A thousand years of wave sliding.
Surfing did not start in California, and it did not start in the sixties. It began in the Pacific, in voyaging canoes and on hand-shaped wooden boards, as a practice of being in conversation with the ocean. Everything since is a continuation of that.
Born in the Pacific. Kept alive in Waikiki.
He'e nalu, literally "wave sliding", was not a sport in pre-contact Hawai'i. It was a practice woven into chant, religion and politics. Boards were shaped from sacred trees with offerings and prayer. The biggest olo boards, up to five metres long, were reserved for the ali'i, the chiefly class.
After Western contact in 1778, disease and missionary suppression nearly ended the tradition. A handful of families in Waikiki kept it going through the 1800s. When Duke Kahanamoku, Olympic gold-medal swimmer and pure son of Waikiki, began demonstrating surfing abroad in the early 1900s, he carried a thousand-year-old practice into the modern world.
The Long Line
- c. 1000 BCE
Polynesian voyagers
Wave-sliding is born in the Pacific. Polynesian seafarers ride paipo-like boards into the shore on Tahiti, Samoa and the Marquesas. The ocean is family, not playground.
- c. 400 CE
He'e nalu, wave sliding in Hawai'i
Polynesian settlers carry the practice to Hawai'i, where it becomes he'e nalu, central to spiritual life. Chiefs ride 5-metre olo boards of wiliwili wood; commoners ride shorter alaia. Breaks are sacred and ranked.
- 1778
First Western contact
Lieutenant James King, sailing with Cook, writes the first European account of surfing at Kealakekua Bay. 'The boldness and address with which we saw them perform these difficult and dangerous manoeuvres, was altogether astonishing.'
- 1800s
Suppression and survival
Missionary influence and disease almost wipe out Hawaiian culture and the surfing tradition with it. A small community on Waikiki keeps he'e nalu alive through the lean decades.
- 1907 to 1920
Duke Kahanamoku takes it to the world
Olympic swimmer Duke Kahanamoku, of Waikiki, gives demonstrations in California (1912), New Jersey (1912), and Australia (1914 at Freshwater Beach). Surfing leaves the islands.
- 1930s to 1940s
Lighter boards, new shapes
Tom Blake hollows out the heavy plank and bolts on the first fin in 1935. Surfing becomes manoeuvrable. Bob Simmons starts experimenting with hydrodynamic foam-and-fibreglass designs in California.
- 1950s
The Malibu revolution
Foam blanks and fibreglass replace redwood. Boards drop to 9 to 10 feet. Malibu, Velzy, Quigg and Kivlin define the longboard. Gidget hits the screens in 1959 and surfing explodes into American pop culture.
- 1966 to 1969
The shortboard revolution
Bob McTavish and Nat Young in Australia, and George Greenough's deep-vee fins, cut board lengths in half almost overnight. By 1969 the sport is unrecognisable. The Endless Summer (1966) sends a generation searching for the perfect wave, and finds it at Cape St Francis.
- 1976
Professional surfing is born
The International Professional Surfers tour is founded. Peter Townend wins the first world title. South Africa's Shaun Tomson takes the crown in 1977 with the modern template for tube riding.
- 1981
The thruster
Simon Anderson designs the three-fin thruster and wins the Bells, Pipe and Surfabout on it in one year. Every high-performance shortboard for the next four decades is descended from it.
- 1990s to 2000s
Aerial era and the Kelly years
Kelly Slater wins his first world title in 1992 at 20 years old, and goes on to take eleven. Airs become legitimate scoring manoeuvres. Tow-in surfing opens Jaws, Cortes Bank, Mavericks and Dungeons.
- 2016 to 2021
Wave pools and the Olympics
Kelly Slater's Surf Ranch shows the world a perfect, repeatable wave. Surfing makes its Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020, and South Africa's Bianca Buitendag takes silver.
- Today
A global, local sport
Surfing is practised on every coast that has waves. The Championship Tour visits Pipeline, Bells, J-Bay, Teahupo'o and Trestles. The roots in he'e nalu, community, respect, reading the ocean, are stronger than ever.
Same ocean. Same conversation.
From an alaia in Waikiki to a thruster at Supertubes, every surfer alive is part of a line that runs back to the first person who stood up on a wave. Respect the energy.