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