Greg Noll (February 11, 1937-)

The Largest Surfing Encyclopedia

---

A-Z: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

---

Advertisement

Known as Da Bull, Greg Noll is the most famous of the big-wave surfers.

Born Greg Lawhead in San Diego, he moved to Manhattan Beach at age three. As a boy, he worked as a bait-disher at Manhattan Beach Pier, where he came under the influence of Dale Velzy, who was building short, lightweight balsa boards for the kids. Velzy tagged the young mischief with the nickname "gremlin." Beginning with ding repairs, the original gremmie developed under Velzy's tutelage into an excellent shaper.

Young Noll developed prodigious water skills, became a Los Angeles County lifeguard, and was a tenacious competitor, all of which contributed to his later success in the big-wave arena. He took third in one Catalina crossing (26 miles), even after getting lost in the fog and landing six miles up the coast.

Riding the shorter, lighter, radically more maneuverable balsa "Chip" boards Velzy had taught him to build, Noll was one of the hot Malibu stylists of the mid-'50s, but it was his paddling that earned him a spot on the U.S. lifeguard team that went to Australia for the 1956 Olympics at Melbourne. "Mike Bright, Tommy Zahn and I brought our boards down there to Torquay," Noll remembers.

The Aussies hadn't seen an outsider surf since Duke Kahanamoku introduced the sport there in December of 1914. The fact that Noll and his friends like to have a good rowdy time also made an impression. "Surfing had a liberating effect on the culture," he says. "Our surfing hit 'em like a comet -- took 'em from horse and buggy straight to Porsche."

Noll started making annual treks to Hawaii during his high school years. He found in the challenge of giant surf an arena in which he was limited only by his own fear, and each year he pushed himself further. On November 7, 1957, he and a small group of big-wave riders surfed Waimea Bay for the first time. Mike Stang was one of them. "That first day at Waimea," says Stang, "no one would even have thought of it except for Greg." Whoever got the first ride (and Noll certainly claims it), Noll found definitive star billing in the pursuit of big waves.

In December of 1964, Noll took it to the outer limits, paddling out on a huge day to ride one of the great waves of all time at Third Reef Pipeline. By then his black-and-white striped trunks were a cultural icon, emblematic of big surf and fearless commitment. He parlayed his reputation (and his considerable shaping skills) into a big, state-of-the-art surfboard factory in Hermosa Beach, where he succeeded in forming a business alliance with Miki Dora to manufacture and sell Da Cat surfboards, creating one of the most successful ad campaigns in the sport's history. "I was making up to 175 boards a week, 60 to 70 employees, advertising, dealers, up to my neck in shit and sinking," he says. Nonetheless, Greg starred in the boom era of surfing.

Along the way, he dabbled in surf films, shooting the action from Mexico to California to Hawaii in the late '50s and producing four Search for Surf epics. He even made a stab at a surf magazine; his 1961 Surfer's Annual featured the first published illustrations of young Rick Griffin.

Noll bailed the surf scene when all the cultural rules changed back in the '60s. But before he did, he caught that one great wave that would etch his name in surf history. One afternoon at Makaha in December of 1969, he took off on as big a wave as you could paddle into, rode it to the bottom and gave up surfing.

He moved to Alaska and got into commercial fishing, but with the reemergence of the longboard, the rediscovery of surfing's history and the boom in collecting, Noll was soon shaping again. He organized a series of "Legends" events, pulling together some of the sport's greatest surfers at great surfing areas around the world.

Today, Noll lives in Crescent City, California, and still shapes 12 boards a year out of old-growth redwood -- replicas of Duke Kahanamoku's olo and other exotica for collectors. His biography, Da Bull: Life Over the Edge, is half the Bull's own words (buffed and tooled by coauthor Andrea Gabbard) and half the recollections of many who've known him. He recently teamed up with John Bernards (who made Ocean Pacific a huge national brand) in a new clothing company -- Greg Noll Oceanwear -- based in San Clemente, California.

A winner of the SIMA's Waterman of the Year award in 1999 and an honoree of the Surfing Walk of Fame in Huntington Beach, Greg Noll counts himself as "the luckiest guy on the face of the earth" for being able to do "just what I loved to do." -- Drew Kampion, October 2000

Click here to find all the Greg Noll photos and editorial on Surfline.