When Captain James Cook and his crew floated into the Hawaiian islands in 1778, one of the many things that astonished the Englishmen was how the locals were “so perfectly masters of themselves in the water.”1 Big waves scared the Europeans; to the Hawaiians, they were playthings. Most of all, the Europeans were fascinated by seeing them surf.
Surfing was imbedded in every part of Hawaiian culture. There were rituals associated with building a surfboard, and a strict social order regulated who got to ride which waves. Royal boards were longer (12 to 14 feet) and made of olo wood.2 Surfing was also part of courtship. In a society where the mixing of the sexes on land was strictly regulated, sharing a wave was decidedly erotic. And it was fun. Whole communities would catch waves together, old and young, male and female. “The boldness and address, with which we saw them perform these difficult and dangerous maneuvers,” wrote Lieutenant James King, “was altogether astonishing, and is scarcely to be credited.”3
Cook’s crew were among the last Europeans to see surf culture in all its glory. When outsiders came to harvest Hawaii’s sandalwood and to plant rice and sugarcane, they converted what had been a comfortable subsistence-plus economy into a wage-driven one. Hawaiians had less time to surf; they had schedules to keep. Christian missionaries, who began arriving in 1820, mildly discouraged the practice.4
The largest reason for surfing’s decline, however, was the decline of kapu, the traditional value system of which it was a part, as Hawaiian communities withered away from imported diseases. By 1898, the year Hawaii officially became a US territory, the population of the islands had dropped at least 80 percent from Cook’s time.5
But the sport never quite died, and in the early twentieth century a native Hawaiian named Duke Paoa Kahanamoku led its renaissance, becoming, in a sense, a surfing missionary. Born in 1890, Kahanamoku grew up on the beaches of Waikiki and at an early age was recognized as the most gifted waterman around, skilled at swimming, surfing, and paddling. As a teenager, he and some friends started the first surf club, Hui Nalu, or Club of the Waves,6 which is credited as an important influence in reviving the sport. Kahanamoku was the acknowledged leader, which is why he is often referred to as the father of surfing.
In 1911 Hawaii held its first organized swim meet. Kahanamoku not only won the 100-yard race, but broke the world record by 4.6 seconds.7 He broke two other records in the same meet.8 The Amateur Athletic Union, which governed swimming and selected athletes for the Olympics, refused to sanction the records, finding the times literally unbelievable. But it was enough to get Kahanamoku invited to the Olympic trials.
On arriving in California, he gave a number of surfing demonstrations. Making his way cross-country, he easily qualified for the Olympics; he also benefited from coaching that improved his technique at diving and turning, areas the open-water swimmer needed to master.9 He did so, winning the 100-meter freestyle in Stockholm, and a silver medal as part of the 4 x 200-meter freestyle relay. Back in the United States, he gave swimming and surfing demonstrations on both coasts, before returning to acclaim in Hawaii.
Invited to Australia and New Zealand in 1915, he performed in dozens of swimming exhibitions. Near the end of his stay he crafted a nine-foot board. Then he took to the waves at Sydney’s Freshwater Beach, showing hundreds of screaming spectators what surfing was all about. Once he came in while standing on his head; another time with a 14-year-old girl on his shoulders.10 The Aussies loved it.
Kahanamoku returned to Hawaii, which was beginning to build a surfing economy. He made a living teaching the sport, including to a “frightfully keen” Prince of Wales.11 At the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Kahanamoku took two more golds, and then a silver in Paris in 1924 at age 34, just behind “Tarzan” Johnny Weissmuller. Kahanamoku remains the oldest man ever to win an Olympic swimming medal.
In the 1920s he became involved with the Hollywood in-crowd, befriending the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Babe Ruth, and John Wayne. He appeared in some 30 silent movies, albeit in typecast roles such as an American Indian chief, Hindu priest, or Turkish warrior.12 At the same time, Kahanamoku used his popularity to promote surfing, an effort that he bolstered in the best possible way in 1925, when he rescued eight people from a capsized fishing boat.13
Returning to Hawaii in 1930, he became the sheriff of Honolulu and taught and surfed as much as he could. The photo on the previous page dates from the 1930s; he stands in front of Waikiki beach, where he had learned to surf and swim as a boy, and Diamond Head can be seen in the background. Shortly after Hawaii became a state in 1959, Kahanamoku was named its “Ambassador of Aloha”14—the perfect title for this gentle man with the bright smile and magnificent physique.
Kahanamoku was never rich, and he sometimes struggled financially. Unlike many other athletes, though, he was appreciated during his life and has never been forgotten. In 1990 a statue of Duke Kahanamoku in his prime, standing in front of a surfboard, was unveiled on Kuhio Beach in Waikiki. Four years later, the Sydney waterfront did the same. In 1999 Surfer magazine named him the “Surfer of the Century.” And in August 2015, Google designed one of its doodles in honor of the modern father of surfing. He is a member of the swimming, surfing, and US Olympic halls of fame.15
Duke Kahanamoku’s is a unique set of accomplishments. He was world class in one sport (swimming) and became the face of another (surfing), all while negotiating two cultures. He surfed into his sixties and had the satisfaction of seeing the sport he loved fill the beaches of Waikiki again. When he died in 1968, 15,000 admirers lined the beach as his remains were given to the ocean.16