I found this fragment of a letter from the legendary paddler and surfer, Tom Zahn, among my dad’s papers. It’s the final page of a longer letter. I believe it was addressed to my dad, then president of the Waikiki Surf Club. Zahn mentions in the letter that he was 26 years old at the [...]
Just click on this notice to see several photos and news clippings from the Waikiki Surf Club dance held at the Waialae Country Club. Master of Ceremonies–J. Akuhead Pupule, who, it seems, was a charter member of the WSC. It appears these folks knew how to throw a party. Check it out!
The Waikiki Surf Club was just a year old when they put on a winter event featuring a six-mile surfboard race that sent paddlers from Waikiki out around Diamond Head and back. The winners of that inaugural race posed for this photo. It’s just one of several photos from that long ago Christmas that I [...]
The temperature in Honolulu rose to 86 degrees on August 19, 1958, but it probably seemed hotter as members of the International Surfing Championship Committee began arriving at the old Pearl City police station for their first planning meeting looking ahead to the next annual event at Makaha, considered the premier and most prestigious surfing [...]
Tags: Makaha International Surfing Championship·Surfing history·Waianae Lions Club·Waikiki·Waikiki Surf Club
Here’s another bit of island history found at the bottom of a box of my dad’s assorted papers. It’s the program for the First Annual Lahaina Invitational Surfboard Paddling Races, dated June 11, 1960. Sponsored by the Maui Surf Club, Puunene, Maui. Click on the front cover to browse through the program. It’s in poor [...]
I received an email this week looking for additional photos or information about Abel Gomes, a 20th century cabinet maker and woodworker who became a well-known surfboard shaper, and his son, Allan Gomes, a well-known surfboard maker in his own right. Along with the note came three photographs. Click on any photo for a larger [...]
Tags: Abel Gomes·Allan Gomes·Surfing history·Waikiki Surf Club
In June 1943, a surfing and paddling competition was held in Waikiki, sponsored by the Hawaii Surfing Association, along with the Outrigger Canoe Club and the Honolulu Junior Chamber of Commerce. Martial law was still in effect and barbed wire was strung out along parts of Waikiki Beach. A few photographs of the event, and [...]
That’s my father in the center of this 1938 photo with other members of the “beef trust chorus”. It was part of a fundraiser put on by the Long Beach (California) Junior Chamber of Commerce. I believe that he was, at the same time, president of the Long Beach Surfing Club. He was just turning [...]
Tags: Surfing history
