LEGENDARY SURFERS

Thursday, May 28, 2026

WWII SoCal Surfers

Aloha and Welcome to this chapter on some of the surfers riding waves in Southern California during World War II.

The Second World War put surfing in a kind of suspended animation. There were guys surfing when they could, but most everyone was involved in the war effort on some level and the war took everyone’s time – one way or the other. Here are some surfers who still managed to surf during wartime in Southern California; most of the recollections by legendary surfer, photographer and dentist Don James:

“Convertible” Larry

“Convertible Larry was a veritable unsolved mystery,” Don James wrote of a San Onofre regular during the summer of 1942. “On Friday nights he’d arrive at San Onofre driving a LaSalle convertible and wearing a business suit. No one was sure what Larry was involved with back in the city during the week, but his hedonist orientation on the weekends was unparalleled. One day we found out that his car trunk was filled with Leica cameras and Leitz lenses. All of this equipment was sitting in velvet-lined boxes and was worth a fortune. Stuff from the German Leitz factory was rare before the conflict and during the war nobody wanted to be anywhere near it. Larry never was seen taking a picture, and he professed to know nothing about photography. It was a sign of the times that false rumors began to circulate that Convertible Larry was a Nazi spy.”[1]

Freddy Zehndar

“Freddy was an impressive character who used to execute flat swan dives [into the surf]… in a couple of inches of water, to amaze the young lovelies,” recalled Don James. “He was an Olympic team swimmer during the 1920s, and he later worked as the head stunt diver on the [1970s] movie Jaws.”[2]

“Freddy Zehndar… was a newsreel cameraman for the Fox Movietone News in 1928, and he filmed the Panay incident, where the U.S. Marines fired upon a Chinese vessel. The resulting furor almost started a war. The Hollywood theatrical film The Sandpebbles was based upon the occurrence.” [3]

Jack Quigg

“Jack Quigg… was a superlative athlete,” wrote Don James. “Once at UCLA, Quigg was goofing around in the broad jump pit, when a football flew over from the adjacent field where the varsity team was working out. Jack was barefooted, and he kicked the ball in a perfect high spiral arc all the way to the end of the other field. It was a magnificent feat. The head coach came running over immediately and asked Quigg to come out and join the squad. Jack ignored the coach and uttered some undecipherable grunt and walked away. The coach was quite taken aback; here was this incredible prospect who wouldn’t even acknowledge his offer. We used to call Quigg ‘Indian Jack’ because he was so stoic; he never said much of anything.”[4]

Jackie Coogan

“Jackie Coogan was an actor who’d earned a fortune as a child star,” wrote Don James. “As an adult he had to sue his parents for misappropriation of his funds. He didn’t receive a lot, but because of his case, there are now laws protecting minors’ wages. Coogan was relatively philosophical about the fiasco, and he was able to live in the Malibu Colony, where he surfed regularly. Back then, Malibu Point was fenced off and there was no public access. Since Jackie’s house in the Colony was just a couple of hundred feet from the best waves in the world, he considered himself to be extremely fortunate. Coogan let us come up to his house and surf, and he remained a great guy despite the emotional rollercoaster he was on. In later years, when Jackie’s career had resurrected itself and he had become a highly recognizable star… we would laugh about those quiet times in the Colony…”[5]

“Jackie used to bring his wife, [Hollywood star] Betty Grable, with him to San Onofre, and she would complain constantly, saying things like ‘get me off this filthy beach.’ We were never sure what reception might await us when we walked through the couple’s Malibu Colony house on our way to Surfrider Beach. One day Coogan had sold all of Grable’s furniture without her permission and then used the proceeds to purchase a new Mercury convertible. Jackie’s transgression instigated a tremendous argument. He came out in the water to surf and said, ‘Well, boys, it looks like I’m going to have some extra time on my hands; I think I’ll chrome my new motor.’ I never saw Betty again,” wrote Don James, “except as a pin-up on other sailor’s foot lockers.”[6]

Eddie McBride

“McBride was a surveyor who bought a new Dodge every year on the second of January, like clockwork,” recalled Don James. “He possessed a lucrative contract from the federal government’s Geological Survey to take depth soundings along the entire coast. The fact that Eddie rowed a dory eight hours a day, five days a week, during the course of his work also meant that he was in phenomenal physical condition.[7]

Mary Kerwin Reihl (1912-2004)

Mary (Kerwin) Reihl – or “Mimi” as she was better known to her family and friends – was an early California female surfer. Born in 1912, Mary Kerwin was among the first generation of children from her family to be born and raised in Hermosa Beach. Her grand uncle, Bernard “Ben” Hiss, was an early real estate entrepreneur in the South Bay area, who was on the original Board of Trustees that was responsible for incorporation of the City of Hermosa Beach in 1907. Her father, John Kerwin, emigrated from Ireland in 1905. After meeting Mary Emma Hiss in Hermosa and then marrying her, he started the family bakery business in Hermosa Beach in 1910.

Mary/Mimi was the second of nine children born at the family residence and bakery business on Pier Avenue, less than a half block from the beach. “You could spit out the window at the water, and that was our playground,” recalled Mimi’s brother Ted. She attended Ocean View School in Hermosa Beach, which was located at the crest of the sand dunes, near the current location of Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Monterrey Boulevard. Although the little town of Hermosa Beach was growing rapidly at the time, the town center and surrounding residential area essentially consisted of an expanse of sand that was the landward extension of the adjoining beach area. With the ocean as a backyard, it was only natural that Mary and her siblings would get into the ocean. She was a natural athlete, and although she was generally the only female surfing her home break, she didn’t feel particularly special or unique because that was just one of the family activities when you lived at the beach.

“We were born and raised with our feet in the ocean, all nine of us,” said Mimi’s sister Emma Halibrand. As kids, Ted Kerwin recalled, they rode waves on everything from belly boards made of scrap lumber to discarded wooden ironing boards before progressing to much larger and heavier paddleboards and solid-wood surfboards.

Mary graduated from Redondo Union High School in 1931, and married Ward Reihl, a Southern California Gas Company employee, three years later at Saint James Church in Redondo Beach.

In 1934, Mimi’s older brother John founded the Hermosa Beach Surfing Club, whose 14 original members included their brothers Joe, Jim, Fred and Ted. Mary, however, could not join. It was a strictly male organization, although she represented the club in contests.

When Riehl started surfing in the 1930s, the sight of a woman riding the waves was a rarity. “There were very, very few women surfers,” said Ted Kerwin. “It wasn’t the thing to do for many women.”

“She was the best I saw at that time, which wasn’t really that earth shaking,” said Mimi’s other surviving brother, Jim Kerwin, a resident of Oak View, near Ojai. “She just rode straight in; there were no fancy maneuvers like they do today.”

The gregarious Riehl -- “I always called her Molly-O because she was a typical Irish gal,” said brother Ted, adding that she loved all sports and was an avid tennis player. “She was in the middle of everything.”

Mary, her sister Emma and a few of the other local ladies represented Hermosa Beach in the women’s division of the surfing and paddling competitions during the 1930s and early 1940s. Although Mary and Ward’s daughter, Joan, was born in 1936, Mary continued to represent Hermosa Beach, and won the prestigious Pacific Coast Surfing Championship that was held in Long Beach in 1939.

Jim Kerwin still has the 12-foot, 65-pound paddleboard he made out of pine and quarter-inch plywood for Mimi in 1939. It’s the same board she used to win the Pacific Coast Surfing Championship in Long Beach. She also competed in paddleboarding, placing first in the women’s division for the quarter-mile 1939 national paddleboard championship, with a time of four minutes, 32 seconds.

Mary’s second child, Robert, was born in 1941, shortly before the departure of most surfers, including her five brothers, to serve during World War II. With the attention of the country directed to the war, Mary’s affection and family ties to the beach continued. Her children and family became her primary focus and her surfing career was relegated to a past of pleasant memories.

Mary/Mimi continued to surf after her two children were born, but gave it up after World War II. Her nephew, Scott Kerwin, said that when quizzed about her early surfing days at family reunions, his aunt wasn’t much interested in the subject. “She was more interested in what was going on now than what was going on in the past,” he said.

Mary remained a “kid at heart” throughout her long life, and is remembered as never being far from a good time, which combined to make her a favorite with the younger generations of her large family and extended family.

In recognition of her “pioneer” status in the sport of surfing in Hermosa Beach, Mary was inducted into the Hermosa Beach Surfers Walk of Fame in March 2003, along with four of her brothers. At the time, Mimi was too ill to attend the ceremony, but Ted Kerwin said, “she thought it was fantastic.”

Mary/Mimi Kerwin Riehl passed away at the age of 91, on March 16, 2004.[8]

Still Others

There were other surfers around during World War II who had either achieved legendary status – like Pete Peterson – or would become – like Dave Rochlen:

“Nobody loved the ocean better than I did,” declared Rochlen in an interview done in the early 1960s. While serving in the U.S. Navy, “All through the war I slept on top of the deck with my fins in my pack and my arm through the pack straps. I figured if the ship got blown up, at least I might have a chance. All I want is half a chance – I might be able to last longer with fins – might even be able to take a couple of guys with me.”[9]

Manhattan Beach local Dale Velzy joined the Merchant Marines. At one point, while stationed in Guam, Velzy scrounged up some plywood and built a hollow paddleboard/surfboard. He paddled and rode it in Guam, Malaysia and Australia. On one memorable night of darts, beer and Aussie “sheilas,” Velzy gave the board away.[10]

Another surfer wave-born in the 1930s and, like Velzy, would end up making a significant contribution to surfing was Jack Quigg’s younger brother Joe. Although not dramatic, Joe Quigg’s leave from military duty in the summer of 1944 put Quigg in contact with some of the key surfers who would end up affecting not only him but most all California surfers by the early 1950s:

“I was in the Navy during the war,” retold Quigg, “and I came home to Santa Monica on leave that year. Right after I got home, I drove up to Malibu to surf, and though the waves were good that day, there were only three guys out. One was a guy with a withered arm named Bob Simmons, and the other two were kids named Buzzy Trent and Matt Kivlin.”[11]

Matt Kivlin had just been introduced to surfing by the husband of his mom’s sister. Preston “Pete” Peterson introduced the 14 year-old from Santa Monica to the wonders of Malibu on July 2, 1944.[12]

Peterson’s doings are especially worth noting. One instance was documented by Craig Stecyk, about September 6, 1944:

“A ruler edged rolling seven foot south caresses the empty point [Malibu]. Pete Peterson gazes longingly at the surf through the barbed wire enclosure which surrounds the Malibu Point Coast Guard facility. This government base is guarded 24 hours a day and impenetrable. Peterson resolves to go elsewhere and turns to leave when he spies a lone surfer eagerly running up the point. Dale Velzy, the patriot, has somehow convinced the base commander to honor his merchant seaman’s papers as an access pass to the surf. Pete is incensed... after all, at least when Don Grannis surfed there he was stationed there... but this was an outrage. Peterson waves at Velzy and leaves laughing, admiring the Hawk’s superior artistry. Following his go-out, Dale manages to enjoy a sumptuous repast of roast beef and ice tea, courtesy of the base mess hall. Not bad in an era of severe rationing.”[13]

In recalling his beginnings as a surfer and a shaper, Velzy said, “One of the first surfboards I ever used belonged to someone I didn’t even know. I found it sitting along the side of someone’s house on 6th Street in Hermosa Beach. I used it every day one summer, until my dad, who was a lifeguard at Hermosa, agreed to help me make my own board.

“We lived next door to Hoppy Swarts and Leroy Grannis, two surfers from the thirties. My dad made my first board off the design of their boards. I was eight or nine at the time. Not long after he’d made it, I ran into the pier on it and split it down the center. In those days, this would happen quite a bit. We’d just glue it back together, bolt it and put a cork in over the bolt. After you broke these boards a few times, they got a little waterlogged, so you’d have to bring them in and reshape them. That’s what got me started shaping and designing boards. I became real interested in design, in making the boards work better, according to a person’s weight and style.

“Eventually, other guys started asking me to make changes to their boards. We didn’t have fiberglass then. We didn’t even varnish the boards. We’d get splinters, but we’d just take them out and keep surfing. It was a while before my dad would loan me his good tools to try my hand at shaping balsa wood. My best board was the second redwood I made for myself. I was in the Merchant Marines, and went off to the war in ‘44. I left my board with a friend, Ed Edgar, and told him that he was the only person who could ride it while I was gone. I came home to find out that someone had stolen the board.

“It took a lot of finesse to ride those old redwoods. They were like old Cadillacs on a freeway – a real smooth ride, and everyone got out of your way.”[14]

ENDIT

Footnotes

[8] SurferMag Bulletin Board, 3/28/2004.

[10] Young, 1983, 1987, p. 73.

[11] Lueras, 1984, p. 111. Joe Quigg.

[12] Stecyk, “Humaliwu,” 1992, p. 36.

[13] Surfer, Volume 33, Number 12. Researched by C.R. Stecyk, p. 40.

Tuesday, May 19, 2026

World War II

Duke Kahanamoku put it succinctly: “World War II cramped surfing’s style for long, too long.” In this LEGENDARY SURFERS chapter we take a little look at those days.

AI generated image

The surfing decade of the 1930s ended with the United States entry into World War II, following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.[1]

The war was already well underway, having officially begun in Europe in September 1939. The Japanese and Chinese had been at war well before then.

World War II was a global war that more or less lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved most of the world’s nations, including all the great powers of the time that subsequently formed two opposing military alliances known as the Allies and the Axis. The Second World War was the most widespread war in human history, with more than 100 million people serving in military units. In a state of “total war,” the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by significant events involving the mass death of civilians – including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare – it resulted in 50 million to over 70 million people killed. These deaths make World War II by far the deadliest conflict in all of human history.[2]

From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany formed the Axis alliance with Italy, conquering or subduing much of continental Europe. In the early stages of WWII, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories between themselves of their European neighbors, including Poland.

At this point, the United Kingdom, with its empire and Commonwealth, remained the only major Allied force continuing the fight against the Axis, with battles taking place in North Africa as well as the long-running Battle of the Atlantic. In June 1941, the European Axis launched an invasion on their former ally the Soviet Union, giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which tied down the major part of the Axis’ military forces for the rest of the war. In December 1941, Japan joined the Axis and attacked the United States and European territories in the Pacific Ocean, quickly conquering much of the West Pacific.[3]

“In 1940, going into ‘41,” Palos Verdes Surfing Club member and San Onofre regular E.J. Oshier back-storied, “it more and more looked like there’d be a war [involving the USA].”

“There was a couple of guys from Oakland that had started surfing, that I could go down with [to Santa Cruz]. They never got very good, but they were very good friends of mine. They decided they were going to enlist in the National Guard. At that time, you serve a year in the National Guard and you could get out and you’d served your time, right? Except it wasn’t right (laughs). I thought, that’s a good idea. I’ll get in with one night a week with the National Guard. So, I did that and everything was going fine until December 7, 1941,” the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, outside of Honolulu, Oahu.

“That day… was a beautiful day at Santa Cruz,” E.J. remembered. “I was out at the Rivermouth, where the San Lorenzo River empties out. There’s pictures of me in Doc Ball’s book taken at the Rivermouth.” Back in those days, the Rivermouth could get really good.

“Oh, it was phenomenal!” praised E.J. “It was absolutely machine waves. In the winter, a big sand bar would build up off the San Lorenzo River, you know, sort of a narrow triangle and the waves would hit the peak of that triangle, out there at a good distance offshore and start to build. The shoulders would just taper off magnificently, like they were right out of a machine. There’d usually be a set of 3 or 4 waves, then a lull. You absolutely couldn’t go wrong.

“I was out there having a wonderful time. I surfed a few hours and one wave I took close to the point. Some guy ran over and say, ‘Hey! You better get out of there and get back to your car and go back to San Louie Obispo –” where the National Guard armory was – “The Japs just bombed Pearl Harbor! Everybody gotta get back to their camps!’ Well, there went my ‘year.’ It ended-up five years in the army instead of one year [in the National Guard],” E. J. laughed about it. “I was surfing the day they bombed Pearl Harbor.”

“… It was such a good day. The sun was out, it was warm, and the waves were beautiful. And that was the last time I surfed Santa Cruz. Never had an opportunity to surf it, again. But, I had a lot of good surf there [during those two years].”[4]

Another Palos Verdes Surfing Club member, Leroy “Granny” Grannis remembered the day well, also:

“We were down at the beach on December 7 of 1941. A whole bunch of us down there, right next to Hermosa Pier. I don’t know what we were doing; playing volleyball or something. All of a sudden – somebody had a radio – and we heard over the radio that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor and we all looked at each other and we knew that nothing would ever be the same. Eventually, just about all of us ended up in one branch [of the armed forces] or another.”[5]

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, what had been the United States’ material and psychological support to counter worldwide imperialism and fascism turned into an active alliance against the Axis – Germany, Japan and Italy. Suddenly, as writer Leonard Lueras put it, “most of the beach boys who had hitherto spent their every bit of free time on the blue became, by Executive Order, boys in blue.”[6]

U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Declaration of War speech to Congress:

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan…”

The United States had been at peace with Japan and, “at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.

“It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

“The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. “Very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

“Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island. This morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

“Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation. As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

“Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

“I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the utmost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

"Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

“With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounded determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.

“I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December seventh, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”

World War II had profound effects on all of American society. As Solberg and Morris wrote in A People’s Heritage, “Although the United States was never totally mobilized for war, World War II produced far greater government intervention in the nation’s economic and social affairs than during World War I or the depression. As a result, the years 1941-45 altered radically the country’s self-image, restoring the self-confidence Americans had felt before the Crash. The years between Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima were a time of ferment leading to new values for the American people economically, socially, and in their technological outlook.”[7]

“World War II cramped surfing’s style for long, too long,” Duke Kahanamoku told his biographer, Joe Brennan. “Most all of the able-bodied young men who had been contributing to the fast development of the sport wound up in the military service or in defense plants. It was a time of vacuum for surfing.”[8]

“The ocean itself became off-limits to civilians,” wrote surf writer Craig Stecyk, “as many [surf spots]… were sealed off in the name of defense. Malibu became a Coast Guard base. Point Dume was dynamited and occupied by military observers. San Onofre beach was pressed into duty as a Marine training area. Panic ruled the coast. The Elwood oil field near Santa Barbara was shelled by a Japanese submarine. Another marauding coastal raider surfaced off Ocean Park.”[9]

Concertina wire strung along Waikiki beach and other beaches of Hawai’i and California symbolized the shutdown surfing suffered during the ensuing war years. Since surfing was considered impractical and self-indulgent and most surfers were in the armed services -- mostly the Navy -- no surf contests were held during the war years of 1941-1945.[10]

In one of the stranger chapters of surfing’s history, it was toward the end of the war that surfboards were seriously considered for use as an instrument to advance military objectives.

After the United States Marines suffered over 50% casualties in the taking of Iwo Jima in the summer of 1945, the Navy brought several Naval Combat Demolition (NCD) teams to Camp Pendleton to learn how to use surfboards. It has been suggested that the Navy was, in part, inspired by Gene “Tarzan” Smith’s paddling between the Hawaiian Islands on his paddleboard, unassisted.

Hot Curl surfer Fran Heath credited his fellow Hot Curler John Kelly with the idea of using surfboards militarily. Both became members of an Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) during the war. “We considered using surfboards for reconnaissance missions,” recalled Fran. “That was Kelly’s idea. But, boards are too easily spotted from low-flying aircraft and there’s no protection if you’re spotted, so that idea was scrapped.”[11]

Another idea that ended up with surfers involved was the formation of Naval Combat Demolition teams. These were different from the UDT’s which were more sabotage/espionage oriented. The NCDs were “created when the Navy realized how many casualties were being caused by landing craft grounding on unchartered reefs and other underwater obstructions during Pacific island invasions.”

The NCD teams consisted of 30 highly trained frogmen. The job of the NCDs was “to swim into the beaches of Japanese-held islands in the dead of night, reconnoiter the reefs and other obstructions, chart them or blow them up and swim back to their ship or submarine before the sun came up. The NCD teams never gained the fame enjoyed by the Navy’s Underwater Demolition Teams, the parent of today’s Navy Seals. Perhaps the reason for this is the NCD teams spent most of their time swimming, whereas the UDT’s, like the Seals, did some of their best work above the high tide mark.”[12]

“The Navy perfected the NCD surfboard in the summer of 1945,” Larry Kooperman documented. “Its first mission was to be reconnaissance off the coast of Japan in preparation for the invasion of the Japanese homeland by units of the United States military. These Warboards were hollow wooden surfboards built of a thin layer of redwood over a wooden frame. They were about 14 feet long and weighed about 60 pounds. They were camouflaged so as to be almost invisible in the night-dark water. Built into these boards, between the frames, was a depth sounder. Each board was to be equipped with a two-way radio that was used to relay the depth sounder’s readings to the mother ship.”[13]

In late summer 1945, the NCD teams were “ready to paddle to war.” However, the atomic bomb drop on Hiroshima on August 6th and on Nagasaki three days later preempted the need of the Warboards and they were never used operationally.[14]

A more lasting war technology that was to affect surfing profoundly was the development of the neoprene wetsuit. According to Bev Morgan, the neoprene wetsuit was invented by Hugh Bradner for use by Underwater Demolition Teams during World War II.[15]

With masks, fins and now wetsuits, underwater sabotage became a reality. Although short-lived, another technological advance was the Lambertson Lung. This “most primitive self-contained rig,” as Fran Heath put it, “enabled you to swim underwater without leaving the telltale string of bubbles typical to the scuba.”[16]

And then there was fiberglass and resin...

ENDIT

Footnotes

[1] Gault-Williams, LEGENDARY SURFERS, Volume 3: The 1930s.

[2] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II

[3] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II

[4] Gault-Williams, Malcolm. Interview with E. J. Oshier, October 10, 1998.

[5] See LEGENDARY SURFERS and search

Search For: Granny Granstrom at LS.

[8] Kahanamoku, 1968, p. 45.

[10] Lueras, 1984, p. 109 and 111.

[11] Gault-Williams, Malcolm. “Legends of the Hot Curl.” Fran Heath quoted.

[12] Kooperman, Larry. “Wave Warriors of the Navy,” The Surfer’s Journal, Volume 1, Number 2, Summer 1992.

[13] Kooperman, 1992.

[14] Kooperman, 1992. These may have been what Fran Heath referred to as “Kelly’s idea.” See Chapter 12, “Legends of the Hot Curl.”

[15] The Surfer’s Journal, “Undercurrents,” Volume 1, Number 3, 1992, p. 125.

[16] Gault-Williams, Malcolm. “Legends of the Hot Curl.” Fran Heath quoted.

Friday, May 8, 2026

Wally Froiseth (1919-2015)

Aloha and Welcome to this chapter in the LEGENDARY SURFERS series, on Hot Curl surfer Wally Froiseth.

Media:

The Surfer's Journal has made the printed copy of my original 1996 article on Wally publicly available at:

https://share.google/eB5BMf73iBusCZthn

Wallace “Wally” Froiseth was born in Los Angeles on December 21, 1919. His family came to The Islands in 1925. “Summertime, back in the ‘20s,” Wally told me, “my father would drop us off down Waikiki and, you know, we’d be around the beach all day; surf and what not. Then, he’d come home from work, pick us up in the evening and bring us back to where we lived in Kahala.

“I had three brothers. One real brother and two, you know, step brothers that were my father’s from a previous marriage. So, there were four of us boys in the family at that time.”[1]

The Froiseths surfed with other kids living in and near Kahala; including Fran Heath and John Kelly. “Around the time we were in high school,” Wally recalled, “we used to paddle from John’s house at Black Point all the way around Diamond Head to Waikiki. Sometimes, after surfing, we’d paddle back. Sometimes we’d leave our boards on the beach and get home however we could, and have our parents pick ‘em up later.”[2]

Speaking of the surfers he hung with and his group being outside both the Outrigger Canoe Club and Hui Nalu groups of surfers, Wally recalled to Australian champion surfer Nat Young that, “We were what was known as the ‘Tavern Boys’ or the ‘Empty Lot Boys’ really. We started right next to Prince Kuhio’s beach home on Waikiki; they had a big empty lot with this big Banyon tree there... and we used to keep our boards stored inside the tree roots when we went home. Next day we’d come down, go surfing all day, and put our boards back there. We were kind of on the lower end of the beach [hierarchy], so to speak. At that time we knew about every board on the island and everybody that surfed. There were just the beach boys, a few others.”[3]

Competition was not a major focus: “People would just surf. Fellows like Hawkshaw and the Big Rock and Duke would do crazy stunts, you know, sit on a board with a chair and play ukulele, standing on their heads, that kind of old-time thing. When I was a kid these beach boys would take us out to surf tandem, when the waves got big; those of us who were not afraid. So of course I got kind of enthused about big surf, larger and larger waves for more of a challenge, because in those days you just caught the wave and slid a little angle, you couldn’t do what you can with a modern board.”[4]

“When I was real small,” Wally said, “Akamine, Ernest Enos and those guys – they’d take me out tandem, you know. They’d take me out First Break, eh? Small, little guy – probably before I did much surfing of my own. I never was the kind of guy to scream and holler and all that kind of stuff. I was too goddamned scared... they used to pick me all the time.”[5]

“As we grew up, we used to rent boards from the old Tavern; 50 cents-a-day, 25 cents-a-day kind of thing. And, then we finally got some boards of our own. We were able to buy or somebody gave us some.

“My first one I got given to me by a fella by the name of Allan Wilcox. He lived in Kahala and was a good friend of my family’s. He had a son and the son brought somebody down from the Coast [California]0; a school buddy. One of the fellas that started the Hui Nalu[6] club had made two boards for he and his friend. When the boy went back to the Coast, Allan Wilcox saw that I was really into big surfing. So, he gave me that board. After that, we surfed all around Kahala, Diamond Head, Black Point and Waikiki. Every place.”[7]

“What age were you?”

“Eight, 9 or 10; something like that.

“I don’t know. I seemed to take to it real heavy. Even my brothers – my real brother and I, we progressed up to Castle, but my other brothers weren’t that interested in it for some reason. They surfed all right; Queens, around that area. But, my brother and I weren’t satisfied with that. Rocky’s, Cunha’s – you know – bigger surf like Public Baths and then Castle.

“I was surfing Castle when I was, like, 11 years-old. I remember my brother kind of scolding me, because I went a little faster [further sooner] than he did. He was always mad because he was scared for my safety.

“What happened with me – I went out Castle to look at it. That’s how I started going out there. I went out to look at the waves and it’s so big, it fascinated me. You know what I mean? And so, then, what happened is – I can remember it real vividly – I got caught on a couple of sets; just pounded. And, then I was sitting out there after I got my board and everything and I figured, ‘Well, if I can take the pounding, why can’t I ride ‘em?’ So, I started riding ‘em. And I was so jazzed when I came home. My brother was all mad at me. So, then he started coming out, too…”

One of the most influential surfers in Wally’s life was Tom Blake.

“Tom Blake – he and I were really good friends; my brother and him, especially.” Wally spoke fondly of surfing’s first great innovator; inventor of the hollow board, the skeg, sailboard and more. “In fact, he gave me one of those – he made 3 aluminum skegs down at the old Honolulu Ironworks down there. He gave one to Gene Smith – ‘Tarzan,’ they used to call him – one to me and kept one for himself.”[8]

At this point Wally looked at me kinda funny and then started talking about an article I had written on Tom Blake and his development of the hollow board. Without coming down on me, Wally wanted me to know a very important point about Blake’s early hollow boards:

“Tom Blake didn’t actually make those hollow boards down there [before they were manufactured in the early 1930s]. This guy Abel Gomes made the boards. He was a woodworker. Tom wasn’t that much of a woodworker. But, he had the ideas, you know. He knew what he wanted.

“Abel Gomes worked for a place they called Honolulu Sash and Door and they made all this kind of stuff. He was an expert carpenter and woodworker. He made the boards for Tom Blake – of course, to Tom Blake’s calculations – maybe all of them weren’t framed [chambered].”[9]

Getting back to Blake, Wally added:

“And he put the first sail on a surfboard... Somebody in Germany tried to patent that. The lawyers came down here and they’re asking me if I know anything and I told ‘em, ‘Yeah, I got pictures. I’ll show ya the first board with a sail on it. This guy wasn’t the first; Tom Blake was.’

“Turns out –” Wally’s voice rises when he talks of his friends “— look at these jet skis, man! That’s a takeoff on Tom Blake’s concept of a motorized surfboard, which he predicted would be the wave of the future. The only thing was, they just didn’t have the jet deal perfected back then.”[10]

“What about other surfers you looked up to?” I asked him.

“Oh, ah... a guy by the name of Ernest Enos. Like I say, we had nicknames. His was ‘Snot.’ Everybody called him Snot.” Wally caught my eye and added, not entirely convincingly, “I don’t know why...

“Another was a fellow by the name of Ox Keaulana – big guy. Of course, the Wili Wili brothers and, you know, Duke and all his brothers – they were all big on the scene; Akong Pang, Joe Pang’s uncle. Blue Makua was in our group. Steamboat Makuaha, senior: I kind of looked up to him... those guys ruled the beach.

“Blue and I and all of us kids – when they had that jetty going out, you know, that walkway from Moana – we used to – wise kids and all – we’d go surf in between the piles and all that kind of stuff. Steamboat come along: ‘I told you kids, get outta dere,’ slap us in the head. You know, he was afraid we’d get hurt, cuz there were barnacles on the pilings. You could get hurt. Young kids, though, would do it.

“Those guys really took care of us. A Japanese guy, one of the few Japanese guys at that time – probably the only one who surfed – was a guy by the name of Akamine. He used to spin the solid board around, you know; 3-60. No skeg, flat bottom. It was easy to do, but, we [young kids] couldn’t do it.”[11]

“What about Dad Center?” I asked him.

“I got beautiful pictures of him.” Wally pulled aside an older-than-the-rest photo album.

“He was one of the guys who started the Outrigger Canoe Club, you know. That was before my time, but Dudie and the others... Dudie Miller and those guys got the canoe clubs going. Hui Nalu was more the local Hawaiian group. It was started to give the Outrigger some competition. Outrigger was more the haole group...”[12]

“Another guy, Buddy Adolphsen. He made our team pretty famous later on for patrolling the North Shore. We went to school together and all that kind of stuff. He went into the police department. When he retired, he wouldn’t quit patrolling the North Shore and rescuing guys, just like he had when he was younger.[13]

“Joe Pang was another guy who surfed with us and there was another kid who was kind of in the group – Henry Best... He lived down Kahala...”[14]

“When did ‘The Empty Lot’ gang start?”

“Well, when we were living down Kahala. See, Fran lived right next door to us – small kid time. John Kelly lived at Black Point.

“You know how kids are – you know every body in the neighborhood. You know where there’s any other kids around. You look for ‘em... and we went to school together...

“At that time, every surfer knew every other surfer. And, not only every other surfer, they knew every other surfboard. They knew exactly who owned the board. There were boards with initials and names and all kinds a crazy stuff and everybody had their own design.

“If they didn’t know you by your birth name, they knew you by your nickname. Everybody had a nickname. A lot of people knew somebody only by their nickname. For many, many years – and to this day, even – some people never really knew that my brother was my brother. Just thought he was my pal, because we went every place together. He and I were kind of an odd brother thing. We liked each other a lot. Most brothers, you know, they don’t...”[15]

Wally had earlier mentioned the brotherhood that existed amongst the Empty Lot Boys and I asked him to elaborate on that.

“Like I say, you knew you’d do anything to help the guys. We were really close. It was sort of a – it wasn’t a closed group. I mean, guys would come in, but it was a closed group in the sense that everybody who was tight in that group was really devoted to surfing. Surfing was practically their whole life.

“I mean, we talked about it, slept about it, dreamt about it, ate it – everything!

“We used to call it ‘surf drunk.’ There was not that many guys who were surf drunk, but we were. Guys came in – some of ‘em got to ride on big surf; like, Russ Takaki, you know; good friend... He’s one of the guys over here –” Wally pointed to a picture taken in the ‘40s. “— he surfed Castle too. He was one of the group. We clicked.

“In those days – not only us, but everybody else, too – we had kind of a code, you know; code of ethics, if you want to call it that. Where – like I say, if a guy loses his board and you’re in or around – anywhere’s near it – you’d pick it up for him. Like, one time, I tandemed Tom Blake from Castle into the edge of the reef at Public Baths on my solid board!

“That was one thing about the hollow boards [which Blake rode]; they kept going! Once caught by whitewater, it was gone!”[16]

I mentioned to Wally that I’d read that there had been some trouble between the Waikiki surfers in the Outrigger Canoe Club and the new Hot Curl surfers who had been known as the “Empty Lot Boys” and later were associated with the Waikiki Tavern when they got older.

“All the kids from the Outrigger used to tell all the girls our age, ‘Don’t fool around with those guys down at the Tavern. They’re bums and they’re, you know, not at your same level.’” Wally got slightly hot, recalling this. “That was the whole scene while I grew up.

“Even wahines, later on, when I was maybe out of high school – senior or something like that – wahines used to come and tell me, ‘Hey, you’re a nice guy! You’re all right.’ I’d say, ‘What do you mean?’

“‘These guys were telling me you guys were all ‘this and that’ and you’d do ‘this or that’ and all kind of stuff.

“We were a... I don’t think you could say lower club, but, we were, like, The Empty Lot Boys. Then there was The Tavern People, then Hui Nalu and then Outrigger. So, I guess the further down the beach, you got lower!

“As we got more into surfing, you know, we got better and got friends with The Tavern People. I never graduated from the Tavern area. That’s Queen Beach area, now. I was always there because all my friends were there. I grew up there. Everybody there was just a tight group. The only times you might mix with guys from Hui Nalu and some of the guys from the Outrigger, was night-time.

“The Tavern was a gathering spot. At night, guys would drink. Us young kids, though, we didn’t drink much. We’d just hang around. Guys would play music. We’d go follow them around at night. You know, like how they used to do in the old days. They’d take their instruments and walk down the street. If you’d hear a party, why, you’d go outside and play music and people would come out and everybody would be drinking and having a good time. That’s the way it was done...”[17]

“You think the guys at Outrigger were making those comments about you guys out of jealousy?”

“I always thought so, because we were progressing. We were doing things those other guys couldn’t do! We were the only guys that came out to bigger surf! You know, the word gets around in school. We’re talking about, ‘Hey, surfing Castle, big Public’s and Cunha’s, First Break...’ The rest of the kids, you know, they didn’t go out there. Very few went out in bigger surf. The bigger surf you go, the less guys go.

“So, without you doing anything, somebody’s talkin’ about you; you’re getting a reputation – deserved or not! That kind of thing. You don’t have to blow your own horn; somebody else is gonna blow it louder’n you can!”[18]

“Everybody used to be mad at us in Waikiki, cuz, you know, we’d pass them! Even Duke! We’d pass behind him, you know! And even Tom Blake, for awhile. I mean, the hollow board was all right, but then you put the fin on and it’s OK...”[19]

“Tell me about those big days in the ‘30s...”

“A couple of times, they had Honolulu Harbor closed,” Wally almost laughed. “We used to surf in front of Sand Island, too, you know. We were the only guys who surfed that area. I don’t know. The only guys we knew. But, with our Hot Curl boards, we could do a lot more – more challenge and we’d go lookin’ for it.

“There were days when Honolulu Harbor was total white water across; wave after wave. Waikiki – John Kelly and I were out one day. The biggest day I’ve ever seen Waikiki. We were out. We went out about 5 o’clock in the morning. It was real – you know, not quite light. The night before, we just talked all about this big storm comin’ and all kinda stuff. So, we got together. He and I went out and got out there... After we got out Castle – I mean, big Castle – waves just got bigger and bigger... We were lucky to get out. Every wave broke around Diamond Head as far as we could see to the harbor. Whew! Lot bigger than these –” Wally referred to the picture Blake had given him of a big day offshore from Waikiki. “He and I, we didn’t catch for about two hours! We just sat there; never picked up a wave, eh? We just – ‘Wow!’ You know; awed by the size.

“I gotta tell ya this story – Kelly comes up to me. ‘Wallace,’ he said, ‘let’s make a pact.’

“‘Whaddya mean?’

“‘Let’s make a pact and shake hands on it. The next wave comes – no matter what it is, we’re gonna take it.’ I said, ‘Oh, no!’

“I was scared enough as it was. But, knowing Kelly... I know if he goes inside and I don’t do this, he’s gonna say I was chicken. He’ll tell everybody. So, I can’t have that! So, I said, ‘OK.’ He and I shook hands; next wave came, we started on it.

“Kelly’s board hit a chop and he didn’t get down. But, my board – oh! Well, it was probably the smallest wave of the day, you know what I mean? I just went down, proned out and just – God! The white water about like as big as this room; can’t even breathe, sometimes, the white water was so massive. You just can’t breathe. You try’n keep your head up. So, I proned out and, by-and-by, it picked up again and going through Publics, I had it good – I mean, I had it great! At Cunha’s, I had to cut off, because, I mean – I could go on to shore. I could have made it all the way in, like everybody says Duke did, but who wants to go in there? I’d never get out again! And I was worried about Kelly.

“So, then I cut off when the whole thing broke and I stayed over there about an hour – just trying to paddle out. A big one would come and I’d get knocked in again and I kept doing that. Finally, I got out and I saw Kelly. And then we both lost our boards and that was about it. I don’t know of any wave he caught – neither one of us – outside of that one.”[20]

“Woody [Brown] told me they used to break bigger back then...”

“Yeah. I have a log –” Wally went over and found a small spiral bound note pad in his bureau. “— this is 1936... this is ‘39. This is the one I want to show you... This is the surf: Waikiki, ‘39. The first day, I was working – I’d just gotten out of high school and I was working downtown.” Wally stopped abruptly and placed the log book down. “I’ll tell you the whole story…

“At work, they told me, in January [‘39], ‘Take your vacation. You got a month’s vacation.’ So, I says, ‘OK, I’m going to take it in May.’ I figure, the surf in this area starts then.

“But, just as it happens, the month of May... all these dates, here... The first week of vacation: nothin’. I thought, ‘Oh, God, I took the wrong –’ You know, you can’t calculate and know when surf’s gonna come up that far in advance. Then, on the 17th, the waves got large. I mean, large. And then they got BIG and then they got huge and they got MONSTROUS! And, then it dropped down to huge, then it got big, then large and large and then big, then large, then big, then huge! It’s all one continuous storm! I haven’t seen anything like that before or since.”[21]

Wally described his log book rating scale: “M is monstrous, like August 25th of 1935... July 1928 and ‘29...” The scale went down from there; to huge, big, large and good.[22]

“At that time, the concept was a little different, you know. We wouldn’t do all these maneuvers that they do, today... That wasn’t being done... The guy that did that kind of surfing [cut backs, etc.], if any, was my brother. We had a name for it... I forget what it was... It slowly developed into hot dogging. My brother Gene could stand way back and fool around like that more than any of the rest of ‘em.

“But, most of the time, Fran and all the rest of us – we wanted to get across.”[23]

And, they wanted to share.

“You see, in the old days, part of the enjoyment with us was watching other people surf. Like, at Castle. After you catch a wave and you’re paddling back out and see somebody catch a wave and come across, we used to just sit up and just enjoy him enjoying that wave or making it, getting caught or whatever it was.

“A lot of things like... people surfing together, there, in those days – somebody lose his board, you’d always go and tow it out to him and, you know, there was always companionship, camaraderie or whatever you want to call it. It was just great...

“Tom Blake, sitting outside, waiting for a set, talking all kinds – all these ideas... He and I used to see who could come up with the craziest idea. He used to say, put a big raft over there, have everybody just sit around and drink coffee or whatever, have a guy watching and then when a big set comes, everybody throw their board in the water and go catch the wave.

“There’s another guy. Rick Steere. He was from the Outrigger. But... he was of the haole group, but he wasn’t, really – he was different. When I first met him, we were sitting out Castle, you know. It was big. My brother and maybe Oscar were out there and also John... And so, I see this guy. He was puttin’ his head down, coming from first break, solid redwood board; just doggin’ it [paddling hard]. And he paddled over and he got into the goddamn lineup. But, he was maybe 200 feet outside of us. And then this big set came... That was a real Bluebird. He picked up this wave and I’m telling you... that thing; easy 20-foot.

“And so, I told those guys, ‘Who the hell is this guy? Where’d he come from?’ I’d never seen him before, you know. So then, what happened was, he got caught, naturally. He was outside of us before he got caught.

“So, when the white water got to us, we went down. When I came up, I was looking around. ‘Where’s that guy?’ We were looking out to sea. Then, he came up inside of us. Inside of us. Hoses Christ! So... we all swam for our boards; got separated and I guess he went back and I didn’t see him anymore – that day, anyway.

“So, I went down [to the Outrigger Canoe Club] – I wanted to know who this guy was. He was fabulous! So, I went down Outrigger and finally saw him and asked one of the guys,

‘Hey, who’s that guy?’

“‘Rick Steere.’ He was a great surfer; talk about guts...”[24]

“Lorrin Thurston was around then, too, wasn’t he? He’s credited somewhere with having the first balsa board.”

“He and somebody else imported...” Wally replied. “I can’t say who was the first guy, but, he had a balsa board and there was a guy – a real rich guy came from the Coast – and he had heard about this stuff. So, he had ordered one; ordered this balsa from Peru and they shipped it down and one of the beach boys over Waikiki made him a balsa board out of it.

“I don’t know... I couldn’t say which came first. The first one I was associated with was the rich guy who had this balsa board made, shaped by the beach boys; my area. When the guy left and went back to the Coast, you know, he gave it to the beach boys.

“So, I got to try it out. Boy, what a difference! Oh, the balsa board was fast!

“My only problem with it, at that time, was the wide tail, see. But, the buoyancy, paddling speed and all that kind of stuff – hold you up out of the water so much better than the solid redwood boards, you know. No comparison. And, catching the waves – so easy! Catch ‘em a little further out and all that kind of stuff.

“But, sliding, you could only get a certain angle and that was it. You go any more and it’d slide out, cuz it neither had the V nor a skeg.”[25]

“Oh,” Wally continued, recalling other surfers around at the time, “another guy we used to surf with – Oscar Teller… He wasn’t in the Hot Curl group. He was a Waikiki surfer, a good surfer; surfed Castle all the time. He and Gene Smith were really tight buddies. He and I were close, too, because he and I surfed more together than most anybody around.”[26]

“Gene Smith was with us early on; went between all the islands [paddling]. Last one, he got picked-up because there was no place to land, but he made it! I used to keep his boards at my house, because he had no place to store them.”

I asked him about Tarzan being the first haole beach boy.

“Gene Smith, in order to make money and get a business, he was down by the Royal Hawaiian. He joined that group there – Sally Hale and all those guys. They took tourists out in canoes; more the tourist deal, where with us it was strictly local guys... Gene Smith later disappeared. Tommy Zahn told me he walked into the desert and never saw him again. Tom Zahn really helped him out; a couple of times.”[27]

“In the lifestyle you guys lived, were there other aspects of Hawaiian culture you incorporated?” I asked.

“Canoeing,” Wally answered without a pause. “We were all heavily into canoeing; most all of us... Then, there was a group that only liked paddling – canoe paddling. We had some surfboard races in the mid-’30s, before the war.

“I was always angered... The Kahanamoku group and Outrigger group had this big deal; whoever wins the surfing contest – they had teams. Duke and his brothers all had a team and we had our scavenger group down here. But, you know, we were surfin’ 8-9 hours a day and we were in top shape and we’d catch any thing in the water, you know what I mean? Frank Kennedy was with us. He, my brother, Gene Smith and myself made up a team, see. And we wiped ‘em out. We came first in almost every event.

“Why I say I get angry, cuz the deal was, the team that wins is supposed to get a free trip to Australia – go over there and surf and all that kind of stuff. They thought they had it all sewn up, see. The Kahanamoku brothers were the big boys on the beach. Well, they were older guys that we looked up to, but, you know, we were feeling our oats – 18, 19, then. ‘They gotta show us they can beat us!’ That kind of thing.

“So, when we won, of course, we never got the trip...”[28]

I asked Wally about his first memories of Duke.

“To be honest with you,” Wally said, “he and I were great guys surfing together...” But, I got the impression that elsewhere was sometimes a different story. “In other words, he was one of the few guys’d come out to Castle, you know, from the Outrigger side. There was not that many who did. So, we had a lot of experiences together. I even dinged his big long board one time; put a big ding in it. He apologized to me, because I was on the inside of him. He was on the outside. With his big board, he couldn’t swing it fast enough. I had to get out of the curl, so, I ran right into his board. He and I had to swim in.

“Besides that, we started racing with canoes. I was very upset with him, initially, cuz we had this race where – we were young kids and ignorant, see – he... put his canoe so that his ama[29] touched our canoe and wouldn’t let our paddlers on that side paddle, so he just barely beat us and not in a fair manner.

“I was swearing – a young kid – ‘Hey, goddamn Duke, who the hell do you think you are?!’ Eric tells me, ‘Don’t talk like that. You know who that is, that’s Duke!’

“‘I don’t give a fuck who he is! He can’t do this to me!’

“So, he’s standing up there, receiving the prize, and I’m yelling and everybody’s going, ‘Who’s that guy?’

“‘He’s from the Tavern.’ So, that probably helped to get the reputation of Tavern guys being bad.

“Later on, when Woody and I and the rest made that trip across in the catamaran [1957], he sent me a note wishing me the best...”[30]

“Fran Heath was one of the best surfers around, during all that time,” Wally declared. “We used to go hunting for surf – the same group – John, my brother, Dougie Forbes and a couple of other guys. And Fran was one of the guys.

“I can remember times we went out to Mokapu,[31] before they even had the Marine Corps Air Station, you know. It used to be private land, see; Big surf, Mokapu.

“We used to take my ‘36 Ford, put all the boards in and go around the island – check surf; because, winter time, you know, no surf here.

“The ‘36 Ford Phaeton – that was a classic, boy! I used to drag with guys like Plueger. We’d smoke ‘em! Guys would come back and smoke us. We had a lot of fun racing until the cops would catch us; you know, night time. Guys used to bet around town, go to a couple of kids that had really hot cars. I never bet, but they used to bet, you know, we’d meet at some service station, make arrangements...”[32]

Here, Wally returned to the subject of Tom Blake’s first three aluminum skegs, one of which he had been given.

“I never did like the fin, at that time. That’s why I just put it [Blake’s skeg] away. I never did use it. Gene Smith used the fin. He put it on his board. And, Tom Blake had it on his board. When Tom had given that one to me, he said:

“‘Try it, Wallace.’

“But, my objection to it was I thought I’d run over somebody in a crowd or something and hurt somebody. So, I was scared of it.

“I never did use it, until later on, when I realized, ‘Well, it’s good, it does help’ and you can maneuver a lot more; a lot faster...”[33]

Talk about skegs turned to tracking on the face of a wave and the difference between it and riding white water and Duke’s longest ride.

“I always laugh at the vision of Duke surfing from Castle to shore, though. You know, that big story [of Duke’s longest ride]. Impossible to make it without riding white water and, to us, riding white water is, you know – it’s no challenge...

“In those days, I was there [Castle]. I ran away from school so many times and I got kicked out of school [a number of times]. My old man would drop me off at the top of the hill. I’d look out there at the ocean. I had a way of judging it. If the white water was as high as the top of the trees, there was good surf; below the top of the trees or you’re barely able to see it – forget it. I’d go to school.

“The only thing that saved me from a half-assed education was when I transferred up to boarding school at Iolani. I boarded. I had to stay in. My mother was so happy to see me go there; they [my father & mother] paid...”[34]

“We used to sit on the beach, weekends, when there was just moderate surf; ask anybody on the beach; take ‘em tandem; Everybody. Any girl... We weren’t trying to make out or anything, we just wanted them to enjoy it. ‘Hey, wanna go out tandem?’ Some would, some wouldn’t.

“Fact is, that’s how I met my wife – my present wife [Alice, a.k.a. Moku]. This guy Oscar had her out surfing and I had some other wahine out, too.[35]

“So, I was out and saw her with my buddy Oscar, eh? And I said, ‘Hey, let’s tandem and change partners.’ You know, I took a shine to her. ‘OK.’ So, we changed partners. I asked her for a date... When we first met was probably – that tandem thing happened probably mid-’40s. She was pretty young. At the time, she was really too young. As time went on, I saw her on and off and later married her.”[36]

Wally remained a force in surfing throughout the ‘50s, as he and the other Hot Curlers continued their love affair with Makaha and sometimes the North Shore. During this period, also, Wally spent much of his time organizing the annual Makaha surf contest, which became one of the most successful contests in the world.[37] In my questions to him, I gave the era short breadth, however, because I wanted to get to that 1957 catamaran voyage Woody had told me a little about.

It was a Hawai‘i-to-California trip they made in a catamaran Woody had designed and was the main builder of. The voyage was meant to qualify the craft in the TransPac. The Trans Pacific Yacht Race was a 2,225 mile sailing race from Long Beach to Honolulu.[38]

“Boy, we were coming down some swells, I’m tellin’ ya!” Wally got animated, like Woody had. “Oh, jeez. One time, a goddamn wave broke. I was steering and Woody and I were on the same watch, eh? The damn wave broke in the back; slammed me and Woody right inside the cabin, filled the whole cabin with water!”[39]

I asked him about an argument Woody had with the Cat owner.

“That was going up the Coast. The owner wanted to eat breakfast and we said ‘No,’ because – I was on watch and showed Woody that the damn pressure was dropping. You could see the damn needle dropping! We knew we were in for a hell of a blow. So, we tried to get everything down. But, he wanted to eat breakfast and he tried to insist on it. He almost burned himself. So, he got pissed-off at Woody.” So pissed, he wouldn’t let Woody skipper the catamaran back to Hawai‘i in the TransPac race.”[40]

By 1960, Wally Froiseth had long since become one of the most respected surfers in the world. In a “who’s who,” written by Otto Patterson and published that year, Wally was described as having “always been more intimate with the young islanders of all races than with the more pretentious surfers. He is a modest and sincere man but we know of no one in the Waikiki area who has been so greatly admired by natives and haoles alike, over such a long period of years.”[41]

Here it was many years later – 1996 – and it was getting late in the afternoon. Wally and Alice had a meeting of the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS) to attend. Did I mention that Wally is one of the guys that helped revive Polynesian canoe voyaging, much in the same way as Duke Kahanamoku and others revived surfing at the beginning of this century? Open ocean voyaging in traditional double-hulled canoes had been a near extinct act. Now, thanks to Wally’s work and the work of many involved in the PVS over the past twenty years, open ocean canoeing is alive and well. More importantly, open ocean voyaging has stirred-up Polynesian pride in their recognition as the world’s greatest of navigating peoples.[42]

My time with Wally was running short, so I had to gloss over the 1960s,[43] ‘70’s and ‘80s and get to present day.

“We were talking about Fran and his board...” I prompted Wally about the first Hot Curl surfboard in later years.

“He met my brother in town one day,” Wally said, beginning the story of the restoration of the first Hot Curl surfboard, “and called me up. ‘Hey, Wallace, remember my surfboard?’

“‘Yeah!’ I told him. ‘I’d sure like to see it.’

“We hadn’t seen each other in a long time. ‘Yeah, I’d sure like to see it, cuz I have fond memories of you surfing that damn thing.’” Wally looked at me, explaining, “It being the original thing – all like that.

“So, I went over his house. He showed me the board. Aw, I was horrified. The thing was just termite-eaten, cracked – all those white stringers chewed-up. So, I asked him, ‘What happened?’ Turns out, he left it with his boy on the North Shore and he didn’t take care of it. Fran went out to see it one day, saw what a mess it was, and got angry with his boy; brought the thing back to his house. But, you know, it’s shot; never surf again with it.

“‘I tell you what – lemme take the board –’ I fool around with wood and everything. ‘— let me take the board and I’ll try’n fix it up. It’ll take some time, but I’ll try’n fix it up. It won’t cost you anything, cuz I got wood and all that stuff already.’ He let me take it.

“I was all anxious. I wanted to put it back in top shape, you know, cuz, hey, I got a lot of aloha for the board, eh? And, it is significant.

“So, I brought it home and worked on it and it kind of inspired me to refinish my solid redwood board, you know. So, then I call him up, ‘It’s finished! Come pick it up or I’ll bring it out.’ He said, ‘No, just leave it there for a while.’ He was moving from his house to an apartment and had no place to put it.

“So, I tell him, ‘OK, I’ll leave it here, but with the understanding that anytime you want it, you just come pick it up.’ You know, I got room downstairs on the racks. He talked it over with his wife and his wife said, ‘Why don’t you just give it to Wallace?’ I told him, ‘Naw, naw.’ I tell him, ‘I’ll accept it, but, if anything ever happens or if I get an offer from someone to buy it or something like that, I’ll let you know and you make the decision. It’s your board.’ So, I feel like it’s kinda his and mine.”[44]

I asked him about the boards in his cellar.

“I used to walk from Tusitala Street all the way down the beach,” Wally responded, “surf 8 hours and carry it back – my solid redwood board, downstairs, which weighs 68 pounds...

“That one there –” Wally referred to the slot board with the V up on the deck; one of two that had really caught Fran Heath’s and my attention the day before. “— we made the tail thick and kinda sharp edgy for speed and, you know, with the slot and the fin. And then we started making the tails thinner, cuz, then you could sink it better. The thickness didn’t prove to be too good... we started to eliminate the Hot Curl round edges – you know, the calculated drag – with use of the fin.”[45]

I asked him about the other boards in his cellar, starting with the one that Fran and I had been particularly intrigued by.

“Solid koa board,” Wally declared. “We researched the boards at the Bishop Museum... We wanted to know the background. We were really interested. And so, when I found out, gee, they had olo boards made out of koa and things like that, I wanted to make a board out of koa and see how practical it would be, because I know koa was so heavy and that sort of thing.

“So, I made that board, but I made it in the Hot Curl shape, see. So, I figured, is this an advancement? Does it help, or hinder or what?

“But, I gotta admit. I used that solid koa board about three times and I used it out in good sized surf at Castle and what they call First Break Elks Club – you know, outside of Old Man’s... I used it three times and I don’t see how those – well, the wide tail would probably help for buoyancy, you know; like the old boards were. So, that would probably help. But, once you set it, it’s so heavy and so solid, you can set it in only one direction and then you gotta live with it. You gotta catch the wave at an angle to begin with, otherwise you’d never get around – you know, depending on where you catch it. That’s your course. Of course, you’d rather catch it when it’s pretty well hanging, otherwise it’s just a swell. But, it worked good! There’s no problem with it, except you just set a course and go from Castle right to Public Baths – no problem. I mean, the glide was fantastic. It was a whole different thing.

“Like, they [the olo riders of yore] wanted to just stand up and – like we always kid about – ‘take the Duke Kahanamoku Stance’ – you know, hands out, striking a pose.”[46]

Before we broke up, I asked Wally, “What advice would you give beginning surfers?”

“I’d say,” he said after some thought, “in the first place, that they would have to really love surfing, and not only really love surfing, but they would have to put their whole heart and soul in it. You know, just eat it, sleep it; like some of these kids in the professional thing. They do it; some of them for money, sure, but they enjoy it, you know. You gotta enjoy it with your whole heart and soul and if you do, you’re bound to get good at it. Nothing can stop you if you really want to do it – and enjoy it.”[47]

“What about us older surfers?”

“Enjoy it as much as you can; to the fullest you possibly can.

“I feel this way: I feel that any body that tries surfing will enjoy it. It doesn’t make any difference if you’re a world champion or whether you’re a weekend surfer. Some guys make fun of these guys that go around with the boards and get in the water once a week – that’s OK! They’re enjoying it! They’re enjoying it as much as they want or as much as they can.

“And, if a guy is serious and wants to be a champion, he’s got to go all out. He’s got to put more into it. It’s like any thing. You can do most anything if you really want to.”[48]

ENDIT

Footnotes

[1] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996. See also Gault-Williams, “Surf Drunk, The Wally Froiseth Story,” The Surfer’s Journal, Volume 6, Number 4, Winter 1997.

[2] Warshaw, “20th-Century Radical, The Surfer’s Journal, Spring 1995, p. 31. Wally Froiseth quoted.

[3] Young, 1983, p. 55. Wally Froiseth.

[4] Young, 1983, p. 55. Wally Froiseth.

[5] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996. See also Gault-Williams, “Surf Drunk, The Wally Froiseth Story,” The Surfer’s Journal, Volume 6, Number 4, Winter 1997.

[6] Hui Nalu – Wee-nah-loo.

[7] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996. See also Gault-Williams, “Surf Drunk, The Wally Froiseth Story,” The Surfer’s Journal, Volume 6, Number 4, Winter 1997.

[8] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996. Wally pronounced Gene’s nickname: “Tar-zahn.”

[9] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996. Wally has a picture of cigar boards, Dickie Cross, Gene Froiseth, board made by Tommy Kukona.

[10] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996. Wally has pictures of Waikiki Tom Blake gave him, that Blake used in his book, “before he went back that first time.”

[11] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[12] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[13] Froiseth, Wally. Notations/corrections to draft, May 25, 1996, p. 3.

[14] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[15] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[16] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[17] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[18] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[19] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[20] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[21] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[22] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[23] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[24] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[25] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[26] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[28] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[29] ama. n. Outrigger float.

[30]Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[31] Mo-kapu (Moo-kah-poo), Kai-lua, Oahu -- originally named Moku-kapu (sacred district) because Ka-Mehameha I met his chiefs here; it was “the sacred land of Ka-mehameha” (Sterling and Summers, 5:165). Lit., taboo district.

[32] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[33] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[34] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[35] Froiseth, Wally. Notations/corrections to draft, May 25, 1996, p. 14.

[36] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996. Alice, aka Moku “everybody calls her. Don’t ask me for her Hawaiian name...”

[37] Young, 1983, 1987, p. 55.

[38] Ocean Life Magazine, Volume 11, Number 1, Fall 1995, P.O. Box 405, Davenport, CA 95017, p.8. The TransPac was in its 38th year in 1995.

[39] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[40] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[42] Gault-Williams. Interview with Ben Finney, April 1, 1996.

[43] Notably, in the 1960s, Wally “put out a patent to make the paipo board before [the Boogie Board]. Those guys were businessmen. You know, we’re no businessmen.”

[44] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[45] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[46] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996. Wally has a classic photo of Duke striking his patented pose.

[47] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.

[48] Gault-Williams. Interview with Wally Froiseth, April 3, 1996.