Aloha and Welcome to surfing in the second half of the 1930s!
“I remember thinking that if I couldn’t ride a wave again, I couldn’t live. I really thought that there was nothing else in the world that I’d rather do.”
-- Cliff Tucker
“My dad used to think I was nuts out there in that cold water, riding those stupid boards. But hell, it gets in your blood -- you know how it is, you just gotta do it. If it’s there, you gotta do it. I’d like to have a dime for every mile I ran up and down this coast looking for waves.”
-- Bill Muller
“You could only catch three or four waves, because it was so big and so hard to get back out... I knew it was a huge swell because I counted 13 breaks from the shore all the way out to the Carpinteria reef. It was the biggest surf any of us had ever been in.”
-- Mike Sturmer
The Palos Verdes Surfing Club at the Long Beach Surfing Championships of 1939. Doc Ball photo.
Contents
1936-1938
The Australian Surf Ski
“Three Mile,” 1938-39
Flood Control, 1939
Santa Cruz, 1939-1940
Shelter Cove, 1940
Swastikas
Manhattan Pier, Malibu & Windansea
Killer Dana, 1940
San Onofre, 1940
Palos Verdes Cove, 1940
The Islands
1936-1938
The Pacific Coast Surfing Championships – begun in 1929 – had become an annual event; dominated for 4 out of 9 years by legendary waterman Preston “Pete” Peterson of Santa Monica. Peterson reigned as California’s recognized top surfer during 1932, 1936, 1938 and 1941. Other early winners of the trophy included Keller Watson (1929), Gardner Lippincott (1934), Lorrin “Whitey” Harrison (1939) and Cliff Tucker (1940).
Cliff Tucker recalled that in the 1940 PCS championship meet, held at San Onofre, “I won by switching boards at the proper times. I rode an ‘ultralight,’ a hollow, 50-pound plywood board, in the morning, and then when the chop came up later in the day, I switched to a heavier, 120-pound spruce. Once enough people were eliminated, and I didn’t need the extra weight for personal protection, I went back to the more maneuverable ultralight (known in surfing circles as a ‘Slantwise‘). In those days, I could build myself a spruce plywood ‘ultralight’ with about five dollars worth of materials.”
Tucker was a member of the state’s first and then most prestigious surf club, the Palos Verdes Surfing Club, whose members mostly rode the thick wave break off Palos Verdes’ Bluff Cove.
Tucker recalled earlier days surfing with Preston Peterson. Both 6th grade classmates “would ditch school to go surfing” near the old Crystal Pier Bathhouse at Santa Monica Beach. The Peterson family owned the bathhouse at that time. “For years,” Tucker said, “surfing was the biggest thing in my life. I remember thinking that if I couldn’t ride a wave again, I couldn’t live. I really thought that there was nothing else in the world that I’d rather do.”
Leonard Lueras interviewed Tucker for his – now collectible – book, Surfing, The Ultimate Pleasure. Lueras asked Tucker if he had any regrets concerning his days surfing. “I wish we had the equipment then that the kids have now,” Tucker responded. “It’s absolutely amazing what’s being done on a surfboard these days. I’m sure we were just as strong and capable then as athletes, but we just didn’t have the technology that’s evolved in surfing since then.”
“September 1936,” remembered another 1930s surfer nicknamed Chuck A Luck, of a landmark moment in SoCal publishing, “Surfing made the Brown Section (Rotogravure) in the L.A. Times.” This might be the same article Doc Ball noted as “Surfboards, Ahoy!” by Andy Hamilton.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the surfers in Southern California, the Hot Curl guys were getting underway in the Honolulu/Black Point area, on O`ahu, making the first great move out of the Waikiki area and into other areas of the island in search of big surf.
“This is Big Surf,” wrote and photographically documented Doc Ball of March 13, 1937. Pete Peterson “of Santa Monica” is identified riding the “wave of the day.” Also featured: Leroy Grannis and Jean Depue.
Hermosa -- “Twenty Footers Roll In... Turkey Day, 1937. Identified surfers: Doc Ball (having deserted his Graflex) and Kay Murray.
“Storm Surf of December 12th, 1937“ shows a photo “Taken during a drizzling mist... shows the cove in the throes of a zero break. Johnny Gates vowed ‘he’d get a ride on one of those or else.’ Credit is hereby extended him that he did reach the half way point, only to be wiped out by a monstrous cleanup and forced to swim in through devastating currents, rocks, etc., to retrieve his battered redwood plank. Purple hardly described his color when he finally got out of that freezing blast.”
“Zero Break at Hermosa. Perhaps twice a year this remarkable surf will hump up a good half mile offshore and keep all ‘malininis’ on the beach. Strictly for the ‘kamaaina,’ this stuff comes upon one out there with a long steamy hiss, and fills him at first with the apprehensive thought of, ‘Mebe I better wait for the second one.’“
Other surfers and notaries identified: [Adie] Bayer, [Cliff] Tucker, Fred Kerwin, Johnny Gates “the Smokehouse Kid,” “Rusty” Williams (Captain of the Los Angeles County Lifeguards -- photo caption: “Worry is registered on the Williams ‘puss’ as he watches the antics of the surfers in the heavy seas.”), Cliff Tucker, Gene Hornbeck (December 16, 1937), John Kerwin, Ed Edger, Dave “Black Bass” Perumean, Dale Velzy, Bill Edger, Fenton Scholes, [Bob] Landes and Big Bob Johnson.
Williams would go on to taste Hawaiian waters, as well as Velzy who was to become one of surfing’s great shapers.
Covering the surfing scene at Hermosa Beach, Doc Ball pointed out Hoppy Swarts and featured him in photogenic rides on January 7, 1938 and January 5, 1939.
January 7, 1938 was “The day when the newsreel boys came down to shoot the damage done by the big seas -- packed up and left when we came out with our surfboards.” Other surfers identified: “Tulie” Clark, Pearson, Al Holland, Adie Bayer and Leroy Grannis.”
“Hoppy, Leroy, Pasqual, Blackie, Fred and John Kerwin, Tule, Tom Horton, myself and others built 3” X 18” X 6’ identical hollows,” recalled Chuck A Luck. “We made 6 of them with both ends round and held ten tournaments of paddle board polo in the Olympic swimming pool at the L.A. Coliseum. There were nets at each end and you could not leave your board unless you jumped on a guy with the ball, played like water polo.”
In covering Venice, “Home of the Venice Surfing Club,” Doc identified surfers like: “Wes” Gireau and “Porky” Corcoran. Doc also has a photo of the Venice Half Mile Open Paddleboard Race of 1938.
In “Picture of Two Worried Surfers,” taken in the Palos Verdes area, Doc spotlighted two surfers -- Gard Chapin and Bud Browne -- who would go on to have a significant impact on wave riding. The photo shows Johnny Gates and Gard Chapin “coming out of the hook” and “watch with apprehension the course set by Bud Browne on the ‘paddlewhacker.’“
“Riding Cove Storm Swell,” October 29, 1938. Ball photographed the riding of Fenton Scholes and Jean Depue.
In the later half of the 1930s, balsa was increasingly combined with redwood to lighten the weight of the average surfboard. Although the number of redwood balsas had steadily grown since at least 1935, one of the first to catch the eye of the Palos Verdes crew was Chuck Allen‘s board. Allen himself was a member of the Palos Verdes Surfing Club and by 1938, he had a varnished solid California redwood and balsa board, 11-feet, 6-inches by 22-inches.
Allen had built and also used two paddleboards in 1936. In 1937, while attending a shop course at UCLA, he built an almost-solid cedarwood board that weighed only 140 pounds. It floated “under the water.” He sold it and then built a lightweight nearly-all-balsa board. It was all balsa except for two 3/8-inch redwood strips added for structural integrity.
Most everyone “pooh-poohed” his 35-pound balsa board, probably because – despite lamination, balsa soaked in water excessively. Chuck quickly sold it, took a week off from school during 1938 and worked at Hammond Lumber for the plank used for his redwood/balsa board. He shaped the plank at home, using hand tools. This board is typical of the 1938-42 era, weighing approximately 88-pounds and measuring 12-feet long. The board rammed some rocks once and 6-inches were chopped off the tail. The balsa was actually added on for two reasons. Besides reducing the weight, the balsa provided a soft spot for the knees while paddling.
The Australian Surf Ski
G.A. “Saxon” Crackenthorp is credited with inventing the surf ski in Australia in 1938. “It probably evolved out of the use of canoes in the surf at North Bondi,” guessed championship surfer Nat Young. “Because you paddled the ski with an oar, sitting down, it was easier to ride than a board. Originally the skis were 8’ long and 28” wide and made of heavy cedar planking, but this gave way to plywood over a light timber frame. Surf club competition drew the skis out in length and eventually another man was used to gain more speed and make it more of a team sport; this led to the standard two-man double ski, a sort of tandem bike on water. In contrast to the surfboard, the surf ski was quickly adopted by the Surf Life Saving Association as official lifesaving equipment.
“Surfboards, however, were [only] tolerated by officials because so many loyal club members used them, displaying their club badges printed on the decks together with the club’s colours running in pin stripes around the rails. The surf club was a tremendously prestigious institution during this period. Australian girls liked the idea of going out with one of those ‘bronzed gods’ and the surf club ranks swelled to reach 8,454 members in 1935.”
On his second trip to Australia, Duke Kahanamoku brought back a surf ski, the first to reach Hawaiian shores. Nobody expected to be impressed by something from Australia, but Hot Curl surfer Wally Froiseth admitted, “Yeah, it impressed us. It was something new, something we’d never seen. It was great. You know, my thinking is... every area has contributed something. I don’t care where they are, these guys have contributed. Nobody can say that they did the whole thing. There’s just no way. Nobody’s got all the brains. Nobody can think of all aces. It’s good.”
“Three Mile,” 1938-39
In Doc Ball‘s California Surfriders, 1946, California surf spots in the 1930s -- listed from south-to-north -- went like this: Windansea, San Onofre, Dana Point, Corona del Mar, Long Beach, Palos Verdes, Hermosa Beach, Venice, Malibu, Paradise Point, River Hole (Santa Cruz) and Pedro Valley (south San Francisco). Santa Barbara wasn’t even marked on the surfing map.
That’s probably because the foremost of California’s surfers were only surfing between Malibu and Windansea. If they surfed up north, it was on surfari all the way up to the cold waters of Santa Cruz, in the summer, and that was basically to Pleasure Point or the Rivermouth.
Nevertheless, others who got into surfing started hitting the breaks near their homes. The first guys to surf Rincon del Mar, south of Santa Barbara, were prime examples. Coming from the lifeguard tradition, these Rincon pioneers were never amongst the most noted of that era. In terms of historical significance as the first to surf Rincon, however, they stand out in the front line of the many great surfers to ride the waves of Rincon – “The Queen of The Coast”.
Gates Foss (1915-1990) was the first person known to surf Rincon. The point break was originally called “Three Mile,” because it was three miles from the Carpinteria train depot.
“According to his son Bob,” wrote Lori Rafferty in an article entitled “Rincon Memories” for Santa Barbara magazine. “Foss discovered Three Mile driving down the coast from Carpinteria one day in the mid-1930s. It simply looked like a good place to surf.”
John Severson, the founder of Surfer magazine and a surf movie maker of the 1960s, in his book Modern Surfing Around The World (1964) confirms that “Gates Foss was the first local Santa Barbara surfer to ride the Rincon. In the late thirties he rode on planks with Mike Sturmer, Bill Muller, and others.”
“Foss had come out from Arizona to attend Santa Barbara State College,” continued Rafferty. “Gates was the college boy chauffeur for my grandma that I fell in love with,” recalled his widow, the former Isabella Bradbury. “After they were married, Foss worked as a ranger at Gaviota Beach, head lifeguard in Carpinteria, manager of Los Baños Pool in Santa Barbara, and coached at Santa Barbara High School for 25 years.
Bill Muller grew up as a “beach rat“ in Santa Barbara in the 1930s.
8“My mom would drop us kids off at the beach in the morning with lunch and not come back to pick us up until late afternoon,” Muller recalled, probably referring to the Santa Barbara beaches close to Stearns Wharf and the harbor area. “Body surfing in the shore break near the East Beach bathhouse led to a summer job as a lifeguard,” wrote Rafferty, “and Muller remembers the day the city pool, Los Baños, opened in 1938. Through the lifeguarding network, many friendships were formed, and the guys would paddle their rescue paddleboards over to the sandbar [Sandspit] and ride the little waves or use the boards as platforms to dive from for lobster and abalone. Soon enough they were looking for more challenging waves, and they heard about the break at Three Mile from a fellow lifeguard in Carpinteria.”
That Carpinteria lifeguard was most likely Gates Foss. The boards they rode were typical of the day; a mixture of 14-foot plywood decked hollow paddleboards and slightly shorter redwood surfboards. Of course, it was well before wetsuits.
“Back then,” Bill Muller reminded, “there were no such things as wet suits. What we did when it was really cold was to use navy wool underwear. When you were sitting out on the board and it got real cold, you could take that wool sweatshirt off and wring it out real good and then put it back on, and it felt pretty good. But when you got dumped it felt like you were going to drown, because they were so damn heavy. We would stay out 45 minutes to an hour at a time and then come in and warm up by the fire.”
“My dad used to think I was nuts out there in that cold water, riding those stupid boards,” Bill Muller continued. “But hell, it gets in your blood -- you know how it is, you just gotta do it. If it’s there, you gotta do it. I’d like to have a dime for every mile I ran up and down this coast looking for waves.”
For the next couple of years before World War II, Gates Foss, Mike Sturmer, Bill Muller, and Gene Nagle rode Three Mile “whenever the surf was up.”
“Mike Sturmer lived up on the hill back behind Carpinteria,” explained Bill Muller, “and when he saw the outside Carpinteria reefs breaking with lots of white water, he knew there was surf. Mike would call Gates, and Gates would call me, and we’d all get excited and meet in Carpinteria to go down to Three Mile.”
“Rincon was perfect for plank surfing,” Mike Sturmer declared. “It had a nice ‘eye,’ you could get in the hook just right.”
“Riding down to Rincon in Foss’s ‘38 Chevy sedan, Muller, Sturmer, and Nagle became pioneers of California’s perfect wave,” continued Rafferty. “Long before the Malibu hotdoggers popularized the sport after World War II, they had Three Mile virtually to themselves.”
“These fellows,” wrote SURFER magazine creator John Severson, “were around for the big surf in 1939, and like most of the other old-timers, they maintain that nothing since has approached the size of that surf.”
There’s a classic photo of Mike Sturmer on a wave at Three Mile during the big swell of 1939. It rivals, in size, the famous one taken of Rennie Yater, at the same spot, 30 years later.
“You could only catch three or four waves,” remembered Sturmer, “because it was so big and so hard to get back out. I’m six-four so that wave must be a 15-footer [wave face measurement]. I knew it was a huge swell because I counted 13 breaks from the shore all the way out to the Carpinteria reef. It was the biggest surf any of us had ever been in. This photo was taken by a guy on the beach with a 16mm movie camera. When we came out of the water, he came over to talk to us ‘idiots.’ I asked him if he’d cut out a frame and send it to me. This is what I got.”
Gates Foss passed on in 1990. At the time of this writing, Bill Muller still lived in Santa Barbara at 76 years of age. Gene Nagel was also still living in Santa Barbara. Mike Sturmer moved from Carpinteria in 1965 and eventually settled in Idaho. “But those memories are etched firmly in my mind,” Sturmer declared.
Rincon saw a second group of surfers begin to hit it, John Severson wrote, “After the war” when “a couple of young surfers from the Malibu area -- Bob Simmons and Matt Kivlin -- ‘discovered’ Rincon and began to make winter runs there. They brought back reinforcements and by the late forties the Rincon was ridden occasionally by surfers Mickey Muñoz, Bobby Patterson, Joe Quigg, Billy Meng, and a few others.”
Flood Control, 1939
Not aware of the fun to be had at Three Mile, south of Santa Barbara, Doc Ball photographed and wrote about 1939 surf culture to the south and far to the north of Santa Barbara:
In a section entitled “Palos Verdes Surfing Club at the Long Beach Surfing Contest” Doc Ball wrote that at this contest in 1939, the Hawaiians even sent over a team. PVSC members, left to right were: [Gene] Hornbeck, Reynolds, Humphreys, [Fenton] Scholes, Huber, Pearson, [Johnny] Gates, Alsten, [E.J.] Oshier, [Adie] Bayer, [Jean] Depue, Allen, [Hoppy] Swarts, [Leroy] 9Grannis, Pierce, Landes and Clark.
A photograph of Long Beach’s Flood Control in action “shows the tremendous size of one of its famous humpers.” Al Bixeler declared that day: “I believe I have ridden a tidal wave.”
“Flood Control Was Spectacular,” wrote Doc, after the war. “Charles Butler in a portrait of action plus! This young man, more intimately known as ‘Doaks,’ was a promising medical doctor when he enlisted in the United States Navy and was sent to the South Pacific theater of operations. It is understood that he went down with the destroyer Edsal during an early engagement with the Japanese. The surfers lost a good friend, the people lost an excellent doctor.”
“The Convention City“ was how Long Beach businessmen used to refer to their metropolis. One of the early surf breaks to disappear due to human engineering, “Flood Control,” at Long Beach, was a primo break.
“When this place ‘boomed in’ and we mean just that, it was no place for the malihini. A long speedy ride was to be had and the power behind those giant walls of soup was second to none.” Flood Control was famous for its “sneakers.” Hoppy Swarts was photographed riding one on November 7, 1939.
Santa Cruz, 1939-1940
Hawaiian surfing had originally been brought to the Mainland in the 1880s, in Santa Cruz. Hawaiians David Piikoi, Kupio and Edward Kawanakoa practiced their native sport near the rivermouth as early as 1885. While others in the area took up the sport for a while afterwards, Santa Cruz surfing did not really begin to flourish until over 50 years later.
What is generally considered the true rebirth of surfing in the Santa Cruz area took place around 1939, lead by Richie Thompson, Ted Pierson, Doug Thorn, Quintin Tavares, Dick Keating, Ced Shear and Chuck Foley.
Doc Ball documented other notable surfers from down south surfing Santa Cruz in the very late ‘30s, including: Johnny Dale on December 2, 1939 and April 9, 1939; Art Alsten and Jim (Burhead) Drever “coming out of a fast breaking hook, December 16, 1939;” and, also, “‘Granny’ Grannis.”
“By this time,” Doc wrote about surfer nicknames, “you’ll no doubt have noticed that surfers possess some odd nicknames. We quote a few for your pleasure: ‘Red Dog,’ ‘Black Bass,’ ‘Burhead,’ ‘Hammerhead,’ ‘Bird Dog,’ ‘Button Nose,’ ‘Gooseneck,’ ‘Whitey,’ ‘Scobblenoggin‘ and ‘Nellie Bly.’ Ain’t they somepin?”
By 1940, Santa Cruz was “Home of the Santa Cruz Surfing Club.” Wrote Ball: “Paradise Point is capable of dishing out rides of a half mile length when the surf is big.” Paradise Point was officially named, as such, on May 25, 1940. Hoppy Swarts and E.J. Oshier were identified riders this day.
Shelter Cove, 1940
A little south of Santa Cruz, Pedro Valley was “Where the Strawberries Meet the Sea.” Doc Ball noted this cove 17 miles south of San Francisco. It was “Home of the Pedro Mountain Surf Club.”
The area's best break in the area was Shelter Cove, which became a small enclave for stoked surfers even to present day. Doc identified Shelter Cove's most noted surfers in 1940: Quintin Tavares, Tony Sanchez, Teddy Pearson, Sylvio Giuliani and Dick Keating.
Swastikas
Pacific Ready Cut Homes, a.k.a. Pacific Systems Homes, or just plain “Pacific Systems” in Southern California, was one of the first companies to produce commercial surfboards, and the era’s most notable in terms of volume and design. Two separate manufacturers of Blake’s hollow boards had been the first. Owned by Meyers Butte, Pacific Systems operated out of Vernon, in the Los Angeles area.
During the course of its years manufacturing boards, Pacific Systems employed a number of well-known surfers, one of whom was Whitey Harrison, in 1937. Production pay for a shaper was $100/month for 4 boards/day. These boards were made of laminated redwood and balsa which could be milled and joined with waterproof glue -- a relatively new product. The wood was combined so that the lightness of the balsa ran down the middle and the strength of the redwood went to the stringer and rails. Varnish protected the outside.
The rail shape was full with a square upper edge and rounded lower edge. “The typical board was 10’ long, 23” wide, and 22” across the tail block, and was known as the Swastika Model because of the distinctive design marked on many of the boards. It wasn’t until years later ‘Whitey’ found out that the person responsible for the Swastika, a guy named ‘Dutch,’ was a Nazi. After 1939, when war broke out in Europe, the swastika insignia was no longer used.” The boards sold for around $40 bucks.
A typical example of a Pacific Systems Homes Swastika model surfboard is in the Surfer magazine collection, in San Juan Capistrano. It’s solid balsa with redwood stringers and rails. It features a nose piece and tail block for strength and protection. The 10’1” X 22” board is doweled for rigidity and durability and weighs 45 pounds.
Hot Curl surfer Wally Froiseth got a balsa/redwood for tandem riding at Waikiki. For his own surfing, Froiseth preferred his pintail redwood Hot Curl surfboard he had helped develop. With the balsa/redwoods, he tried cutting down on the tail and shaping a V into the tail, but, “it just didn’t work that good. Because it was too buoyant. Even though the tail was narrow, it was thick and wouldn’t sink in. It floated too high. I owned about the sixth or seventh balsa board in here [to the Hawaiian Islands]; I got it for tandems. We’d walk up the beach, ask some girl: ‘Hey how about going surfing tandem?’ In those days everybody would go out... we never asked for any favours... we just wanted people to enjoy the sport. So I had my solid redwood and I had this balsa for tandem, you know.”
Another young surfer who was one of many to ride Pacific Systems boards was Rennie Yater.
Reynolds “Rennie” Yater was born May 11, 1932. “I grew up kind of in Laguna Beach,” said Rennie of the early 1940s, “and body surfed what we called ‘slam dump shorebreak.’“ In the Laguna Beach of the 1930s and early ‘40s, “You didn’t see surfboards -- at least those 100-pound surfboards -- you didn’t see them there at that time. I knew they existed at San Onofre and Doheny, but I didn’t have much exposure to them.”
When I asked him when he first saw a surfboard, Rennie answered, “I’m gonna say probably ‘43-or-’4 -- saw one that was ridden. My first exposure was at Salt Creek. Somebody was riding there. I got the opportunity to go down there by one of the fellas who said, ‘You gotta ride some different waves other than this crashing beach surf at Laguna Beach.’ So, he took us down to Salt Creek and I was ecstatic! There was a neat wave! And there was a guy riding a surfboard there. It was difficult to ride a 100-pound surfboard. It wasn’t easy... Anyway, there were a couple of guys riding; lifeguards. That got me exposed to it and that got me interested in it. I picked up one of those Pacific System Homes boards, probably -- I’ll say ‘46...”
Manhattan Pier, Malibu & Windansea, 1940
“Most every surfer would ride under the pier,” testified Chuck A Luck, about the Manhattan Pier of 1940, “and through the pilings, sometimes worrying the people watching from the pier.”
Doc Ball has a shot of storm surf at Manhattan Pier on February 6, 1940.
“Waves here [at Malibu] are fast and crack down like dynamite. We understand that the free gangway to this beach is now enjoyed by any surfer who so desires to enter it. In former days one had to sneak in through a hole in the fence and run the risk of having that hole nailed shut before he could get out.” Photos by John Gates of Los Angeles. Surfer identified: Gard Chapin.
WindanSea (Pacific Beach, San Diego area). Surfers noted by Doc Ball: John Blankenship, Buddy Hull, Don Okey.
In other photographs with notations in his book, Doc Ball featured “Sliding Left.” It identifies Trux Oehrlin, Hal Peason and Don Grannis. “At least half the fun in surfing is had by watching fellow surfers turning in a masterful performance on a fringing giant,” wrote Ball, “or getting wiped out in the impossible, when boards and bodies are tossed about in reckless abandon.”
Killer Dana, 1940
Continuing to survey Doc Ball‘s notations and photographs of California surfers of the 1930s, here are the notables and notable events he noted for the year 1940, just before World War II:
In Addition to Flood Control, another key surf spot of the 1930s that is no longer with us was Killer Dana -- Dana Point, before the harbor was expanded. In a section entitled “It’s Humping Up At Dana,” Doc featured the riding style of George “Nellie Bly” Brignell.
In “Dana Killer Surf,” Doc presented two photos, one of “Peanuts” Larsen and the other of “Whitey” Harrison “on the angle to avoid the rocks and the break as ‘Doaks‘ pulls up and over to see what’s coming next. Times have been when many a man has come to the top of just such a crest and looked straight into the maw of a bone-crushing monster.”
Other photos of Dana Point, were those taken on May 15, 1940 and July 9, 1939. Johnny Gates and Hal Landes featured, respectively.
San Onofre, 1940
San Onofrechad become Southern California “Surfers’ Mecca” -- Doc Ball documented an epic contest day there, in 1940:
“The competition was keen, the spills were frequent, and the spectators roasted on the beach. The boys come from within a hundred and fifty mile radius to participate in this activity.”
Winners of the 1940 trophies included: Eyestone, McGrew, Tucker (first place), Gates and Swarts. Famous shot of 17 riders on a wave, “h--- bent for a trophy. The boards fly and they pile up in droves but somehow out of the mess comes the new champ.”
In covering the San O event Doc has a classic overhead shot of Gard Chapin blastin’ into the beach. “Gard Chapin arrives late. Down the dirt road at 60 per, spots parking space, cramps wheels and slides in.”
In “‘Nofre Days,” Doc has a photo showing “Pete Peterson and Bob Sides, two strictly ‘Kamaaina‘ boys, having some pre-contest fun. Both of them could tell some hair-raising tales of Corona del Mar Days.”
In another photo of the contest held right before the outbreak of war, summer 1941, “Pete Peterson wins the 1941 ‘Nofre sweepstakes. He is seen here as the proud possessor of the perpetual cup. Left to right: McBride, Lindberg, Okey, Pascowitz, Bailey, Harrison, Blake, Peterson, VanBlom, Williams.”
Photographs showed the beach scene. “A couple of guitars and a ‘uke‘ will always draw a crowd,” wrote Doc, also including a photo of the ‘Nofre crew still sleeping. “Six A.M. of a ‘flat’ day and everybody still in the bag. Had the surf been humping they probably would have stayed up all night.”
Tandem riding was a common sight at San O. In “Tandem Rides Are Popular With the Boys,” Doc Ball showed a picture of “Benny Merrill and wahini slicing along neat as anything. Most of the female sex, however, prefer to sit on the beach.”
“A lot of familiar faces and a goodly stand of timber,” continued Ball, noting surfers: Bud Andersen, Benny Merrill and wahini, Whitey Harrison & his outrigger; Oshier, Hawkins, Ann Kresge and Gard Chapin.
In “Soup And Sneakers,“ Ball showed “This big sneaker came in with a frightful blast and nipped off the unbeliever who had just inquired ‘whatinell you doing way out there?’“
“Two Kamaainas Take Off” shows “‘Frenchy’ Jahan and ‘Nellie Bly’ Brignell whip out on a ‘screaming left.’ Brignell’s eyesight demands that he wear glasses even when surfing. He fastens them on with a piece of inner tube but on occasions they get lost and he has to come in without them. This accounts no doubt for some of the daredevil rides this guy has gotten away with. He simply could not see the size of the monster he was choosing to ride.”
Doc added some shots of riders like Glen Fisher, Levy, Lavignino, McBride, Harrison, “Straightoff,” Jahan, Larsen, Boice and Barney Wilkes, shot after the war, in 1946. World War II put a hold on most surfing activity, so there are few surfing photographs in existence that were taken between 1942-45.
Palos Verdes Cove, 1940
“Fun at the Cove,” identifies Fenton and “Dixie” Scholes riding tandem, January 14, 1940 at Palos Verdes Cove. Also there in those days were “Tulie” Clark, Hornbeck, Johnny Dale, Harry Dunnigan and Bud Morrissey‘s wife Mary Ann.
“Jam-Up,” is a classic Palos Verdes photo of Tom Blake, Jim Bailey, Johnny Gates and Gard Chapin.
“We Make the Local Sunday Magazine,” wrote Doc about an article by Andy Hamilton, “Surfboards, Ahoy!” which appeared in the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine (exact date unknown). Doc’s got a picture of the article being held up and looked at. Identified surfers at that time: Reynolds, Oshier, Clark, Mary Ann Morrissey, Bud Morrissey, Woods, Landes, Pearson and Grannis.
“The Mighty Ski Jump Roars in -- December 22, 1940“ shows “Al Holland, Oshier, Grannis and Bayer riding the 30-foot grinders that arrive here on an average of twice a year and rattle windows over a mile inland with their heavy concussion. This picture, published in an Australian magazine, made its appearance in far away Noumea, New Caledonia. Was discovered there by a very surprised Doc Ball... Adie Bayer bites off more than he can handle and his 14-foot board can be seen sticking up in the crest of this colossal sea. The Doc and his camera had a bad few seconds also!”
In a humorous shot, Doc featured “Jim Bailey and His Surfing Cocker ‘Rusty’ -- Frequent visitors to the cove are these two, when the waves are running high. So captured by this picture was Joe Chastek, owner of the Los Angeles night club ‘Zamboanga,’ that he immediately procured a copy and had a 3 by 5-feet enlargement made for the adornment of his bar.” Note water-sled shaped board.
“Winter Days at Palos Verdes” identifies Grannis, Alsten, [Hal] Landes, Hornbeck, [Johnny] Gates, Bailey and [Gard] Chapin.
Miscellaneous: Tom Blake, Bud Morrissey; Tule Clark and Patty Godsave tandem; Tule with sea lion pup; kid scraping lots of tar off lower body: “Pre-war device for warming up in a hurry what gets coldest while shooting these pictures,” showed Doc squatting over a small burning tire on the beach.
In “Tom Blake, Author, Inventor, Beachcomber” Doc ball zooms in on Tom Blake, “beachcomber by choice, is shown here, whiskers and all, enjoying a surf ride at the cove. Tom is currently to come out with another book, Royal Hawaiians.”
Notable Palos Verdes days: December 3, 1939; April 14, 1940; January 18, 1942.
The Islands
To early 1900s kamaina Waikiki surfer Lorrin Thurston goes the credit of first using balsa wood to make surfboards in the 1920s. He did so in an effort to replicate the properties of the ancient Hawaiian olo material, wili wili. As noted earlier, there were some balsa boards built during the 1930s, but these were rarities. As a building material, balsa did not catch on at the time probably due to the lack of suitable material to seal the porous balsa from contact with water. However, it is also possible that it didn’t catch on because it is too buoyant.
Ancient Hawaiians had solved the sealant problem with numerous polishings of kukui nut oil, certain specialized treatments, and fastidious care before and after every surf session. The buoyancy problem was another matter altogether. The issue was similar to what the Hot Curl Surfers experienced when they tried Tom Blake’s hollow boards. They considered the hollows too “squirrelly” and non-manouverable. As the 1930s progressed and despite its limitations in the pre-fiberglass and resin period, balsa gradually began to be combined with redwood. In that way, balsa found its way into use by surfers in both Hawai`i and on the Mainland.
In the Hawaiian Islands, the surf scene was still pretty much limited to O`ahu -- Waikiki specifically. The beach boys ruled the beach. Surf clubs engaged in rigorous competition, mostly centered around outrigger canoes. Duke Kahanamoku was still Hawai`i’s most respected surfer and was still actively riding.
Toward the mid-1930s, a newer breed of surfers were growing up in the Honolulu area that would change the course of surfing -- particularly big wave surfing -- forever. Their stories are covered in the chapter The Legends of the Hot Curl and individual chapters on the preeminent hot curl surfers: John Kelly, Fran Heath, Wally Froiseth, Russ Takaki, Woody Brown and George Downing.
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