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30' and glassy!
A great read about a great Hawaiian's great day...
By Tom Blake
One of Duke's most memorable times surfing was at Castles, in Waikiki, during a giant south swell in 1917, on a 16 foot long olo-design board. The ride was a little over a mile. "If I hadn't jumped," Duke said in a 1965 interview, "I would have gone right into Happy Steiner's Waikiki Tavern."
"During the Japanese earthquake," wrote Tom Blake,"there was a long spell of big surf here of which the boys still talk. So it seems to be the jars, the shaking, the vibration from the inside of the earth that causes the big surfs. "In a good, big surf the expert rider gets an average ride of three hundred yards, some four and even five hundred yards. In contrast, there are weeks at a time when the bay at Waikiki is so calm a ride of fifty yeards is a good one. Waves up to three feet high are running then.
"In 1917, during the Japanese earthquake surf, Duke and the well-known 'Dad' Center had two of the greatest rides in modern times. There are many stories about their ride. Duke pointed out to me one day, when we were surfing away outside, where the ride took place. Of that day in 1917, he says: 'It was about 8:30 in the morning, no trade wind yet, the ocean was like glass, except for the swells. They were running about thirty feet high. We were waiting for them off Castle Point (Kalahuewehe), about five hundred yards outside the shallow coral and well to the west end of the break. We were so far out that we recognized the captain on the bridge of a passing steamer. A set of blue birds (big swells in blue water) loomed up. It looked as though they would break on us and we started paddling out, then stopped and decided to chance it. When the first one reached us it was just curling on top and very steep. Dad caught it and I took the next one. It took just one stroke to catch it; I had to slide hard to get out of the break. I went so fast the chop of the wave struck the bottom of my board like a patter of a machine gun. I figured the approximate speed. I was going about thirty miles an hour and when you are so close to the water you appreciate speed. That, along with the hazard of the wave breaking on me, made it quite interesting. I slid just a little too far west to make Cunha break. Dad Center did the same thing, this made the ride over a half mile long. That is not the limit, however, for I feel sure a ride twice that far is waiting for somebody."
In his own book, World of Surfing, written with Joe Brennan and published fifty years after the fact, Duke again recalled the details of this ride "as though it all happened yesterday, for, in retrospect, I have relived the ride many a time. I think my memory plays me no tricks on this one. "Pride was in it with me those days, and I was still striving to build bigger and better boards, ride taller, faster waves, and develop more dexterity from day to day. Also, vanity probably had much to do with my trying to delight the crowds at Waikiki with spectacular rides on the long, glassy, sloping waves. But the day I caught 'The Big One' was a day when I was not thinking in terms of awing any tourists or kamaainas on Waikiki Beach. It was simply an early morning when mammoth ground swells were rolling in sporadically from the horizon, and I saw that no one was paddling out to try them. Frankly, they were the largest I'd ever seen. The yell of 'The surf is up!' was the understatement of the century. In fact, it was that rare morning when the word was out that the big 'Bluebirds' were rolling in; this is the name for gigantic waves that sweep in from the horizon on extra-ordinary occasions. Sometimes years elapse with no evidence of them. They are spawned far out at sea and are the result of cataclysms of nature -- either great atmospheric disturbances or subterranean agitation like underwater earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. True, as waves go, the experts will agree that bigness alone is not what supplies outstandingly good surfing. Sometimes giant waves make for bad surfing in spite of their size. And the reason often is that there is an onshore wind that pushes the top of the waves down and makes them break too fast with lots of white water. It takes an offshore wind to make the waves stand up to their full height. This day we had stiff tradewinds blowing in from the high Koolau Range, and they were making those Bluebirds tower up like the Himalayas. Man, I was pulling my breath from way down at the sight of them. It put me in mind of the winter storm waves that roar in at Kaena Point on the North Shore. Big wave surfers, even then, were doing much speculating on whether those Kaena waves could be ridden with any degree of safety. The Bluebirds facing me were easily thirty-plus waves and they looked as though, with the right equipment -- plus a lot of luck -- they just might be makeable. The danger lay in the proneout or wipeout. Studying the waves made me wonder if any man's body could withstand the unbelievable force of a thirty- to fifty-foot wall of water when it crashes. And, too, could even a top swimmer like myself manage to battle the currents and explosive water that would necessarily accompany the aftermath of such a wave? Well, the answer seemed to be simply -- don't get wiped out! From the shore you could see those high glassy ridges building up in the outer Diamond Head region. The Bluebirds were swarming across the bay in a solid line as far northwest as Honolulu Harbor. They were tall, steep and fast. The closer-in ones crumbled and showed their teeth with a fury that I had never seen before. I wondered if I could even push through the acres of white water to get to the outer area where the buildups were taking place. But, like the mountain climbers with Mount Everest, you try it 'Just because it's there.' Somedays a man does not take time to analyze what motivates him. All I knew was that I was suddenly trying to shove through that incoming sea and having the fight of my life.
Continued in pt. 2...
A great read about a great Hawaiian's great day...
By Tom Blake
One of Duke's most memorable times surfing was at Castles, in Waikiki, during a giant south swell in 1917, on a 16 foot long olo-design board. The ride was a little over a mile. "If I hadn't jumped," Duke said in a 1965 interview, "I would have gone right into Happy Steiner's Waikiki Tavern."
"During the Japanese earthquake," wrote Tom Blake,"there was a long spell of big surf here of which the boys still talk. So it seems to be the jars, the shaking, the vibration from the inside of the earth that causes the big surfs. "In a good, big surf the expert rider gets an average ride of three hundred yards, some four and even five hundred yards. In contrast, there are weeks at a time when the bay at Waikiki is so calm a ride of fifty yeards is a good one. Waves up to three feet high are running then.
"In 1917, during the Japanese earthquake surf, Duke and the well-known 'Dad' Center had two of the greatest rides in modern times. There are many stories about their ride. Duke pointed out to me one day, when we were surfing away outside, where the ride took place. Of that day in 1917, he says: 'It was about 8:30 in the morning, no trade wind yet, the ocean was like glass, except for the swells. They were running about thirty feet high. We were waiting for them off Castle Point (Kalahuewehe), about five hundred yards outside the shallow coral and well to the west end of the break. We were so far out that we recognized the captain on the bridge of a passing steamer. A set of blue birds (big swells in blue water) loomed up. It looked as though they would break on us and we started paddling out, then stopped and decided to chance it. When the first one reached us it was just curling on top and very steep. Dad caught it and I took the next one. It took just one stroke to catch it; I had to slide hard to get out of the break. I went so fast the chop of the wave struck the bottom of my board like a patter of a machine gun. I figured the approximate speed. I was going about thirty miles an hour and when you are so close to the water you appreciate speed. That, along with the hazard of the wave breaking on me, made it quite interesting. I slid just a little too far west to make Cunha break. Dad Center did the same thing, this made the ride over a half mile long. That is not the limit, however, for I feel sure a ride twice that far is waiting for somebody."
In his own book, World of Surfing, written with Joe Brennan and published fifty years after the fact, Duke again recalled the details of this ride "as though it all happened yesterday, for, in retrospect, I have relived the ride many a time. I think my memory plays me no tricks on this one. "Pride was in it with me those days, and I was still striving to build bigger and better boards, ride taller, faster waves, and develop more dexterity from day to day. Also, vanity probably had much to do with my trying to delight the crowds at Waikiki with spectacular rides on the long, glassy, sloping waves. But the day I caught 'The Big One' was a day when I was not thinking in terms of awing any tourists or kamaainas on Waikiki Beach. It was simply an early morning when mammoth ground swells were rolling in sporadically from the horizon, and I saw that no one was paddling out to try them. Frankly, they were the largest I'd ever seen. The yell of 'The surf is up!' was the understatement of the century. In fact, it was that rare morning when the word was out that the big 'Bluebirds' were rolling in; this is the name for gigantic waves that sweep in from the horizon on extra-ordinary occasions. Sometimes years elapse with no evidence of them. They are spawned far out at sea and are the result of cataclysms of nature -- either great atmospheric disturbances or subterranean agitation like underwater earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. True, as waves go, the experts will agree that bigness alone is not what supplies outstandingly good surfing. Sometimes giant waves make for bad surfing in spite of their size. And the reason often is that there is an onshore wind that pushes the top of the waves down and makes them break too fast with lots of white water. It takes an offshore wind to make the waves stand up to their full height. This day we had stiff tradewinds blowing in from the high Koolau Range, and they were making those Bluebirds tower up like the Himalayas. Man, I was pulling my breath from way down at the sight of them. It put me in mind of the winter storm waves that roar in at Kaena Point on the North Shore. Big wave surfers, even then, were doing much speculating on whether those Kaena waves could be ridden with any degree of safety. The Bluebirds facing me were easily thirty-plus waves and they looked as though, with the right equipment -- plus a lot of luck -- they just might be makeable. The danger lay in the proneout or wipeout. Studying the waves made me wonder if any man's body could withstand the unbelievable force of a thirty- to fifty-foot wall of water when it crashes. And, too, could even a top swimmer like myself manage to battle the currents and explosive water that would necessarily accompany the aftermath of such a wave? Well, the answer seemed to be simply -- don't get wiped out! From the shore you could see those high glassy ridges building up in the outer Diamond Head region. The Bluebirds were swarming across the bay in a solid line as far northwest as Honolulu Harbor. They were tall, steep and fast. The closer-in ones crumbled and showed their teeth with a fury that I had never seen before. I wondered if I could even push through the acres of white water to get to the outer area where the buildups were taking place. But, like the mountain climbers with Mount Everest, you try it 'Just because it's there.' Somedays a man does not take time to analyze what motivates him. All I knew was that I was suddenly trying to shove through that incoming sea and having the fight of my life.
Continued in pt. 2...
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