SURF LEGENDS
International Surfing Day falls on Father’s Day weekend so today we look at some of the legendary founding fathers of California’s state sport.
Texas has rodeo, Minnesota has hockey and California made surfing its official state sport in 2018. Hawaii is the birthplace and cradle of surfing and has both surfing and outrigger canoe paddling as its state sports. The world's oldest surfboard is displayed in the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, and dates to
1778-79.
California show
The first surfing ever in California was done by three Hawaiian princes in Santa Cruz in the 1880s. For a while, missionaries in the 1800s tried to ban surfing in Hawaii. That didn't last long and many young Hawaiians began taking up the sport again in the 1890s, including half-Irish, half-Hawaiian George Freeth. Freeth grew up on Oahu and made a name for himself as a waterman, diver and instructor. Railroad owner Henry E. Huntington read popular writer Jack London's descriptions of Freeth's surfing abilities. One such description is, “Shaking the water from my eyes as I emerged from one wave and peered ahead to see what the next one looked like, I saw him tearing in on the back of it, standing upright with his board, carelessly poised, a young god bronzed with sunburn.”
Huntington thought he had found the perfect way to promote his new rail route to Redondo and Venice beaches.
He paid Freeth to demonstrate surfing twice a day in 1907. Thousands of people showed up to watch Freeth catch waves on his 8 foot, 200 pound board. Freeth could even ride waves while doing a handstand. It was the first surfing in Southern California. Huntington got more than just a surfer in Freeth, who was billed as the “man who can walk on water.” Freeth also was passionate about water safety and helped start professional lifeguarding in California. He is credited for saving 78 lives, and during a nasty winter storm in
1908, he and his crew saved 11 Japanese fishermen. He received the U.S. Volunteer Life-Saving medal for Valor and the Congressional gold medal for his heroics. He introduced the lifeguard rescue paddleboard that is still in use today. Freeth taught thousands to swim in Los Angeles and San Diego counties. Some of his students went on to win Olympic medals and set world records.
Freeth was a water safety instructor and lifeguard for many years until he caught influenza and died during the 1918 flu pandemic in San Diego at the age of 35. A bust and plaque honoring Freeth are at the Redondo Beach Pier.
One legend to another
One of Freeth's friends and surfing buddies in Hawaii was the legendary Duke Kahanamoku. Kahanamoku was a few years younger than Freeth and is one of the most famous surfers in the world. He spread the sport all over the globe and was a competitive swimmer, winning five Olympic medals in three Olympiads. Kahanamoku also was famous as a lifeguard and saved eight men in a heroic rescue at Newport Beach in 1925.
These two great surfers set Southern California's love affair with the sport in motion.
Enter the innovator
Kahanamoku was a lifelong ambassador of Hawaii and surfing. Along the way, he shook hands with a young man named Tom Blake. The two became friends and by 1921 Blake was living in Santa Monica doing stunt work and lifeguarding.
Blake's contribution to the world of surfing ended the days of carrying 200 pound, solid wood boards to the water by inventing lighter hollowed out boards. After three years of experiments, in the late 1920s, Blake constructed a hollow board with transverse bracing. Blake brought his new boards to the mainland and won he first Pacific Coast Surfing Championships at Corona del Mar in front of thousands of beachgoers. He received a patent for his hollow surfboard design in 1931.
Blake made many trips to Hawaii, served in the Coast Guard during World War II and lived mostly a vegetarian and nomadic lifestyle.
Here's how Blake's biographer Gary Lynch described his influence on surfing, “In Blake's life, there was no separation between religion, surfing, swimming, building surfboards, eating, and exercise. At the time, no one guessed that his unorthodox life style would one day become the accepted standard for the beach culture.”
Tom Blake’s boards were about 12 feet, 10 inches long and weighed about 40 pounds.