When it comes to the golden Age of Modern Surfing we're talking about the fabulous fifties. All along the So. Calif. coastal communities form Santa Barbara to San Diego literally 1000's of gremmies took to the waves and beaches like never before.Because of the post war prosperity and the commercialization of board manufacturing almost any kid could mow enough lawns, deliver enough newspapers, or collect enough bottles to get himself onto a good lightweight board. In the early 50's as Greg Noll recalled that the entire surfing population consisted of maybe a few hundred people, and most of them were riding redwood boards, paddleboards, or balsa/redwoods.

But within a few years surfing had become so popular that board manufactures began popping up at first in the So. Bay and eventually from Santa Barbara to San Diego. Around 1953 Dale Velzy and Hap Jacobs began making the only commercially available balsa boards anywhere in Calif. At first they began with a couple of sawhorses under the Manhattan pier. After a short time though the city came down on them for the mess of balsa shavings blowing with the wind all over the beach. So they moved the prototype shop to a building in Venice Beach under an oil derrick .

When it came time to order a board, here's how it worked. Velzy would size you up take your deposit and tell you to come in early Fri morning to pick up your board. Fri am there'd be 30, to 40 new boards on the rack.But anyone who walked through the door with the cash could have any board you wanted, you just changed the name on the tag. Mike Doyle remembers the day he was to pick up his first new board, I was late picking up my first surfboard, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't the one I'd ordered. I handed Velzy my mothers $75.00 and Velzy handed me a board off the rack. "here this one's perfect for ya kid" The board was 9'6" and had 64 ants embedded into the gloss coat of resin. Dale assured me that these ants would in no way affect my surfing ability, and I believed him.

Joe Quigg gives Velzy the credit for popularizing surfing: What Velzy did all along the strand from Manhattan , Hermosa and Redondo was to get all the kids onto his small boards. He was the first guy to sponsor surfers, the first to advertise in a big way,and the first to put surfboards and thus surfing within the reach of the average kid on the beach. Yeah, if you ask me it was Velzy and his gremmies who started the whole mass surfing phenomena in calif.

One of the first surfers the Velzy/Jacobs shop sponsored was Mike Doyle. After an epic day at Malibu Mike stopped by the shop in Venice to order a new board, and after listening patiently Hap put his arm around Mike and said , we'll make you whatever kind of board you want and we'll make it from the best balsa, but we aren't gonna sell it to you. We're gonna own it, and you can ride it all you want to." I don't get , why would you want to do a thing like that." Just trust us Mike ! Well Mike took the first bite of the apple and the rest as they say is history .

Most of the big names of the surf industry were born during these years. Hobie, Greg Noll, Hang Ten,Jams,Clark and Walker foam co.'sand many others, (add more names). What was unique about this period of surfing's history was that since there was no established sense of the past, and most of the people surfing were roughly the same age the only benchmark for behavior was to be as outrageous as possible both on and off the waves,and since surfing was a sort of extreme type of sport extreme behavior was part of the deal.Surfing evolved because we all challenged each other to go further than the last time.

Surfers seemed to be always pushing the boarders of what was acceptable. This attitude was especially evident when it came to riding big waves. Early travellers to Hawaii Like Walter Hoffman, Chuck MeCellan, Junior Knox, and Buzzy Trent had established the haole beachead at Makaha but it wasn't until well into the 50's that the North Shore Taboos were broken. Sunset Beach was the first place to be ridden, but as Greg recalled it took three more years before Waimea Bay was ridden.Probably the strongest taboo at Waimea was the fact that Dickie Cross had died there a few years before, and he didn't actually paddle out there he got caught by a hugh swell that closed out the No. Shore, and he was just trying to get in. One day while driving to Sunset Greg just stopped the car, pulled out his board and along with Mike Strange paddled out at Waimea for the first time. Within a few minutes a few others went out and before long the road had hundreds of spectators lined up watching the crazy Haloes surf the bay.

By the end of the decade manufactures were about to brake the techno barrier, with the new advances in foam and resin technologies. Years before Joe Quigg was suspected of being a German spy for his persistent inquiries into resins and setting fluids. Bob Simmons had opened the door to this technology in the late 40's when he created a plywood covered foam and fiberglass board. Now some 10 years Hobie Alter, Gordon Clark, Harold Walker, and then Greg Noll began producing all foam boards. These boards didn't change surfing style particularly, the light weight balsa boards were responsible for that , but the foam boards made board design more predictable and consistent. You could make the same board over and over again without worrying about different weights of wood bad grain or whatever problems there were with wood.

1959 was and epic year for surfing, We thought names like Dora, Noll, Edwards, or some other heavyweights like them would impact surfing in a big way, God were we wrong! the name that impacted surfing like an astroid slamming in was Kathy Khroner. Say who! Yep! that's right, but most of us new of her by the name Gidget.Before we knew what was happening , Gidget was going everywhere and a steady stream of Beachy movies were unleashed on the American public. Who could forget such classics as the Beach Girls and the Monster, How to Stuff a wild Bikini. About the only good that came from these corny cinematic embarrassments, aside from providing some part-time employment for Mickey Dora, Munoz, Johnny Fain , and Tubestake, was the new style of music they featured. The surf guitar and the screamin reverbin surf sound was born.

The movie Beach Party marked the first time Dick Dale and the Deltones played to a national audience and a short time later another inane beach movie Muscle Beach Party announced the introduction of Little Steve Wonder.This time marked the beginnings of a serious tribal revival,and serious surfers weren't at these lame movies, not a chance,because when they weren't surfin you could find them at places like the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, Harmony Park in Anaheim,or at the Aragon Ballroom at POP in Santa Monica These places were a sea of goodyear treaded Huarache sandals, Pendleton shirts, and faded levis as 3-4000 people a night packed these halls to stomp the night away.Groups like the Bel airs, from the So. Bay, Dick Dale and the Deltones, The Baymen, or the Chantay's rocked the halls. Who could forget such memorable tunes as Taco Wagon,Lets Go Trippin,Let there Be Surf,Mr. Moto, or Pipeline.This was bitchin music, something you could get into and within a couple of years there were more than 40 surf bands in and around So. Calif. pounding out the surf beat in halls and auditoriums all up and down the coast.

Along with there surf beat came surf fashion. Everyone wanted to at least look like a surfer even if they couldn't be a surfer. beyond the faded levis , huarache sandals, and pendleton shirts, the first true fashion created for surfers were the baggie surf trunks which were worn long to keep the mean wax rash from your legs.Hang Ten was the first company to mass produce surf trunks. They advertised in Surfer magazine and sold their trunks in all the local surf shops. Mike Doyle was one of the first models for the company. As Mike remembered, surfers were into anti-fashion so true to style as soon as Hang Ten became popular with non surfers they stopped wearing their trunks. But by then surf posers were everywhere.

What most people didn't realize at the time was the intense amount of creative energy that was focused on the sport of surfing. The 50's were no doubt the most prolific period in the 1000's of years of surfing's history. Within these 10 years surfing went from a arcane coastal pastime to a multi million dollar industry supporting entrepreneurs chemists, engineers, artists and craftsmen. There was no good ol boy network to rely on, no deep pocket defense contracts for funding, and there was no National marketing scheme in place. What there was was some sawhorses under a pier, some garage workshops, a few cameras, and a couple of Bell& Howe 8mm movie cameras, and that was about it.

The first glimmer of surf art began to appear with the publication of the Surfer magazine by surfer and photographer John Severson. At first this magazine was a vehicle for Severson to promote his movies. The poster nailed to the telephone was still the preferred form of advertising, but John wanted to push the limits.The magazine was a giant success right from the start. John was one of the first patrons of surf art, the Rick Griffin was elevated to legendary status through his heroic cartoon characters, and most especially through Murph the Surf. This magazine was largely responsible for beginning the global surf crusades that were to come.Through the pages of Surfer we travelled the world to places like Peru, Australia,Mexico, the East Coast New Zealand, South Africa and many other countries we never heard of. Photographers like Ron Church, Leroy Grannis, Dr. Don James, Tom Keck and Bud Brown along with John were the premiere lensmen of the 60's and all their photos were featured in the magazine.

Club Waikiki Lima Perú (Image: Wayo Whilar)

The surf arts flourished during the 60's with surf movies becoming the most prolific medium of expression. Prior to 1960 there were a total of 10 movies about surfing, then within the decade the combination of beachie movies and real surf movies released was 72. The non Hollywood movies ranged from rough cut kind of home flicks to some very excellent cinematography. The venues of choice would be A Moose Lodge Hall, High School auditoriums, and civic auditoriums from Santa Cruz to Mission beach. Most of the early movies had no sound tracts but were personally narrated by the filmmakers themselves. The most successful of these real surf movies was a 91 minute long, privately produced movie that quietly challenged and beat Hollywood at its commercial and glamours game.
We're recalling of course The Endless Summer, a movie that reached out to social worlds beyond surfing and generated a positive image and publicity windfall for the sport that is still remembered and felt some thirty years later. That documentary produced by then 28-year old Dana Point filmmaker Bruce Brown- was arguably the most important and influential statement made about surfing in this century.

Leonard Lueras wrote that "Browns success was and still is laudable, but more important than his artistic and commercial success is what his movie did for surfing. From Duluth to Paris, the surfer was no longer perceived as the archetypical beach bum or social laze about., but rather he became the symbol of \a healthy and glamorous lifestyle that during the later 60, 70's, and 80's would greatly influence look and tone of fashion, language , and leisure time activities throughout the wet and dry world."

Surfing was the fastest growing sport in the world. There was an insatiable appetite for anything surf related all across the country and for the surfers themselves there was competition surfing.Tough work, glamour status, world travel, a bit of controversy, and by the end of the 60's a paycheck as well. Mike Doyle became the first to win a contest paycheck at the Duke Invitational in 1969. He walked with a $1000. check for a few days of surfing. But despite the feeling by many of the competitors that some of the events were bogus, surfing contests were immensely popular and 1000's of spectators would spend days watching these contests. CBS broadcast the Peruvian Invitational's from Lima in 1966, and many local and national networks carried these contests as regular features.

Until now surfing had existed in a sort of self imposed vacuum with little regard for what was going on outside of the sport and lifestyle.However by the mid-to late 60's social and political vectors were able to penetrate the vacuum. The combination of Rock n Roll, Psychedelics, Vietnam, and world travel all began to have a big influence on surfers.

Freedom of expression has always been the hallmark of the surfing lifestyle,and travel is part of that freedom so as the 60's drew to an end surfers from all over the globe began to take to the road, and the great world wide surfing crusades has begun. Thousands of the sports most adventurous practitioners traveled to and surfed in countries that had never before seen a surfer or a board,and in the process remapped and renamed many of the world's most remote and never before surfed coastlines. From southern France's Chambre d'Amour to Bali's Uluwata you'll find the gypsy like international surfers hanging out and soaking up the local culture.In many places where surfers have come surfed and gone the sport has been picked up and perfected by the stoked locals. A good example of this is the island of Bali where the sport has grown to the point that there are surf shops and boutiques, and a big annual contest that is part of the international pro tour.

The Endless Summer had a sequence of Mike Hynson and Robert August giving surf lessons to the throngs of laughing Ghanian kids, that has to rank as one of the greatest social icebreakers ever captured on film. Perhaps as a result of the tribal wanderings during the sixties surfboard design and shapes were once again responsible for redefining the sport, and thus the look of surfing, and this time it wasn't a Hawaiian or someone from Calif. it was an Aust. wave rider.

Traditionally surfboards had been 10ft. or longer but at the World Championships held in San Diego in 1966 Nat Young the animal from New South Wales, completely blew everyone away with his aggressive style and dominating performance on his revolutionary new shorter board. At that time the short board was 9'4" and a thin 22" wide. This board was really like a born again pig board that was one of the hottest shape to come from the Velzy shop in Venice, in the 50's.These boards were wide at the tail and narrow at the nose. This was not exactly hydrodynamic engineering breakthrough though, because what had really happened was that the guy who was glassing for Velzy put the skag on the wrong end. As Mike Doyle remembered, Velzy, to his great credit was always open to new ideas, so when he saw the board he said, ah hell, don't knock it off, let's put it in the water and see what happens. In a very short time it became the hottest board shape in surfing. But in 66 Nat Young gave em' all a lesson in the future of surfing. Instead of nose riding like everyone else

Nat was carving long arc curves on the open faces, and S turns on the waves. This was the new look in surfing and Nat's style was so different from the rest that it set him apart from everyone else , at least in the judges minds as he handily won the third World Surfing Championships at Ocean Beach in San Diego. Surfing thus began a long and complicated drop into the current "short board era".And it is interesting to note that all modern surfboards follow the basic pig board concept. wide at the tail narrow at the nose.

Movies, music, world conquests and contests that's what surfing was about as the decade came to a close. The sixties brought major cultural and social changes to everyone both young and old. Surfing had by now lost alot of its original innocence, partially because of the mass commercialization of every facet of the sport, and too surfing had become a major international sport that was no longer dominated by the Hawaiians or the Californians like it had been for so many years. The traditional longboard surfing style had been replaced with a newer more aggressive wave attack and slash type of surfing style. These maneuvers were only made possible because of the smaller and lighter weight wave riding vehicles. In just a matter of years the size of boards had gone from 10ft. to 6 ft.