surfing

/serr"fing/, n.

the act or sport of riding the surf, as on a surfboard. Also called surfriding.

[1915-20; SURF + -ING¹]

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Sport of riding breaking waves toward the shore, especially with a surfboard.

The sport originated prehistorically in the South Seas. In 1777 and 1778 Capt. James Cook first reported seeing surfers in Tahiti and on Oahu. In 1821 surfing was banned by missionaries who thought it immoral. It was revived in the 1920s by the Hawaiian swimmer Duke Kahanamoku (1890–1968). Today surfing is enjoyed on beaches with breakers throughout the world, and several international championships are held. The goal is to maneuver on the unbroken face of the wave, preferably as far back toward the curl ("tube") as possible. In addition to surfboards, surfers can use belly-boards, kneeboards, or kayaks, or they can bodysurf using no board at all.

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▪ water sport

Introduction

 sport of riding breaking waves (wave) toward the shore, especially by means of a surfboard.

History

      Surfing's roots lie in premodern Hawaii and Polynesia, where the sport was practiced by both men and women from all social strata from royalty to commoners. Early European explorers and travelers praised the skills of Hawaiian surfers, but 19th-century missionaries assigned to the islands disapproved of the “constant intermingling, without any restraint, of persons of both sexes” and banned the pastime. Surfing was practiced only sporadically in Hawaii by the end of the 19th century.

      In the early 20th century, however, concomitant with the development of Hawaii as a tourist destination, surfing underwent a revival, and the sport quickly spread to California and Australia. Key to this diffusion were the American writer Jack London (London, Jack) and the Hawaiian surfers George Freeth and Duke Kahanamoku (Kahanamoku, Duke Paoa). After visiting Waikiki, London published several accounts of surfing in popular American magazines; in 1907 the American industrialist Henry Huntington (Huntington, Henry E.) hired Freeth, whom he billed as the “man who can walk on water,” to help promote his new railway line to Redondo Beach. Surfing thus took hold in California. A few years later, after Kahanamoku won the 100-metre freestyle event at the 1912 Olympic Games, swimming officials from New South Wales invited him to Australia to demonstrate his swimming and surfing styles. In 1914 and 1915 Kahanamoku thrilled crowds in Sydney with his wave-riding skills, thus helping to establish the sport in Australia as well.

      Early board design impeded the development of surfing. The typical surfboard ridden by Kahanamoku's generation was solid wood, was 8–10 feet (2–3 metres) long, 24 inches (61 cm) wide, and 3 inches (8 cm) thick, and weighed 100 pounds (45 kg). Rudimentary designs and a lack of fins made the boards extremely difficult to maneuver. Most surfers simply pointed their craft shoreward and made no attempt at steering.

      In the 1930s American surfer Tom Blake attached plywood over crossbeams to produce a “hollow” board. He also added a fin under the tail, which enabled surfers to better steer their craft. Blake's primary aim was not to produce a more maneuverable wave-riding board; he wanted a faster board to compete in the then-popular paddling races. Nevertheless, Blake's lighter board, which weighed between 60 and 70 pounds (27 and 32 kg), proved much easier to ride in surf. New materials such as balsa wood, fibreglass, and polyurethane further revolutionized board design and manufacture in the 1940s, producing still more maneuverable wave-riding craft. Called “malibus,” for the California beach on which they were introduced, and weighing a mere 20 pounds (9 kg), these boards allowed surfers to “trim” (adjust their position and weight on the board to allow it to travel at the same speed as the breaking wave), “stall” (slow the board to allow the breaking wave to “catch up”), and change direction on the walls of breaking waves.

Equipment and techniques

      Contemporary surfboards are still made from polyurethane and fibreglass. However, they are shorter (6–6.5 feet long [1.8–2 metres]), narrower (17–19 inches [43–48 cm]), thinner (2 inches [5 cm]), and very light (5–6 pounds [2.3–2.7 kg]). Carefully shaped rails (edges of the board), noses, and tails, together with three fins, allow riders to move their craft freely around the wave and have transformed surfing into a gymnastic dance. Today the wave is the apparatus upon which surfers perform spectacular maneuvers such as “tailslides” (withdrawing the fins from the wave and allowing the board to slip down the face of the wave), “floaters” (“floating” the board along the top of a breaking wave), “reverses” (rapid changes of direction), 360s (turning the board through 360 degrees on the face of the wave), and “airs” (flying above the face of the wave).

Surfing culture

      Because they were lightweight, easy to transport, and easy to ride, malibus popularized surfing and sparked a unique, hedonistic subculture. This subculture originated in Southern California but spread around the world, from South Africa to Australia, by surf-film cinematographers, surf magazines, and the travels of the peripatetic California surfers. By the late 1960s a distinctly Australian way of surfing had emerged; based on more aggressive maneuvers performed on shorter boards, it quickly dominated and influenced the global surf culture.

      At the heart of this worldwide culture, which was loosely based on free-spirited beatnik philosophies of the 1950s, was the “surfari”—a wanderlust trip in search of perfect waves. This culture was reinforced by its own unique language: “like wow,” “daddy-o,” “strictly squaresville,” “dude.” “Surf's up!” meant the surf was high enough to ride; “Wipe out!” meant to fall off the board; and “Hang 10” meant surfing with all 10 toes over the nose of the board. There was also a “dress code” (T-shirts, striped Pendleton shirts, narrow white Levi's jeans, Ray-Ban sunglasses) and de rigueur bleached-blond hair and goatee. This surfing culture was predominantly male-oriented, with long-haired women in bikinis serving mostly as admirers on the periphery. The culture rapidly diffused into the mass consciousness of the baby-boomer generation, assisted by Hollywood surf films (romantic beach musicals and comedies: Gidget [1959], Ride the Wild Surf [1964]), surf music (a thundering guitar-based sound played as single-note riffs: Dick Dale's “Miserlou” [1962], the Chantays' “Pipeline” [1962], the Astronauts' “Baja” [1963]), “pure” surf films (“travelogs,” with footage of surfers riding waves: The Big Surf [1957], Slippery When Wet [1958], Surf Trek to Hawaii [1961], The Endless Summer [1964]), and specialized surfing magazines (Surfer, Surfing, Surfing World). The nonconformism of surfers did not endear them to the public, and social commentators branded these youths as itinerants, nomads, and wanderers and characterized surfing as an indolent, wasteful, selfish, and institutionally unanchored pastime.

Professional surfing

      Organized competitions helped to counter this negative image and to win surfing some social respectability. In 1953 the Waikiki Surf Club hosted the first international surfing championships for men and women at Makaha, Hawaii. This competition marked the official birth of the sport of surfing, with judges awarding points for length of ride, number of waves caught, skill, sportsmanship, and grace on the board. In 1964 the recently formed Australian Surfriders Association hosted the first world surfing championships at Sydney. Surfers formed the International Surfing Federation during the 1964 contest and the federation assumed responsibility for organizing world championships. (The International Surfing Association [ISA] superseded the federation in 1976.) In 1982 the General Association of International Sports Federations recognized the ISA as the world's governing body of surfing. Thirteen years later, in 1995, the International Olympic Committee granted the ISA provisional recognition. The IOC confirmed this recognition in 1997 and admitted the ISA into the Olympic movement.

      Competition, however, sits uneasily in surfing culture, as it is seen as antithetical to the surfers' independent quest. Within the counterculture of the late 1960s and early '70s, surfing competitions virtually collapsed, and in the mid-1970s the ISA canceled its world championships. Surfers said that competition symbolized excessive consumption and a material way of life. They preferred the creativity and self-expression of “soul-surfing”—riding waves purely for the purpose of communing with nature. Although it was a passing phase, the counterculture, ironically, contributed to the development of professional surfing, for the “work-is-play” philosophy of the counterculture encouraged a group of perspicacious surfers to establish a professional circuit. In 1976 they formed the Association of Surfing Professionals (a member of the ISA) to coordinate competitions. Professional surfers earn money from the prizes awarded at competitions, from sponsorship by surfing-equipment manufacturers and retailers, or from performing as “editorial surfers” in photo or video sessions showing them surfing in beautiful or interesting locales.

      Professional surfing has not captured the public's interest and has struggled to secure sponsors. Its tournaments vary in number, location, and sponsorship every year. For example, the Triple Crown of surfing—three events held in the 1990s at the end of the winter season in Hawaii—were deleted from the calendar by 2001. Even the surfing industry, currently worth an estimated $5 billion per annum, limits its financial backing of, and enthusiasm for, the professional circuit. The industry knows that any strong show of support could alienate the grassroots surfers who buy their products and generate the profits and who are vitriolic in their opposition to competition. Last, surfing culture affords more prestige to big-wave riders than to those who win professional contests. Some noncompetitive surfers are able to garner as much or more prestige from their peers than do professionals. This highlights one of the great paradoxes of surfing culture: the desire to surf alone (and to conceal the locations of good waves) while simultaneously being “seen.” Photographers, usually invited to watch these secret surf sessions, record the feats, which are then shown in magazines and on videos.

Recent trends

      Women competing in professional surfing is a relatively new phenomenon. There were originally so few women surfers that often they would compete in men's events, and this continued well into the 1970s. A women's professional circuit began in 1977, but not until the mid-1990s did women take up surfing in large numbers. The key date is 1995, and four factors explain the sudden influx. First was the appearance of a particularly dynamic and aggressive female surfer, Lisa Andersen, from the United States. Andersen won four women's world titles (1994, '95, '96, and '97). Second, professional women surfers finally resolved a long-standing debate over the best surfing style for women. In short, they agreed that they had to surf aggressively like men. Andersen was influential in this trend. Third, in an effort to increase their markets, sporting-goods manufacturers began producing dedicated surfing gear for women, in particular a “board-short” specifically designed to fit women; this freed women from the bikini—an inappropriate and nonfunctional type of surfing attire. Fourth, malibu boards made a comeback, making it easier for beginners to learn to surf.

      The introduction of jet-skis, too, has radically redefined big-wave riding. First, it allowed surfers to handle waves that were more than 30 feet (9 metres) tall. (At that height the water flowing up the face of the wave pushes the surfer back, making it impossible to catch a wave over 30 feet without motorized assistance.) Second, it introduced partnerships and teamwork to surfing, which has traditionally been a fiercely individualist activity. The sport is known as tow-in surfing, as the big-wave riders are towed, like water skiers, into the massive 40-foot (12-metre) waves that break on Hawaii's outer reefs.

      While Hawaii remains the spiritual home of surfing, surfers appear wherever waves break, from Norway to the Antarctic, from the Mediterranean Sea to Lake Michigan.

Douglas G. Booth

Additional Reading

Histories of surfing include Ben Finney and James D. Houston, Surfing: A History of the Ancient Hawaiian Sport, rev. ed. (1996); and Nat Young, Craig McGregor, and Rod Holmes, The History of Surfing, rev. ed. (1994). Sources approaching surfing from a more cultural perspective are Drew Kampion, Stoked: A History of Surf Culture (1997); Ricky Grigg, Big Surf, Deep Dives, and the Islands: My Life in the Ocean (1998); John Grissim, Pure Stoke (1982); Leonard Lueras, Surfing: The Ultimate Pleasure (1984); Matt Warshaw, Maverick's: The Story of Big-Wave Surfing (2000); John Irwin “Surfing: The Natural History of an Urban Scene,” Urban Life and Culture, 2(2):131–160 (1973); and Bruce Jenkins, North Shore Chronicles: Big-Wave Surfing in Hawaii, rev. ed. (1999).Douglas G. Booth

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