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The 1900s: London, Ford, Freeth, Duke

By the turn of the 20th Century, surfing had all but disappeared in the Hawaiian Islands. Most of the surfing took place at Kalehuawehe on the south shore of Oahu, with a few surfers at spots on Maui, Kauai and the other islands. Honolulu had become Hawai'i's largest city with one out of every four Hawaiians living there, but surfing on the reefs where hundreds had once cavorted was now a rarity. There are some famous photos from the early 1900s of native men wearing loincloths, with Diamond Head and little else in the background. These were solitary men, most likely posing for the camera, standing alone where at one time hundreds had surfed.

Ironically, it was three haole who were instrumental in the rebirth of surfing in the Hawaiian islands, and it was a fourth man, a native Hawaiian, who was instrumental in pollinating surfing around the world.

In 1907 London wrote A Royal Sport: Surfing in Waikiki, which included descriptions of Waikiki and Alexander Hume Ford. His story was published in the October, 1907 edition of The Lady's Home Companion and again in 1911 as part of The Cruise of the Snark. "Where but the moment before was only the wide desolation and invincible roar, is now a man, erect, full statured, not-struggling frantically in that wild movement, not buried and crushed and buffeted by those mighty monsters, but standing above them all, calm and superb, poised on the giddy summit, his feet buried in the churning foam, the salt smoke rising to his knees, and all the rest of him in the free air and flashing sunlight, and he is flying through the air, flying forward, flying fast as the surge on which he stands. He is a Mercury-a brown Mercury. His heels are winged, and in them is the swiftness of the sea."

However, that title wasn't exactly true. As early as 1885, three Hawaiian princes visiting Santa Cruz, California from a military academy in San Mateo were reported to have ridden waves at the San Lorenzo Rivermouth on boards shaped from local redwood. Earlier than that, in Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana described Hawaiian crews on sailing vessels along the California coast in 1835. Dana tells one story of the Hawaiians gliding through a Santa Barbara shorebreak in their longboat without a hitch, then laughing from shore as the haole boat crew of easterners failed miserably at the same landing. You have to wonder about the Hawaiian boat crews in California in the early 1800s and throughout the century. A surfer is a surfer and a wave is a wave. It's hard to imagine anyone who has ridden a wave passing perfect Rincon or Malibu and not stopping to catch a few. Who knows how many surfers rode waves in California, but the Hawaiian princes were the first to be recorded and George Freeth was the first to become famous as a surfer.

Ford presented the manifesto to the trustees of the Queen Emma Estate, and they accepted it. On May 1, 1908 they founded the Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe Club, the first modern club dedicated to the perpetuation of wave-riding. The club offered facilities for dressing and a grass hut for board storage right on the beach.

In 1912, Duke passed through southern California en route to the summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. His surfing demonstrations at Corona del Mar and Santa Monica caused a sensation much greater than Freeth's. Duke became world famous by winning an Olympic gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle in Stockholm and again in Antwerp in 1916. Touted as the fastest swimmer alive, Duke was on the road constantly, giving swimming exhibitions around Europe, the United States and the world. He also became a favorite of Hollywood casting directors, playing Aztec chiefs, Hindu thiefs and Arab princes. On weekends he would take his Hollywood friends surfing, and everywhere he could, Duke used his fame to introduce the world to the sport of surfing.

Duke was a busy man into the '20s, competing in the 1920 and 1924 Olympics, hobnobbing in Hollywood and spreading surfing to the world. Back home in Hawai'i in the summer of 1917, Duke rode a now legendary wave at Kalehuawehe, which was now called Outside Castles. He caught a wave that took him well over a thousand yards, from all the way outside Castles, through Elk's Club, Cunha's and Queen's and all the way to the beach. This was a wave and a feat that has never been matched, and another boost for Duke's enduring legend.

Cole and Van Dyke became famous surfers as surfing emerged from the shadows of obscurity and into the mainstream culture during the late '50s and early '60s. Beginning with filmmaker, Bud Browne, a southern Californian who pioneered the surf movie in the mid-'50s, more and more photographers, cinematographers, musicians and journalists became fascinated with surfing, and what began as a novelty exploded into a full-fledged industry in the '60s.