With all of the hoopla during the U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, there was a lot of talk about different “pioneers” of surfing.
Most of the time discussions such as these don’t mention the women who forged the way and opened the doors for the current flock of lady wave shredders. So, today, in the wake of the big event and with the dust laid back down, I thought I would reminisce a bit about the female surfers who led the way in the early days of what is termed the “modern era” of surfing, starting in the 1950s with the change to lightweight balsawood and then foam boards.
I started surfing in the mid-1950s, so this is where my first-hand knowledge would begin. I have touched on this in the past, but it seems a good time to revisit the subject.
To preface this, I should add that the release of the movie “Gidget,” in 1959, had a huge impact on not only women’s surfing but also surfing in general. Gidget was based on a girl named Kathy Kohner, whose father wrote the book about her surfing experiences with the Malibu crew in the mid-1950s. This would have been Tubesteak Tracy, Mickey Dora, Mickey Munoz and others.
Just the sheer impact the movie had on surfing would have to put Kathy up there with the most influential surf girls of the period, and beyond.
The Calhoun girls from Laguna Beach also are legendary. Marge Calhoun was the Makaha International Surfing Champion in 1958 and remained involved in surfing competition as one of the leading judges well into the 1970s. Her daughters, Candy and Robin, were both excellent surfers as well. Candy was United States champion and won many events in the early 1960s; she’s also one of the great water people.
Linda Benson burst onto the scene winning the Makaha event and the first West Coast Championship at Huntington Beach in 1959, at the age of 15. She also stunt-doubled for Sandra Dee in the Gidget movie. Over the next decade, Linda went on to win just about everything there was to win as well as being named the Top Women’s Surfer in the World in Surfer magazine’s first reader poll, for the year 1963.
She is still surfing today and is one of the coolest and most fun people to share a lineup with. I love Linda. She currently makes a device called a “rail grabber,” a little handle to make it easier to carry a longboard for those with shorter arms.
The next big-time women’s surf star was the great Joyce Hoffman. Joyce, known as “Boo” to family and friends, totally dominated the girls competition scene for many years in the mid-1960s. She is the daughter of famous early big wave surfer Walter Hoffman, known as “the Godfather” in surfing circles. The family company, Hoffman fabrics, produces almost all of the fabric for the leading surfing manufacturers in the United States.
Joyce learned to surf in an environment surrounded by the great surfers of that era: Phil Edwards, Hobie Alter, the Harrison family, her uncle “Flippy” Hoffman, Munoz and others.
On the heels of Joyce Hoffman came the amazing Margo Godfrey. Margo got recognition by winning the Menehune contest in La Jolla at the age of 11. She beat all the boys. By 15 she was world champ. What was notable about Margo, other than her incredible competition record, was that fact that she was probably the first girl surfer to actually surf similar to the men as far as style and function of moves.
Another great female surfer of that era, whose style also was along those lines, was Joey Hamasaki. But Margo was ahead of her time for sure. She ripped like no other girl had done before her and set the style and tone for those who followed.
That would take us pretty much through the 1960s. I would like to continue this next week, with a look at a few more of the great female influences on surfing. Stay tuned.
Ask the expert
Q. What was your most memorable surf exploration travel experience?
Mark Barbanell, Hanalei, Hawaii
A. I have been lucky to have had a number of these, mostly thanks to the fact that I grew up in a time when there were still many places in the world that could still be explored and discovered as surf spots. One of my favorites took place in 1970 when I was in Australia for the World Championships at Bells Beach, in Victoria.
A couple of weeks before the event was to take place the surf was very small, so Rolf Aurness and I decided to take a drive down what was called the Great Ocean Road and see if we could find some surf.
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There was a rumor that if you went past a certain curve in the coastline the swells got bigger. So we set off and drove maybe four hours or so, finally coming to a turn-off on a dirt road that led to the beach at a place called Johanna. As we came down the hillside we could see big lines coming in with offshore wind blowing spray off the tops. Turned out to be excellent beach break peaks up and down the beach. There was one fisherman on the beach and he told us he had never seen any surfers there before and to be careful of sharks.
The waves were great. When the surf went flat during the World Championships at Bells we told them about Johanna and they wound up moving the last day of the contest all the way over there. Rolf wound up winning it.
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