Three Mile (Rincon)

Aloha and Welcome to the beginning of surfing on the Queen of The Coast: Rincon – once known to surfers simply as “Three Mile”.

Artwork by the late, great Robert Heeley

“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 

Another great piece by Robert Heeley

The first inhabitants of the Rincon area were the Chumash, who “had a sizable settlement (called Shuku) at Rincon Point, so it’s likely that their ancestors were the first people to ‘surf’ the Point, riding their sleek plank tomols onto the beach after fishing or trading excursions.” (“Queen of The Coast: A Short History of Rincon Point, 1939-69” by Vince Burns, March 31, 2022)

“These days the Queen of the Coast’s biggest claim to fame belongs to surfing. The northwest swells that wrap around her cobblestone point to form perfect, right-hand peelers have made her arguably the best surf spot in the entire surf-crazed state. But wave riding isn’t the first chapter in Rincon’s story.

“Named ‘La Rinconada’ by a member of De Anza’s 1776 expedition, the point already had served as a Chumash village for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans.

“In 1852, the infamous bandit Joaquin Murrieta buried a treasure near Rincon Creek. Murrieta stashed loot up and down the coast, and rarely was it recovered. But in this case, the son of the man robbed of the jewels successfully unearthed them 34 years later.

“Rincon and the sea cliffs to the south stymied coastal travel for decades. Stagecoach drivers between Santa Barbara and Ventura timed their trips around the tides. A low enough tide provided just enough sand to trot along the beach before rising waters closed access again.

“By the 1880s, the railroad was working its way along the coast. Dynamite blasts carved out a bed for the rail lines along Rincon, but when automobiles arrived on the scene, there was still no place for a roadway connecting Ventura and Carpinteria.

“A wooden causeway over the sand offered a temporary transportation solution. The elevated roadway made of eucalyptus planks opened in 1912, finally offering a route south of Rincon Point. In 1924, the state opened a permanent road after constructing massive seawalls and moving tons and tons of earth to create a bed for the new north-south artery.

“Around that time, an inn operated at the point that was more rowdy brothel than tranquil B&B. 

“Carpinteria Valley Museum of History Curator David Griggs says that the inn’s wild history may have been colored in the telling and retelling, but legend has it that the property straddled the county line in a most advantageous way. Santa Barbara County lawmen would show up for a bust, and all the bathtub gin-drinkers would hightail it to the safety of the Ventura County side. The scene switched when the Ventura law showed up.

“By the 1930s, beach cottages had begun to spring up along the periphery of Rincon Point…” (“The Queen Sings Her Secrets,” Lea Boyd, February 4, 2021, Coastalview.com. Article originally was printed in Carpinteria Magazine, Summer Issue, 2016).

___________________

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, nor was the area’s prime gem: Rincon.

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.

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.  

“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 Tom Blake-style hollow paddleboards and slightly shorter solid 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 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. 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.”

ENDIT

Late 1930s SoCal Surfing

Aloha and Welcome to a look at Southern California surfing in the late 1930s, largely drawn from Doc Ball’s California Surfriders, 1946, self-published that same year. 

San Onofre, late 1930s

Photographer: Dr. Don James

Photo courtesy of the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center

“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 

Contents

1936-1938

Flood Control, 1939

Manhattan Pier, Malibu & Windansea

Killer Dana, 1940

San Onofre, 1940

Palos Verdes Cove, 1940

1936-1938

The Pacific Coast Surfing Championships (PCSC) – begun in 1929 – had become an annual event; dominated for 4 out of 9 years by legendary waterman Preston “Pete” Peterson of Santa Monica. Officially, Peterson reigned as California’s recognized top surfer during 1932, 1936, 1938 and 1941. But, every surfer on the coast knew Pete reigned all through the ‘30s.

Other early winners of the PCSC 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.

“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 a 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.

Flood Control, 1939

In a section to his book 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] Grannis, 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.

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.

Malibu: “Waves here 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 late 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

By this time, San Onofre had become Southern California “Surfers’ Mecca” and  Doc Ball documented the PCS Championship 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, [E.J.] Oshier, [Tule] Clark, Mary Ann Morrissey, Bud Morrissey, Woods, Landes, Pearson and [Leroy] 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 Leroy 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.

California Surfriders, 1946

After the 1930s, John Heath “Doc” Ball served during World War Two and survived. Coming back to Southern California, it didn’t take Doc long to get back to surfing and his surf photography.

“Demand was still so great for Doc’s surfing photographs,” his friend and surf writer Gary Lynch wrote, “that he published the book, California Surfriders 1946. The idea behind this was to satisfy the California surfers, giving many a portrait in the book as well as showing the major surfing locations.” 

California Surfriders 1946 was first published in a limited edition of 510. “Original cost for the first edition,” Gary noted, “was $7.25 a book. Doc kept a complete and detailed list of who bought his book. This list still survives and provides an astonishing array of Who’s Who in the world of California surfing [at the time]. Names only hard core surf historians would recognize such as Bob French and Jamison Handy to other more familiar names like Preston Peterson and Peanuts Larsen fill the pages.”

Eventually, the fifth and final edition of California Surfriders 1946 published by Doc went out of circulation. Ventura’s Jim Feuling copied the original and published Early California Surfriders in 1995. The images used for this edition were shot from the pages of Doc’s first edition and then enhanced by computer. This edition, I believe, is still available.

“By the mid 1940s,” Gary wrote, “Doc Ball’s photographs had been published world wide. National Geographic (September 1944), Encyclopedia Britannica (1952), photography magazines, news magazines, art galleries, and newspapers were among the places a Doc Ball photograph could be found.”

ENDIT

Brazil: 1934-1969

Aloha and Welcome to this LEGENDARY SURFERS Chapter on the very beginning of Brazilian surfing.

Thomas Ernest Rittscher, Jr.

Gonzaga, 1934

CONTENTS

1934: Thomas Rittscher at Gonzaga

1934: Margot Rittscher at Gonzaga

1937: Osmar Gonçalves, Juá” Suplicy & Silvio Malzoni

1950s: Paulo Preguiça at Copacabana

1964: Peter Troy

1960s: Arpoador Pioneers

Mid-to-Late 1960s: Madeirite to Malibus

Brazilian Surf Culture Emerges

1934: Thomas Rittscher at Gonzaga

Most Brazilian sources converge on the dark sands of Gonzaga Beach (Praia do Gonzaga), Santos, São Paulo, in the 1930s, as the birthplace of Brazilian surfing.

At Gonzaga, the Rittscher siblings, Thomas Rittscher Jr. and Margot Rittscher, are widely cited as the first persons to ride a Hawaiian-style  surfboard (“tábua havaiana”) in Brazil.

Thomas Rittscher Jr. (Ernst Thomas Rittscher Jr.) (1917-2011) was born in the USA, into a family of German ancestry. He is often cited in Brazilian sources as Thomas Ernest Rittscher Júnior (Portuguese sources sometimes drop or reorder “Ernest/Ernst”).

The Rittscher family moved to Brazil during his youth and by the early 1930s his family was living in the state of São Paulo; local histories place him in Santos as a teenager. He was an active, multi-sport athlete. Rowing, swimming, diving, water polo and athletics feature in accounts of his early years.

In 1934, at age 17, he read an article in the U.S. magazine Popular Mechanics, published that year, explaining how to build an “Hawaiian” surfboard. Inspired by that article, he built a “tábua” (wooden plank board).

Although most histories have this board as solid wood, a visual examination of the few pictures taken between 1934 and 1936 indicate that it must have been a Tom Blake style hollowboard, complete with V tail. Infact, the 1936 picture of Thomas with his sister and their boards show faint outlines of nail lines on his (and a nailed repair on hers). Although called a “surfboard”, this design was more of a paddleboard (hence the V tail) ridden as a surfboard – which many were.

Thomas and his sister Margot used this board to ride waves off Praia do Gonzaga, in Santos, until Thomas built his sister a shorter solid wood alaia in 1936. A photo taken circa 1934-35 shows Thomas riding this board in the calm waters of Santos Bay.

Thomas did not pursue his surfing much beyond this point. He did assist later surfers in 1937-38, but mainly he went on to pursue other interests and his work as a coffee exportorter.

Although U.S.-born, Thomas became closely tied to Santos and is frequently described as a naturalized Brazilian in local sources. He worked for decades in the coffee export business (the same trade as his father) and was an active member of Santos’ social and sporting clubs. He helped found local organizations such as the Atlântico Clube and the Clube, reflecting his long involvement with sports and club life in the city.

Through the rest of the 20th Century, Thomas Rittscher’s early-1930s surfing remained mostly a local/historical claim rather than a nationally broadcast story. In the last decade of his life, however, he was finally recognized – nationally and internationally – as Brazil’s first surfer. In obituaries and surf history accounts published on his death (2011) he is consistently acknowledged as the individual who introduced the practice of stand-up wave-riding on a wooden surfboard at Santos – and therefore a founder of Brazilian surfing.

1934: Margot Rittscher at Gonzaga

Thomas’s sister Margot Rittscher (1916-2012) was the first woman to ride waves standing on a wooden board in Brazil. She was later remembered by Brazilian pioneer surfers as a cultural symbol of inclusion, showing that women were present from the very beginning.

Like her brother Thomas, Margot was born in the USA and moved with their family to Santos, on the coast of São Paulo, when she was about age 15.

Margot herself described the freedom she felt while surfing as “formidável” (formidable). Unlike her brother, surfing remained a part of her life for most of the rest of her life. She surfed regularly from the 1930s into the 1960s, balancing her love of the ocean with a professional career.

She worked as an executive in a shipping company in Santos, becoming the first woman in the Port of Santos to supervise coffee loading and stowage in a period when container-shipping did not yet exist.

Margot never married, and remained close to the sea for her entire life. From her apartment window (on Canal 5, Santos) she looked out over the sea daily.

Before she passed on, she requested that her ashes be scattered into the sea in front of her apartment window; the ceremony took place on 1 September 2012.

Margot’s pioneering role in Brazilian surfing is still celebrated: she is frequently mentioned in articles on the history of surfing in Brazil, and events honour her as the first female surfer in Brazil.

Her story occupies an important place in surf history in Brazil because she broke gender and cultural barriers by surfing at the very outset, in what was then a male-dominated domain. Her example laid the groundwork for later female surfers in Brazil, helping expand visibility and recognition of women in the sport.

1937: Osmar Gonçalves, “Juá” Suplicy and Silvio Malzoni

A few years later, a handful of Santos teens – Osmar Gonçalves, Silvio Malzoni, and João Roberto “Juá” Suplicy Haffers became intrigued by Thomas’s board and his act of riding on the water. Juá’s family knew the Rittschers, as both his and Thomas’s fathers were coffee brokers in Santos.

It’s probable that Rittscher let the younger boys borrow his board, which likely led them to wanting to build one of their own. It’s also likely that Thomas shared the information about how he used a magazine to build his board. By this time, however, there was a much better article just published in Popular Mechanics entitled “Riding the Breakers on this Hollow Hawaiian Surfboard” (July 1937, Vol. 68, No. 1) that was written by the originator of the hollow board himself, Tom Blake.

In the 1937-38 timeframe, Osmar, Juá and Silvio were around 15-16 years old. Juá recalled, in interviews years later, that unlike “the American” (Rittscher), he and his friends decided to seek help building their surfboard from a friend of Juá’s father, Júlio Putz, who built wooden boats. Whether Júlio used the same plans Thomas Rittscher had used (1934) or the newer plans by Tom Blake (1937) is unknown.

Using the resultant Blake hollowboard, Osmar Gonçalves, Silvio Malzoni, and João Roberto “Juá” Suplicy Haffers rode waves at Praia do Gonzaga, in Santos, in the summer of 1938-39. Thus, they became the first surfers of Brazilian descent.

There are different accounts concerning this period of Brazilian surf history, but all of them acknowledge that it was Osmar Gonçalves (1922-1999) who became the stand out surfer and shaper of that time.

Born in the city of Santos, he grew up in the region of the Baixada Santista, a port-city area where maritime, beach and a water-sports culture were already well present.

Because of his board making and his riding more often than his two friends, Osmar is often honored as “the first Brazilian surfer” – i.e., the first Brazilian-born person to surf.

Like Thomas Riitscher, Jr., however, Osmar later shifted his focus to other things; like sailing, his work and his family. He eventually moved away from Santos at some point in the 1940s or early ‘50s.

The city of Santos still honors him, today, notably with a monument (“Monumento ao Surfista Osmar Gonçalves”) at Posto 2, Jardim da Praia, Santos, paying tribute to his role in Brazilian surfing.

Osmar Gonçalves

Gonzaga, circa 1938-39

João Roberto Suplicy Hafers (“Juá”) was another member of the small Santos crew of the 1940s. Like Osmar, he rode early homemade wooden boards, often without fins, using pure balance to trim the waves.

Juá helped sustain the surfing subculture at Gonzaga through World War II and during its quietest years of the 1940s. He is credited with transmitting the “Santos tradition” to the broader São Paulo community.

Silvio Malzoni was a friend of Osmar and Juá. His boards were heavy “madeira maciça” (solid wood) planks, shaped by hand. He is known for his determination and helping keep surfing alive at Gonzaga, well into the 1950s.

1950s: Paulo Preguiça at Copacabana

Paulo Roberto Tate (1930-1978), nicknamed “Preguiça” (Portuguese for “sloth” or “lazy” – though ironically, he was neither) lived on Rua Francisco Otaviano, near the Forte de Copacabana, placing him at the heart of Rio de Janeiro's beach-culture zones of Copacabana and Arpoador.

Paulo Preguiça is recognised as one of the first surfers in Rio de Janeiro to ride waves standing up (or at least transitioning to that) on makeshift wooden madeirite boards at Copacabana / Arpoador in the early 1950s.

Around 1952, a group of Carioca surfers (native Rio de Janeiro surfers) including Preguiça, Jorge Paulo Lemann and Irencyr Beltrão began surfing on madeirite boards (a type of plywood easily bent into a curve shape by heating) at Copacabana. Later, Beltrão made many “Madeirites” for sale and helped others make their own.

Although no one knows who came up with the idea to use madeirite to ride surf in Brazil, Paulo was the person first seen standing on a crude rectangular madeirite board (nick-named “porta de igreja”) in Rio’s beach scene; the image stuck in the memories of younger surfers.

In Brazil, surf history sources mark 1950s Rio as where and when surfing started to gain increased numbers in the country. This, despite surfboards – no matter what kind – being heavy and most often homemade.

Paulo Preguiça’s surfing helped lay the cultural foundation for surfing in Rio. His boards and standing up on them made what was once just bodysurfing or bellyboarding into something more akin to real surfing as the world surfing communities recognized it.

Stories about Paulo indicate he only entered the Atlantic Ocean on days with larger surf than normal, unlike some others who surfed more regularly on surf of lesser size.

At least once – probably more – he rode a wave standing up with a girl on his shoulders, thus becoming Brazil’s first tandem surfer.

Today, Paulo Preguiça is regarded as the major icon of the early Carioca surf scene.

1964: Peter Troy

Many old time Brazilian surfers say there are two eras in Rio surfing: before and after Peter Troy.

Although many surfers before him had travelled to distant lands to surf, up until Australian Peter Troy, no one had done it to such a great extent. In a 1987 Surfing magazine profile, “Troy said that he’d visited 130 countries, including 38 in Africa alone.”

Arriving in Rio de Janeiro from Lima, Peru, by train in 1964, Troy first surfed on a local madeirite board at Copacabana and described the experience:

“Within minutes I had changed, waxed up on one of these boards with a candle I had bought over the street, and after clambering over the rocks and past clusters of people lounging on the rocks, launched myself. Now came the problems. These boards didn’t float and sure behaved in a different manner and every one of these Brazilians was wearing large flippers whilst I wasn’t and the answer soon became evident. They caught the waves here as it exploded over a huge boulder at the end of the point by lying on the end of the boards and then propelling themselves kicking with these large fins onto the wave. Once having negotiated the difficult drop down the face of the wave, here greatly aided by the severe turn up in the nose of the surfboard, they clambered to their feet and now standing rode across the face of the wave in a corner until they were wiped-out in the shorebreak down the beach.

“Now back to myself – without fins I had little success, but managed to take off on one wave and successfully rode this strange board to the beach, and so I came in due partly to failure at mastering this sport and due partly to extremely tired muscles and the cold.

“Within minutes many of the local surfers had gathered around and had begun to ask questions about me, for I was the first stranger they had met who had ever surfed their style of board as successfully in a first attempt…” (Peter Troy, letter/journal entry dated July 27, 1964, Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro)

Madeirite aside, Peter Troy is most famous in Brazil for riding foam and fiberglass boards and instructing locals how to ride and make them. Presumably, this was right after his first introduction to madeirite boards.

Matt Warshaw, in his Encyclopedia of Surfing (p. 652) described Peter’s riding a Malibu style board at Copacabana:

“... Troy took a walk down the beach at Copacabana and spotted a brand-new surfboard lying on the sand next to what turned out to be the son of the French ambassador. Troy borrowed the board and gave an impromptu demonstration that made national headlines, and earned him an introduction to the Brazilian president.”

“He caught a wave and ‘wow’: we were flabbergasted,” remembered Arduino Colassanti, Rio surfer and shaper. “He walked on the board and we did not know any of that. He made one or two manoeuvres, and on the second wave he took a bottom turn so radically that it ripped the bottom off my board. I had made the bottom more thin because fibre-glass was expensive. He tore it, but I did not care, only because of seeing those two manoeuvres that he did: ‘ooh man, it is another sport’.”

Troy’s visit coincided with – and helped accelerate – the switch among some Brazilian surfers – many at Arpoador – from traditional or ad-hoc wave riding (older wooden/hollow boards and madeirite boards) to the new foam/fiberglass longboard style that had been spreading worldwide since 1958.

Because of this, many Brazilian surfers and non-surfers consider Peter Troy to be the first person to introduce modern surfing to the country.

“The whole sporting fraternity of Rio de Janeiro have feted me with honours, invitations, hospitality, acceptance and sacrifice,” Peter wrote. “I have been interviewed for magazines, newspapers, filmed for TV and film newsreels, asked for autographs, photos, etc., introduced to leading personalities and requested to table opinions on life saving techniques, drawn crowds of spectators to the beach, children, parents, grandparents, etc., implored to give an exhibition of surfing, and in general awarded the recognition one would expect of a Stirling Moss or a Roy Emerson. The newspapers credit me as “Campeäs Mundial” (world champion), give me front-page coverage … and in general exaggerate to colour up my dull achievements. I experience little things like when a small child comes up to me and asks in faltering English ‘Is your name Peter Troy?’ I say that it is and he then mentions that he saw my photo in the papers and that he has come with his parents to see me surf, then rather proudly steps forward and shakes my hand and runs off.” (Peter Troy, letter/journal entry dated July 27, 1964, Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro)

1960s Arpoador Pioneers

Surfing leapt from niche to subculture at Arpoador, just around the bend from Copa, as local teens made and rode madeirite boards – the flat, heavy plywood craft with heated, bent noses and some with large skegs.

First-person recollections and photo archives place madeirite sessions at Arpoador around 1963, right before imported and home-built fiberglass started appearing. 

1965 marked the start of organized competitive surfing in Brazil. That year Rio hosted the country’s first official championship,“Primeiro Campeonato de Surfe”, with heats at Macumba/Recreio and the finals at Arpoador. Local sports clubs (Esporte Clube Radar, Iate Clube do Rio, Clube Universitário, Clube dos Marimbás) underwrote the event. 

Women competed from the start: records list Maria Helena Beltrão, Fernanda Guerra, and Heliana Oliveira among those entering the 1965 Arpoador event. 

The “Primeiro Campeonato de Surfe” at Arpoador (1965) was followed by a 1966 International and 1967 Carioca championship – evidence of rapid growth.

Notable during the Sixties at Arpoador were:

Carlos “Cocó” Barcelos was one of the young surfers who experimented with the first madeirite boards at Arpoador around 1962–1963. He represented the DIY spirit of the Rio generation that turned surfing into a visible beach youth culture.

Paulo Poggi built boards from construction plywood and rode them at Ipanema and Arpoador beaches. He later helped others in the transition from madeirite to foam and fiberglass boards.

Joaquim Guedes was an early Rio surfer and architect. He was among the first to transition from madeirite to fiberglass in the mid-1960s, then later to help professionalize surfboard shaping in Rio.

Maria Helena Beltrão was one of the first female competitive surfers in Brazil, in the mid-1960s. She entered the 1965 Arpoador contest, recognized as the first official surf competition in the country. Alongside Fernanda Guerra and Heliana Oliveira, she proved women’s participation from the very start of organized contests.

Heliana Oliveira & Fernanda Guerra both competed at Arpoador in 1965, marking the inclusion of women in Brazil’s first surf contest. Little is documented about their lives, but their pioneering role in women’s surfing continues to be recognized.

Rico de Souza (b. 1950) is considered the first Brazilian surfing celebrity and one of the sport’s great organizers. He began surfing at Arpoador in the 1960s with homemade boards. He later won the Magno Surf Contest (Arpoador, 1969) on a foam and fiberglass surfboard.

Rico went on to co-found surf magazines, organize championships, open surf schools, compete in international events and travel to surf spots the world over. By the 1970s, he was the face of Brazilian surfing.

Mid-to-Late 1960s: Madeirite to Malibus

Plywood (“madeirite” in Portuguese), sheets were bent by heating and pressing into shape. Nose lift was created by pouring hot water and bending the nose upward. A single wooden skeg was sometimes nailed or glued on. These boards were cheap and easy to make, which allowed for increasing numbers of young ocean lovers to become surfers.

But, by the mid-1960s, foam and fiberglass boards began to replace madeirite, first via expensive imports and then by the work of local shapers. These Malibu-style boards – although pricey for the time – lead to performance surfing at places like Arpoador, Macumba, and Recreio. 

The first foam and fiberglass surfboard-making factory opened up in 1965, in the Rio suburb of São Conrado. Shortly thereafter (1967–68), Rio and Santos surfers began glassing their own boards, copying imported models. These were more affordable than imports, fueling wider spread.

The Carioca Surfing Federation, Brazil’s first surf club, was founded in 1965 by Rio locals Ylen Kerr, Walter Guerra, Fernanda Guerra, and Maria Helena Beltrao.

In 1966, visiting North American surfers Mark Martinson and Dale Struble, along with filmmakers Greg MacGillivray and Jim Freeman assisted the club in organizing the Brazilian Surfing Championships, won by Jorge Bailley and Fernanda Guerra.

Brazilian Surf Culture Emerges

By the end of the 1960s, Brazilian surfing had moved from a handful of curious kids in Santos to a thriving, competitive beach culture in Rio.

In the beginning stage, it had been Tom Blake-designed hollow boards that got kids going. Then, madeirite, often without skegs, made it possible for more people to learn how to ride waves standing up.

These were times when surfing was very much a niche activity with only a few enthusiasts in coastal towns. There was no major national infrastructure or any recognition. Socially, these early surfers were more hobbyists than athletes. Even so, the period of the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s planted the seeds of surf culture in Brazil: the first boards, the first surfers, the first waves ridden.

During the 1960s, surfing began to spread more visibly, especially around Arpoador in Rio de Janeiro. This beach became a kind of “cradle” for Brazilian surfing culture.

At the same time, the Brazilian surf lifestyle (boards, music, beach culture) started to align more with global surf culture (Hawai’i, California); complete with long hair, Malibus and the idea of “surfing as a lifestyle”.

Brazilian surfing still faced infrastructure issues: board technology, materials and production were far behind developed surf nations. Many boards in use remained large, heavy, and not very maneuverable.

But, surfing spots increased, break discoveries excited all surfers, and a local surf culture began to emerge; characterized, at first, by surf shops, local contests and magazines.

By the late 1960s, Brazilian surf culture had also started to interweave with other cultural movements in the country itself. This was evident especially in music, youth-driven counter-culture and beach social life. What came out of it was a Brazilian surf lifestyle all its own.