Surfing’s roots lie in premodern Hawaii and Polynesia, where the sport was practiced by both men and women from all social strata from royalty to commoners. Early European explorers and travelers praised the skills of Hawaiian surfers, especially Hawaiian surfers George Freeth and Duke Kahanamoku. In 1914 and 1915 Kahanamoku thrilled crowds in Sydney with his wave-riding skills, thus helping to establish the sport in Australia as well.
Today the wave is the apparatus upon which surfers perform spectacular maneuvers such as “tailslides” (withdrawing the fins from the wave and allowing the board to slip down the face of the wave), “floaters” (“floating” the board along the top of a breaking wave), “reverses” (rapid changes of direction), 360s (turning the board through 360 degrees on the face of the wave), and “airs” (flying above the face of the wave).
By the late 1960s a distinctly Australian way of surfing had emerged; based on more aggressive maneuvers performed on shorter boards, it quickly dominated and influenced the global surf culture.
In 1953 the Waikiki Surf Club hosted the first international surfing championships for men and women at Makaha, Hawaii. This competition marked the official birth of the sport of surfing, with judges awarding points for length of ride, number of waves caught, skill, sportsmanship, and grace on the board. In 1964 the recently formed Australian Surfriders Association hosted the first world surfing championships at Sydney. Surfers formed the International Surfing Federation during the 1964 contest and the federation assumed responsibility for organizing world championships.
In the mid-1970s the ISA canceled its world championships. Surfers said that competition symbolized excessive consumption and a material way of life. They preferred the creativity and self-expression of “soul-surfing”—riding waves purely for the purpose of communing with nature.
The introduction to jet skis started partnerships and teamwork to surfing, which has traditionally been a fiercely individualist activity. The sport is known as tow-in surfing, as the big-wave riders are towed, like water skiers, into the massive 40-foot (12-metre) waves that break on Hawaii’s outer reefs.