Aloha and Welcome to this chapter in the LEGENDARY SURFERS series, on John M. Kelly, Jr., one of the most influential figures in 20th Century Hawaiian surfing.
A pioneer Hot Curl surfer, board designer, war hero, musician, and founder of the environmental organization Save Our Surf, Kelly helped shape both the technical evolution of surfboards and the political movement to protect surf breaks in Hawai‘i. He lived from March 3, 1919, to October 3, 2007, spending most of his life on O‘ahu.
Contents
Boyhood
Hot Curls
Makaha
The North Shore
World War II
Conductor & Musician
Surf Breaks, 1937-1959
Environmental Activist
Hydroplane Surfboard
Second Half
Rememberances
Boyhood
“My folks and I sailed out of San Francisco Bay in 1923, on a ship called the Matsonia, when I was four,” recalled John Kelly. “As we approached Honolulu Harbor, I think it was six or seven days later, the first thing I saw were a lot a trees, pine trees, on what is now known as Sand Island. From a distance the trees seemed to be growing out of the ocean.”[3]
Kelly’s father was a Bay Area artist when he accepted a one-year job to create promotional illustrations for a housing development in Lani-kai, on the windward side of O‘ahu.[4] His mother was also an artist and, shortly after their arrival on the island, promptly had an etching of the newly-opened Royal Hawaiian Hotel published in the local paper.
“My parents weren’t really political,” Kelly, politically active himself at age 75 said in 1994. “They were artists, plain and simple. They loved people, and they loved freedom. They certainly had no problem, later on, with me getting involved with radical politics.”[5] John’s father, John Melville Kelly, earned acclaim for his etchings of Islanders and for his designs on the menu covers of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. His mother, Katherine Harland, became a noted sculptor.[6]
The Kellys soon moved a few miles east of Waikiki, to the Kahala section of Honolulu, building a shingled cottage at Black Point that overlooked the ocean. In the mid-1920s, after his mother gave him an old ironing board to mess around with, Kelly – aged five or six – first tasted the reef surf of Kahala. It wasn’t until he was nine that Kelly got his first real surfboard. It was a custom 7-foot redwood board shaped by David Kahanamoku, one of Duke’s brothers.[7] Kelly’s dad drew “Keone” (“John” in Hawaiian) on the deck and John engraved the letters into the wood, himself.[8]
An old Hawaiian fisherman who lived in a cave near the Kelly home became John’s adopted grandfather and mentor, teaching the young surfer how to make both cotton and linen nets, and how to catch moi and parrot fish.[9]
“The Makakoa family had a lot of kids,” John said of some other Hawaiians who made a difference in his life, “and a lot of aunties and uncles, and they were very close to me and my parents. We pretty much lived together, all of us. We ate together and played together, and I remember a lot of music and dancing.”[10]
From the Hawaiians and a group of Filipinos who had walked off the sugar fields, Kelly learned how to live comfortably around the ocean; useful things like diving to catch lobsters and picking tidewater limpets off the rocks.[11]
Hot Curls
By 1937 [1], John Kelly and friends Fran Heath and Wally Froiseth realized their huge redwood boards were too difficult to control on steep waves. The boards tended to slide sideways – “slide ass” – when the wave face became too steep.
It was Kelly who came up with the idea of chopping off part of the tail of Fran’s new semi-hollow Pacific Systems redwood board with an axe to narrow it and a drawknife to smooth out the edges.
The idea was to reduce the tail width, increase the curve in the tail rocker, and allow the board to hold a line across a wave face.
It’s true that skegs (fins) would have achieved a similar effect, but even though Tom Blake came out with the first ones only a few years before, they were slow to be adapted.
The “crude modification” made by Kelly and crew produced a dramatic effect. The board suddenly gripped the wave instead of sliding sideways, allowing riders to carve across the face.
The design became known as the Hot Curl, and it opened the door to riding larger waves like those at Makaha and The North Shore. Surf historian Matt Warshaw put it this way: the Hot Curl became “the foundation upon which modern big-wave surfing was built.” [EOS, 2003, p. 320]
Makaha
Also in 1937, John Kelly, Fran Heath, Wally Froiseth and their friends began exploring the surf of the rugged Wai‘anae Coast of O‘ahu while camping and spearfishing. During these trips, they became the first known surfers to ride the waves at Makaha, which later became one of the world’s most important big-wave surf breaks.
In those days, the area around Makaha Beach was largely isolated, with dirt roads and very few visitors. Even as late as 1942, when a 12-year-old George Downing first tagged along with his uncle Wally Froiseth, Makaha seemed remote:
“We’d load the boards on the car and drive out there,” recalled Downing. “... nobody around. Just the ocean and those big waves wrapping into Makaha.”
Early Makaha sessions often began before sunrise. Kelly and the others would drive from Honolulu in old cars loaded with mostly Hot Curl redwood boards that sometimes weighed 70-90 pounds.
Once at Makaha with swell a good size or better, John and friends paddled far outside to the point, where sets sometimes broke hundreds of yards offshore. The lineup was tiny – sometimes only four or five surfers.
Later big-wave champion Fred Hemmings, who watched the older generation surf Makaha as a child, recalled:
“I remember seeing John surfing at the point… there weren’t many people surfing out there then.”
Kelly was known for his smooth style – standing tall and drawing long, elegant lines across wave faces. The Hot Curl made it possible to control speed and direction on those steep faces.
Makaha established itself as the first consistent proving ground for waves far larger than Waikīkī. Although the trips there were for surfing, Kelly and the others often spearfished, collected shells, explored area reefs and camped overnight on the beach.
These trips helped shape Kelly’s lifelong connection to marine ecology. Friends later said that observing reefs and fish populations decline during those years contributed to his later activism with Save Our Surf.
The North Shore
While still surfing Makaha in 1938, Kelly and the Hot Curl crew also began surfing the North Shore of Oʻahu. Visiting California surfers Gene “Tarzan” Smith, Pete Peterson and Lorrin “Whitey” Harrison had raved about the waves there, following exploration forays on their visits from The Mainland.
Like the road to Makaha and the Waianae Coast, the road to O’ahu’s North Shore was rough and the coastline rural, but as George Downing later said of the Hot Curl surfers:
“The bigger the face we could find, the greater the freedom we had on those boards.”
Sunset Beach (Paumalu) was among the earliest breaks they tested.
Kelly and crew shared a motivation to experiment with board design, were gung-ho to surf dangerous waves, had a deep respect for the ocean and a strong sense of camaraderie.
Kelly embodied that spirit, but he also brought a philosophical dimension – thinking deeply about the relationship between surfers, the ocean, and Hawaiian culture.
World War II
John Kelly, Jr. witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, helping to pull people from the water. He joined the U.S. Navy, along with his Hot Curl buddy Fran Heath. Both performed dangerous underwater demolition and salvage operations as part of the Navy’s first Underwater Demolition Team (UDT).
In 1944, Kelly, a skilled free diver, earned a Navy and Marine Corps medal of heroism for free-diving 70 feet to recover submerged torpedoes off Kaho‘olawe, using just his goggles and gulps of air. He told a reporter at the Chicago Daily News War Service that “any Islander could have done it.”[12]
His experiences during the war profoundly shaped him. In later years he recalled how the violence and loss he witnessed pushed him toward lifelong activism and peace work.
Conductor and Musician
After the war Kelly regrouped with his Hot Curl gang, graduating from Roosevelt High School. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in music from the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in 1950.
For years he conducted symphonies and choral groups and served as the director of the music school at Palama Settlement.
“Our parents gave us so many opportunities to experience different kinds of art and music,” said his daughter, Kathleen Kelly. “I remember being a little girl, half-awake at these late rehearsals and watching him get these people to sing... He was used to getting people to work together, to connect.”[13]
Surf Breaks, 1937-1959
Between 1937 and 1959, John Kelly and friends – now joined by Woody Brown, Russ Takaki and George Downing – effectively opened up the major surf regions of Oʻahu:
1937: Makaha Beach – Introduction of the Hot Curl surfboard allowed Kelly and crew to ride the steep outer reefs at Makaha. This marked the beginning of modern big-wave surfing.
1938: Sunset Beach – First exploratory sessions on the North Shore by modern surfers. Conditions were often too large for the boards of the time.
1939: Waimea Bay – Studied, but generally believed too big to ride safely with existing boards.
1940-1942: Additional reefs along Makaha and Westside reefs near Kaʻena Point – Makaha become the main testing ground for board designs.
1943: Waimea – Dickie Cross lost his life there and Woody Brown barely made it out alive. This tragedy caused many surfers to avoid the North Shore for years.
1945-1946: Makaha Point – Post-World War II return of the Hot Curl surfers to Makaha made it the global center of big-wave riding.
1947: Outer reefs near Makaha – Longer rides and better wave positioning using improved Hot Curl designs.
1948: Makaha Bowl and Makaha Point – Makaha becomes the gathering place for visiting Mainland surfers.
1949: Exploration continued along the West Coast, including reefs near Yokohama Bay – These sessions helped surfers understand how large west swells wrap around the island.
1953: Makaha – Continued arrivals of California surfers, including Buzzy Trent, who would later become one of the most famous Makaha riders.
1954: Makaha: First Makaha International Surfing Championship, drawing surfers from around the world. It ran until 1974, in November or December.
1957: Waimea Bay – Ridden for the first time in the modern era, by California surfers like Greg Noll, Buzzy Trent, Pat Curren, Mike Stange, Harry Schurch and others.
1958-1961: Makaha, Sunset Beach and Waimea Bay formed the foundation of modern big-wave surfing on Oʻahu. Banzai Pipeline’s first documented ride in the modern era was in 1961 by Phil Edwards, but Mike Doyle had ridden it shortly before Edwards and some of the Hot Curl guys had bodysurfed it well before.
Environmental Activist
John Kelly, Jr.’s most lasting legacy was as an environmentalist. In the 1950s, he spoke out about the need to protect the Hawaiian environment, founding Save Our Surf, in 1961; a grass-roots environmental group responsible for saving 140 surf sites on O‘ahu from development.[14]
Kelly also spoke out against nuclear weapons. His activism and possibly his membership in the Communist Party cost him his directorship of the music school at Palama Settlement.
In 1959 he served as a delegate to the Fifth World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs in Hiroshima. He considered it a “privilege and a duty as an ordinary American citizen.”
“Good for him that he spoke against that racism, that arrogance, that insanity,” said Kathleen Kelly, who also inherited her parents’ activism and was arrested at a Vietnam protest in 1967.
When she called home from jail, her parents responded, “Good for you,” Kathleen said, laughing.
“That’s the kind of parents they were.”[19]
When he founded Save Our Surf, it became a grassroots movement opposing coastal development that threatened surf breaks and coral reefs. The group used public education, demonstrations, and community organizing to challenge government and corporate development plans.
Kelly summarized the movement’s philosophy:
“Respect the intelligence of the people, get the facts to them, and help them develop an action program.”
At its peak, the group – which consisted of dozens of surfers, ocean-users and environmentalists – staged protests, organized beach cleanups and spread the word using posters and leaflets about development projects that would impact the environment.
Among other accomplishments, these activists helped thwart the state’s plans for a proposed reef runway from Wai‘alae to Hawai‘i Kai, a beach-widening project in Waikiki and evictions of families on Mokauea Island, which later became a historic site.
“He was a pain in the neck sometimes, but I had to admire the guy because he was a leader in protecting and preserving the greatest natural resource we have here,” said Bill Paty, 86, chairman of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources from 1987 to 1992 and longtime surfer. “He was willing to go to the mat with anybody. ... I tip my hat to him. He kept us on the right track.”[16]
Hydroplane Surfboard
In 1963, Kelly came up with a board that, while never popular, demonstrated his continued drive to experiment with wave riding vehicles. His “hydroplane surfboard” was a strange design, meant to combine the speed of a longboard and the maneuverability of a shortboard in its slightly raised tail section.
“It was a crazy board,” surf champion and Hawaiian legislator Fred Hemmings recalled, laughing. “But it showed some real innovation. Even though it wasn’t functional and it never caught on, in a curious way it was illustrative of his character. He was an out-of-the-box thinker, an innovator.”[17]
Friends often said Kelly approached surfboards like a scientist. He studied: water flow along the rails, the curvature of the bottom and how tails released water.
Kelly reportedly spent hours dragging boards through shallow water by hand to watch how water moved along the hull. One friend recalled that he would crouch beside the board and stare along the bottom as water flowed past it. The goal was to understand why certain boards accelerated faster on steep waves.
George Downing later said: “We were always trying to find ways to get more out of the wave.”
Second Half
John Kelly also wrote books, most notably Surf and Sea, 304 pages covering nearly every aspect of surfing, published in 1965, and lauded by the surf media of the time.
He also did a lot of self-printing; usually of fliers, posters and leaflets for Save Our Surf, on an antiquated printing press in his basement that would run all hours of the night.
“I used to sleep in the room above (the basement),” his daughter Kathleen remembered. “And it would be running until 3 or 4 a.m. Clickety-clack, all night long.”[18]
In 2004, the Hawaiian Collection of Hamilton Library received a $3,075 grant from the University of Hawai’i-Manoa Diversity and Equity Initiative to digitize his posters, fliers and other ephemera from Save Our Surf, to preserve the history of this social and environmental movement. The collection is currently available online.[20]
“He knew that if you stick together and educate the public about what’s really going on and speak out, you can have victories,” Kathleen Kelly said. “You can win these things that make a difference.”[21]
John Kelly continued surfing and later, swimming.
For decades, he would jump off Kupikipikio Point, surfboard in tow, and catch waves at Black Point or Browns. As he got older, bodyboards replaced surfboards until he eventually ditched them both. Instead, he would climb down the cliffs, glide into the ocean and swim all the way to Ka‘alawai Beach. His wife, Marion, would walk from their home to the beach with his slippers and a towel. Then they would walk back to Black Point together.
“This guy once told me he went for a swim with John, just on his regular swim,” George Downing said. “And he told me, ‘I thought I was going to die. But John didn’t blink an eye.’ He was special.”[23]
About 20 years before his death, Kelly was struck on the head by his own surfboard, leading to a decline in his mental capacity. Also, soon after the accident, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. On top of that, in 1995, he found out he had bladder cancer.
At 81, he was featured in “Surfing for Life”, a 2000 PBS-aired documentary about the top elder surfers of the time.
Just a few months before his passing, John Kelly, Jr., who was still lanky and nimble, would swim back and forth in the saltwater pool near his home at Black Point. He passed away quietly and peacefully, on his 64th wedding anniversary in 2007, at the age of 88.[24]
Rememberances
By those who knew him, John Kelly, Jr. was remembered as a passionate speaker, storyteller, and fiercely independent thinker. He was described as intense but deeply committed to protecting the ocean and Hawaiian culture.
Fred Hemmings observed: “…as with most surfers in those days, (Kelly) was iconoclastic. He was a man who definitely did his own thing.”[22]
“He was probably the greatest humanitarian I’ve ever met in my life, and I’ve looked around,” said longtime friend and fellow surfer George Downing. “You couldn’t buy John, you know what I mean? And people tried. You just couldn’t budge him.”
Legendary Surfer and Waikiki Beachboy Rabbit Kekai attested: “He was one of the instigators… he made an impact.”
U.S. congressman Neil Abercrombie later said of John:
“It’s fair to say that John Kelly was the first modern environmentalist in Hawaii.”
“I can’t imagine what this place (Hawai‘i) would be without him,” Downing added.[15]
Attorney and activist David Kimo Frankel described Kelly as: “A champion of protecting surf sites, a tireless community organizer and a great storyteller.”
Within Hawaiian surf culture and the wider World, we remember him as a respected elder whose authority came from his pioneer surfing, his protection of Hawaiian coastal areas, and his moral conviction.
ENDIT
Footnotes
[1] Both Fran and Wally place it in late 1936/early 1937, after Fran’s semi-hollow board arrived from Pacific System Homes. “It was later than ‘34,” Wally told me when I called him up about this on July 4,1996, because a number of writers had put the year as 1934. “I was in high school, at the time, that’s why I know the date’s pretty accurate.”
[2] Warshaw, Matt. “20th-Century Radical,” The Surfer’s Journal, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 1995, p. 29.
[3] Warshaw, “20th-Century Radical, The Surfer’s Journal, Spring 1995, p. 30. John Kelly quoted.
[4] Lani-kai, in the Mo-kapu quadrant. Development began here in 1924. The name was changed from Ka-’ohao to Lani-kai, in the belief that it meant ‘heavenly sea’ (Honolulu Advertiser, August 15, 1948). However, this was an English word order (in Hawaiian, the qualifier usually follows the noun). Lani-kai actually means “sea heaven, marine heaven” (Pukui, Elbert & Mookini, Place Names of Hawaii).
[5] Warshaw, “20th-Century Radical, The Surfer’s Journal, Spring 1995, p. 30. John Kelly quoted.
[6] http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Oct/05/ln/hawaii710050375.html. See also http://digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/sos/index.php?c=1 and http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Oct/05/ln/johnkellytribute.html
[7] Browne, Bud. “Surfing the 50’s,” videotape of the best of his movies of the 1950s, ©1994.
[8] Warshaw, “20th-Century Radical, The Surfer’s Journal, Spring 1995, p. 30. See picture of Kelly and his board, “Keoni,” at Waikiki on page 29.
[9] Warshaw, “20th-Century Radical, The Surfer’s Journal, Spring 1995, p. 31.
[10] Warshaw, “20th-Century Radical, The Surfer’s Journal, Spring 1995, p. 31. John Kelly quoted.
[11] Toth, Catherine E. “Hawaii surf activist John Kelly dies,” Honolulu Advertiser Windward, 2007.
[12] Toth, Catherine E. “Hawaii surf activist John Kelly dies,” Honolulu Advertiser Windward, 2007. Kathleen Kelly quoted.
[13] Toth, Catherine E. “Hawaii surf activist John Kelly dies,” Honolulu Advertiser Windward, 2007.
[14] Toth, Catherine E. “Hawaii surf activist John Kelly dies,” Honolulu Advertiser Windward, 2007.
[15] http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Oct/05/ln/hawaii710050375.html. George Downing quoted.
[16] Toth, Catherine E. “Hawaii surf activist John Kelly dies,” Honolulu Advertiser Windward, 2007. Bill Paty quoted.
[17] Toth, Catherine E. “Hawaii surf activist John Kelly dies,” Honolulu Advertiser Windward, 2007. Fred Hemmings quoted.
[18] Toth, Catherine E. “Hawaii surf activist John Kelly dies,” Honolulu Advertiser Windward, 2007. Kathleen Kelly quoted.
[19] Toth, Catherine E. “Hawaii surf activist John Kelly dies,” Honolulu Advertiser Windward, 2007. Kathleen Kelly quoted.
[20] Toth, Catherine E. “Hawaii surf activist John Kelly dies,” Honolulu Advertiser Windward, 2007.
[21] Toth, Catherine E. “Hawaii surf activist John Kelly dies,” Honolulu Advertiser Windward, 2007. Kathleen Kelly quoted.
[22] Toth, Catherine E. “Hawaii surf activist John Kelly dies,” Honolulu Advertiser Windward, 2007.
[23] Toth, Catherine E. “Hawaii surf activist John Kelly dies,” Honolulu Advertiser Windward, 2007. George Downing quoted.
[24] http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Oct/05/ln/hawaii710050375.html
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