Polynesian Explorers

Surfing has its origins in the Polynesian explorers that struck out across the Pacific over 1300 years ago. Travelling on huge ocean going twin hull canoes these watermen and women gave birth to the same affinity to the ocean and travelling, exploration culture that lives in all surfers today. Forging out in canoes less than 60 feet long, they travelled across thousands of miles of ocean in the hope of finding new lands to colonise. These ocean travellers would have been well aware of the ability to surf down the face of waves from returning to shore from fishing trips on stormy days. It's quite probable that the first settlers on Hawaii would have come ashore riding their huge canoes through the surf and up to the beach to make landfall, quite appropriate for the land that gave birth to modern surfing.

It stands to reason that Hawaii should be the birthplace of modern surfing. Even without its heritage of ocean going inhabitants, the islands have every characteristic that a surfer could ask for. A lush, tropical paradise, with an easy climate, a short continental shelf and a location slap bang dead-centre in the biggest ocean on the planet. It is guaranteed to pick up any swell being generated across the whole of the Pacific, which explains its huge variety and great consistency of waves. The native islanders obviously had a great affinity and understanding of the ocean, and as the Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow, so do the islanders have for waves. Surfing on waves was well established before European explorers arrived in 1778 and there are several examples of surfboards over 200 years old.

European Explorers 

In January 1778 Captain James Cook on his third exploration voyage around the world in HMS Discovery and HMS Resolution, made the first sighting of surfers by a European. Cook had earlier seen a Tahitian riding a canoe on the face of a wave and had written that "I could not help concluding that this man felt the most supreme pleasure while he was driven on so fast and smoothly by the sea." Here in Hawaii he received an even greater shock to see Islanders riding on small custom made wooden boards, in huge numbers. The sport of surfing was about to gain global recognition.

The Pacific islanders suffered hugely from the arrival of Europeans and were decimated by new diseases for which they had no natural resistance. By the late 1800's their numbers had been reduced to approximately 10% of that on arrival of Cook. Surfing too had suffered, as Puritan Missionaries arrived and enforced Christianity and morals that saw surfing and the unrestrained pursuit of happiness, whilst playing in the ocean, as a sin. By the end of the 1800s surfing had almost died out as a past time.

Duke Kahanamoku

In the early 20th Century a wave of American and European migrants were arriving to benefit from the tropical climate and quality of life. These included the celebrated writer, Jack London and it was his writing that started the modern interest in surfing.

From here surfing and Hawaii became inextricably linked in the consciousness of the western world and interest in the sport started to grow rapidly. Hotels sprang up on the beach fronts of Waikiki and tourists would travel to experience the sport for the first time.  Synonymous with this period is the character who has become recognised as the father of modern surfing, Duke Kahanamoku. The quintessential all-round waterman, Duke Kahanamoku won the 100 meter freestyle gold at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. His celebrity status after the Olympics and the tour of the US that he undertook created the explosion of surfing as a sport, even reaching as far as Australia when he visited there in 1914.

Surf equipment was now also changing. Up until the 1920's boards had been solid red wood timbers hewn down to a suitable size. Tom Blake, a Californian surfer, created the first lightweight board by drilling out a redwood board and then placing a laminate skin over the surface. These significantly lighter boards helped explode surfing through the 20s.

Surfers' Dream

During the 1920s and 30s the Great depression helped influence the perception of the surfer culture, as many surfers hitched rides out to the Californian coast and even as far as Hawaii, living the surfer's dream in huts by the edge of the ocean.