The history of technological innovation is likened to a snail moving across a lawn, slowly yet steadily. It’s making its way to that voluptuous gastropod, inch by grueling inch. Then one day, nearing the end of its journey, it gets kicked up by a running, unaware, snot-nosed kid; it’s now progressed its journey in a matter of five seconds what it would’ve taken a week otherwise. In the past couple hundred years, technology has also been kicked by a snot-nosed kid. There is also no end in sight, I think, until we are all avatars doing the horizontal limbo virtually. A surfboard, essentially wave-riding tech, has gone through a similar process as other technologies. Long, heavy, finless, wooden boards, as well as other reed-configured surf crafts were made for thousands of years, and then poof, in a matter of one hundred, they’ve shape-shifted drastically, changing each decade leading us to the present.
I’m no historian, but from the information I’ve gathered, Duke’s travels from Hawaii to California and beyond — as well as the post-industrial timing of these travels — is what ultimately knocked over the first domino, creating a chain of events that would lead to the modern-day short board. As, I believe, inter-continental travel did for technology in general.
Local cultures, isolated in their parts of the world for thousands of years, used tools specific to their geographical region. But suddenly, aliens arrived from across the oceans, cultures collided, and innovation proceeded. As humans, we are idea sharers (or idea thieves), building off of each other’s ideas and inventions — we try to take an idea and perfect it.
But what if this never happened. What if Duke never set out to show the world surfing? What if wave riding began to occur organically, in different parts of the world? What if, by the time the world had connected globally, surf cultures were different, not only in style, but in board design?
Let’s ponder. That was happening — organic, geo-specific, wave-riding cultures unaware of their counterparts across the oceans — but it’s up for debate as to whether the surf riding in some of these areas was recreational or solely a means to come into the beach after a day of fishing. However, all controversy, and historical debate aside, there were humans riding waves in different parts of the planet simultaneously. Namely, French Polynesia, Hawaii, and Peru. Peru may have had fisherman surfing as far back as 5,000 years ago. They used small, one-person vessels that consisted of bundled reeds synched together that were later named Cabalittos by the on-looking Conquistadors. It’s believed that these original surfers used different sized crafts for different sized swells. Across the grand pacific, an unrelated surf continuum was taking place in the Hawaiian Islands. Wooden sculptures were forged from tree and stone. Kings lived and died by the board. The world boasts hundreds of thousands of miles of coastline so there were potentially wave riding cultures all over the globe. Matt Warshaw, from EOS says, “In fact, it’s easy to imagine that wave-riding in one form or another likely took root on antediluvian beaches from Brazil to Senegal, Lebanon to Borneo. For any society living on a temperate coastline, riding waves would likely be a natural, if not intuitive act. Dolphins and pelicans and other animals seem to do it purely out of enjoyment, after all.”
However, like a Native American had never seen a gun until the white man stepped his polished boot atop American soil, the world had never seen any heavy, wooden wave riding tools until Duke dragged one along for a surf-riding spectacle. The bow and arrow faded into obscurity, resting next to these ancient wave-riding crafts. And technology pressed forward. But, back to the original question, what if these worlds never intersected?
Surfboard design, culture, style, wave preference would surely be different. Imagine it’s the year 2023 and surfing subcultures had never made contact with any others. Let’s zoom out from the map into outer space and hover over our magical floating sphere; now spin the globe like it were the wheel of fortune until it stops. Let us now zoom into a surfing destination whose inhabitants are unaware of any other surfing life aside from their own — a mythical place where surfing is the foundation of these people’s everyday life, where dragons roam, and drugs are nutritional (Ok, too far).
A boy and his sister stare off into the ocean before the start of their session. The sun is coming up, greeting the mountains behind and the sea below, just as the boy clips his helmet on and tightens his sisters. They begin to set up their rig. The wave moves from the open ocean, rolling past a headland, past the reef and to the beach — it never breaks. A perfect day, with perfect waves. The boy and his sister begin to grin from ear to ear. They cannot contain their excitement as they stretch, targeting each muscle from head to toe, performing the customary ritual. This is key to a successful session. Foot by foot, they strap on their Hadrafyols; two in total, one for each foot. The Hadrafyol looks like some sort of boot. On that boot, a wooden shaft perpendicularly extends down from the middle of the soul. At the bottom of the shaft, opposite of the boot, is a small, wooden wing that’s centered on.
The boy and his sister, both now sporting their Hadrafyols, begin to roll down the sand dune toward the water. Every morning they playfully race and see who can roll the fastest — the winner gets the first wave. In a flash, the boy is up and riding, using the energy from under the rolling wave to propel himself forward. He pushes off with one foot, then the other, then begins to glide as he sets his line. Now, with the Hadrafoyls parallel, his hands behind his back and knees bent, the boy begins to plane. The boy has perfect form and his sister and other onlookers know it.
After the session, the boy describes his rolling, unbroken waves in great detail. His sister verifies his story as the community elders listen intently. Sitting there, in his felt vest, sipping green tea out of his thermal mug, the boy cannot help but feel like all is right in the world.
What do you think an uncontacted surf culture would look like?
— Barney Beadette