen" and Hawaiian Kings, to the European takeover in Hawaii and surfing's American debut in the early twentieth century and all the way through present day, surfing has had a rich history. Over the decades, surfing has fit in to a number of roles in society, but whether we surfers are seen as beach-bums or heroes (as of late), we still surf only because we love it, because the ocean's calls us, because nothing else on this planet can create the sensation felt by riding a wave.

Surfing: A Kings Sport

To most, surfing is often described as a Hawaiian art-form, and rightfully so, Hawaiians apparently have been surfing for over a thousand years, but most experts will tell you that surfing began in Ancient Polynesia somewhere between the eighth and ninth centuries. Because the historical records of these ancient civilizations were carved into stone and bone, much of their culture has weathered away and little of their history is known. Nonetheless, we have an understanding of how surfing evolved from these South Pacific tribes.

The Polynesians were true voyagers; they knew the sea as the natives of Australia knew the land. They had perfected the science of celestial navigation and frequently made thousand mile journeys, hitting their target destination perfectly. The Islanders braved the ocean by rowing large canoes made from forest hardwood. They stabilized them with outriggers, enabling the boats to keep from flipping while paddling into the surf. These crafts were propelled by wind being corralled in sails made from pandanus leaves, or when sailing into the wind, they could be rowed with small paddles. The islanders were accustomed to long journeys at sea seeing as these boats were primarily used to venture out on their regular trading routes with other islands, or even on long explorations. It was on these Expeditions that the Ancient Polynesians are believed to have discovered and inhabited hundreds of remote islands, including present day Easter Island and of course Hawaii.

It isn't clear how the Polynesians actually discovered surfing, but we can all conjecture. Assuming that these ancient people were familiar with paddling in the ocean, they surely understood that while paddling with a swell, one could feel the next wave building behind them. As the wave begins to peak, it pulls you down, and then draws you up, then allowing one to fall along the face of the wave, skipping forward across the surface. It seems to be the best guess that surfing started much like that, a fisherman catches a lift to shore from a day out at sea, stops paddling, and enjoys the ride (Wardlaw 15).

No one can determine when the practice of actual surfing (standing on a wooden plank, riding a wave) came to be, but by 1778 surfing had become the center of Hawaiian culture. Polynesian historian Ben Finney notes that "in 1778 Captain Cook was the first European to record an encounter with Hawaiian surfers." According to Finney, Cook observed that surfing took prescience over the everyday tasks of Hawaiian life, "So great were the natives' love for surfing, that when the surf was up, the houses in the village remained empty and daily tasks such as farming were left unattended while the whole community enjoyed themselves in the ocean" (Kampton 5)

Ultimately, it was this European discovery of Hawaii and surfing, which lead to the decline of Hawaiian's culture and to surfing's "Dark Age". The European settlers saw surfing as a distraction from the tasks that must be done every day to maintain a successful civilization. The islands were taken by Captain Cook and were used as a trading post, manned of course by the people who had lived there in peace, isolated from the rest of the world, for more than eight hundred years before.

Hawaii remained occupied (and surfing remained buried except for the extremely devoted) by the Europeans for almost one hundred twenty years until the islands were annexed by the United States in 1898. It was about this time, that two American writers made the journey to Hawaii to explore the islands. In the year 1900 Mark Twain and Jack London visited Waikiki Beach and observed a few of the locals riding massive wooden planks as the surf pushed them toward the shore. Both being microcosms of the newfound adventurous American spirit of the turn of the century, they were fascinated. Soon after, London and Twain composed a series of extremely enthusiastic articles endorsing the sport, which were published throughout the islands and the mainland. The articles took America (Hawaii included) by storm. The two savvy American writers, sparked the rebirth of surfing in Hawaii (Surfline.com).

Duke Kahanomoku was a teenager during this surf revival, but nonetheless was among the first pioneers to actively progress surfing into the mainstream. During the early 1900s many American tourists left their homes on the mainland, venturing out into the Pacific, towards this newfound American (tropical) territory, making Hawaii an overnight hotspot for vacationers. "The Duke" used this sudden attention to expose the rest of America to his art of (which his ancestors had perfected a thousand years ago) of riding waves. He and London, along with a few local surfers, founded the