Flippy, Pipe Days

Flippy hoffman with a pair of his outer-reef guns long before outer-reef surfing was even a blip on anyone else’s radar. Photo: Jeff divine

In the days before Internet surf forecasts, we just woke up in the morning and took a hopeful look out the nearest makai, or ocean-side, window. Those were the days when being a committed surfer provided benefits. A committed surfer was one who didn’t have a steady job, relationship, or any other attachments that might impede his availability when good waves appeared on any given morning.

What I saw when I looked, sleepy-eyed, out the window that one morning in the early 1970s shocked me from slumber. I lived at the Pipeline and waking up to a solid west swell pumping into the lineup was not an everyday occurrence. Good Pipeline, when the swell is straight, the lines clean, and the direction correct, is something that happens only a few times during a season. It’s much rarer when the swell is big enough to cap on the Second Reef peak and break nicely all the way through the inside.

Surfers in those days were considered moderately successful if they owned two pairs of shorts. The surf trunks were worn when surfing, and the walk shorts during dry time. Poor surfers only had the surf trunks, which they wore 24/7. I shaped surfboards and was more or less gainfully employed. I worked only when I needed a new board or there wasn’t any surf to ride. I did, however, own two pairs of shorts.

I slipped out of my walk shorts and into my damp surf trunks, grabbed my 8’0” pintail, and headed for the beach. The paddle out at Pipeline when the swell is pumping is never an easy task. I paused at the high ground to give myself a better vantage point to choose the right moment, looking for a lull in the relentless surf. The waves were consistent, but I spotted a gap between two sets, ran like hell down the beach, and plunged into the water. The rip running along the beach was ferocious, but after paddling hard and rolling under the first two whitewater waves, I saw what I hoped I had seen from the beach. The third wave was small and not breaking.

This was my window of opportunity. By being able to climb over the top of the wave rather than roll under and through it, I gained enough ground to penetrate the pounding shorebreak and get outside before the next set arrived. The sweep had carried me quite a distance down the beach, but I was outside the breaking waves and only needed to paddle back to the lineup zone. The paddle provided a good view of the surf. The tubes were enormous, spray flying out of their gaping maws with a shattering crescendo of whitewater explosions.

The takeoff lineup on Second Reef is not as defined as the inside; the sets on the outside move around, covering a wide area. The best way to line a wave up is to see where one breaks, then go sit and wait there until another one comes. Otherwise it’s a confusing chase from one peak to another, hoping for a lucky break. Actually, any wave at the Pipeline is a lucky thing. As a wave approaches, the kinetic energy seems to crackle, sparking off the face of the wave. If I decided I wanted it, and was in a good position, that energy would connect with me, surging into my body with a jolt.

That morning the sets were bristling with electricity. I remember dropping into my first wave; the further down the clean, ripple-free face I flew, the faster I continued to drop. My 8’0” pintail loved this kind of situation, but as I began to bank it over into a turn, the tail began to drift. A spinout in this position would not be good. I had to ease it back down and keep going straight. The face of the wave continued to fall away ahead of me in an endless drop. Further down the wave, I tried the turn again and once more I could feel the fin starting to break away. I backed it down onto a level plane again before it broke free. I began to wonder whether I was going to be able to make a turn at all. Finally, after one of the longest drops of my life, the slope near the base of the wave began to gradually flatten and I was able to gently bank a bottom turn. I pulled into the section as it started to run on the inside reef, a zone with which I felt intimately familiar. I shot through the spinning tunnel, out the end and exited over the shoulder.

For the next hour or more, I dodged rogue sets on the Second Reef and still managed to get a number of nice rides. No one else came out. I had no idea why. I looked toward shore just before kicking out of several waves and could see a few guys with surfboards standing on the beach, yet the lineup remained empty. After several hours alone, other surfers finally began to trickle out to join me. It was, after all, a rare and epic Pipeline day. They said they had a hard time getting through the shorebreak. They kept getting beaten back to the beach by the relentless sets.

Eventually I lost my board on a wave and swam to shore to retrieve it. The crowd that had congregated while I was surfing amazed me. The beach had been deserted when I first ran and jumped into the ocean. Now it was a large, festive gathering, mostly people just watching the big waves, but interspersed were surfers getting up their courage to give it a try. I saw Flippy Hoffman walking his huge board up the beach from the ‘Ehukai Beach Park. The surfboard was big and Flippy just held the nose, dragging the tail behind him, leaving a deep furrow in the wet sand.

“Hey Gerry,” he yelled, “I need to ask you a question.”

I waited for him as he moved toward me in his characteristic rolling gait, that of an old sailor who spent more time aboard ships at sea than on dry land. Although he had spent many years of his life on boats, Flippy also was the president of Hoffman Fabrics, a wildly successful fabric conversion company. He and his brother Walter ran the company that their father Rube had founded, but they still managed to spend a lot of time surfing.

“What’s the deal?” he asked. “I can’t get through the shorebreak. What am I doing wrong?”

I glanced at his gigantic surfboard. It looked like it would be impossible to get that board under the whitewater, like trying to drag a small boat through the breaking surf. I scratched my head as I pondered a solution to his problem.

“I gotta get out there, I need to be where the action is, what do I do?” Flippy wanted to know.

He was no stranger to big waves; in fact he loved them more the bigger they got. On days when the lifeguards had closed the beach at Sunset because of high surf, he would sneak out with a pair of fins. Swimming to the outside lineup, Flippy would frolic in the punishing surf like an otter having fun, giving the guards on the beach fits when they noticed the lone swimmer. Finally, he would bodysurf one in and the frantic lifeguards would rush down to the water’s edge, believing a rescue was imminent.

In response to their incredulous reaction when he strolled up the beach carrying his pair of beat-up, old swim fins, he would calmly say, “What’s the big deal? I got fins, when I want to go down, I go down. When I want to go up, I go up.”

I lost my board on the wave after this one and swam in, only to find flippy on the beach frustrated from a number of unsuccessful attempts to paddle out. Photo: Art Brewer

Both the waves and the strong rip current, a result of the relentless swell, conspired against all those attempting to breach the shorebreak to gain the outside lineup. Photo: Jeff divine

The lifeguards would shake their heads in amazement that anyone would want to put himself in that situation.

Just then the younger brother of my good friend Wylie Artman walked up to say hello. He was carrying his swim fins, and an idea dawned in my mind.

“Flippy, this is Dennis,” I said by way of introduction.

“Dennis, this is Flippy. We need you for a job,” I continued.

Dennis was on vacation, staying with his brother. For Dennis, anything legal that would pay him to be able to stay longer in Hawai’i rather than having to go back home to California was worth talking about.

“OK Flippy, all you have to do is pay Dennis here ten bucks to paddle your board out. You take his fins and swim out. When you get outside, you can swap. How’s that sound?” I announced, thinking I had come up with an easily workable solution.

Dennis was all for it, but Flippy muttered and scowled. His eyes darted between Dennis and me in that perpetual squint from looking into the sun for too many years without sunglasses. Finally, after much deliberation—testimony as to why his fabric business was such a financial success—he looked at Dennis and asked, “Will you do it for five?”