Waikiki

The Largest Surfing Encyclopedia

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If you haven't surfed Waikiki, you should. Ignore the concrete, the high-rises and the traffic. Pay no heed to the tourists, the kitsch and the noise. Rent an old, heavy plank, paddle out under the watchful eye of Duke Kahanamoku and return to the womb. This is the birthplace of modern surfing.

The sport of kings had been all but decimated along with the Hawaiian population by the righteous, disease-laden Europeans during the 19th century. Sports were considered a waste of time and a sure road to moral turpitude. Once a religion across every class of Hawaiian citizen, surfing existed only in small boroughs as the century neared its close. One such area that clung to the ancient ritual was Waikiki, where tourism was sprouting thanks to the proximity of Honolulu and the construction of new hotels.

The gentle sloping waves of Waikiki (which means "spouting water," referring to the freshwater swamps rather than the surf) had long provided the ultimate bunny slope for the primitive planks of ancient Hawaii, and by the turn of the century, the missionary presence was declining. Local surfers posed proudly and rode straight to shore. Tourists, amazed by the feats of the watermen, wanted to walk on water, and so the modern era was born. Kahanamoku, George Freeth and many others scored positions as lifeguards and taught the visitors how to surf. Author Jack London learned from Freeth and promoter Alexander Hume Ford in 1907 and depicted his adventures in both Woman's Home Companion and his novel The Cruise of the Snark. Freeth was taken to California the same year to put on demonstrations in Redondo Beach, and Kahanamoku's travels as an Olympic champion swimmer would introduce the sport on the East Coast and in Australia. As more people witnessed these legends, the more popular Hawaii became.

In Waikiki, the number of beach boys grew in relation to the booming tourist industry, leading to the creation of several clubs. The first was the Outrigger Canoe and Surfboard Club in 1908, the world's first organization dedicated to riding waves, for which Hume obtained a plot of land on the beach to serve as the club grounds. While the Outrigger Canoe was primarily embraced by the island's haole watermen, the Hawaiian Hui Nalu club formed in 1911 and became the Outrigger's friendly cross-beach rival. Despite the unchecked development, there are still facilities on the beach for board storage.

Although known for its user-friendly surf, Waikiki had its classic days. In the summer of 1917, the surf in Town rose to epic proportions. Kahanamoku and George "Dad" Center, Captain of the Outrigger club, rode huge waves, known in the day as "bluebirds," a distance of over half a mile. Duke acknowledges it as the biggest surf of his life. Generally calm in winter, summertime provides Waikiki's most active surf as hurricanes spawned off Mexico spiral across the Pacific.

While the sport was rapidly spreading, thanks to the publicity of the Waikiki beach boys, a Detroit native had moved to Hawaii where he would revolutionize the surfboard. In 1930, Tom Blake patented the Hawaiian Hollow Surfboard, a knockoff of an ancient Hawaiian board he observed in Honolulu's Bishop Museum. The innovation cut the weight of surfboards in half and was soon followed by the fin -- a device that would allow surfing to branch away from the slow-rolling surf at Waikiki. Two local surfers, John Kelly and Wally Froiseth, also contributed to the pioneering of spots around Oahu with their early big-wave Hot Curl design in the late '30s.

While World War II put a hold on everything, the search for more challenging surf was then rejoined and Waikiki gradually faded as the hotbed of surfing. Surfboard innovations were lighting the way to riding big waves, and pointbreaks like Malibu and Trestles were capturing the imagination of surfers on the mainland. No longer the proving ground, Waikiki became the breeding ground. Nearly every Hawaiian surfer was nurtured in the slow, rolling Town surf before graduating to the North Shore. The once serene beachside had transformed into a concrete jungle. The skyline, sand and surf have all suffered encroachment by greedy hands seeking tourist dollars. Nowadays, outside of summer, it's little more than a novelty.

No longer at the forefront of surfing, Waikiki is undeniably the sport's link with the past. The surf is as crowded as ever, the Hawaiian beachboys are still making a living and the ancient boards are still on display at the nearby Bishop Museum. If you surf, you owe it to yourself to experience surfing's birthplace. Once you have seen the past, it is far easier to proceed with the future. -- Jason Borte, December 2000