50 Fun Facts About Surfing

Modern stand-up surfing is generally thought to have originated where?

Ancient Peruvians rode reed craft thousands of years earlier, but standing on a board was a Polynesian innovation perfected in the islands.

Which ancient Peruvian culture rode waves on reed boats called caballitos de totora?

Archaeology puts their use around 200 CE, and local fishermen still ride them today.

Which member of Cook's expedition first wrote about surfing and completed the captain's journals?

Botanist Joseph Banks had described Tahitian wave-riding on the earlier Endeavour voyage in 1769.

Which author tried surfing at Waikiki and wrote about it in the 1907 essay 'A Royal Sport'?

Missionaries had suppressed the sport as frivolous; Waikiki tourism brought it back.

In which sport did Duke Kahanamoku win his Olympic gold medals?

He took the 100-metre freestyle in 1912 and 1920 and was a five-time Olympic medallist.

Kahanamoku's 1914 Freshwater Beach surfing exhibition is a founding moment for the sport in which country?

He built the board from a piece of pine bought at a local hardware store; the surf club still has it.

How many men did Kahanamoku rescue with his surfboard off Newport Beach in 1925?

The publicity persuaded lifeguards across the US to adopt surfboards as standard rescue equipment.

Who is credited with first adding a fin to a surfboard, in 1935?

He bolted the keel from an old speedboat to a board; the Wisconsin-born surfer was one of the sport's great innovators.

Which Australian surfer designed the three-fin 'thruster' in 1980?

Thirty years on it remains the most popular fin set-up on shortboards.

Who invented the modern neoprene wetsuit in 1952?

He was a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley; the suits went on sale in the mid-1950s.

How many World Surf League world titles has Kelly Slater won?

He was the youngest champion at 20 in 1992 and won his eighth Pipe Masters at 49.

Kelly Slater grew up in which Florida town?

He still lives there and played lifeguard Jimmy Slade on seven episodes of Baywatch in the early 1990s.

Which sportswear giant sponsored Kelly Slater from 1990 until 2014?

After leaving he co-founded the sustainable clothing brand Outerknown with Kering.

How many women's world titles has Stephanie Gilmore won, the record?

She is the only surfer ever to win the world title as a rookie, then took four in a row from 2007 to 2010.

Which Australian is the only surfer, male or female, to win six consecutive world titles?

She won seven in all, and was born Tania Gardner before being adopted by a Manly family.

At what age did Carissa Moore become the youngest surfer ever to win a world title?

She unseated four-time champion Stephanie Gilmore in 2011 and went on to win five titles.

Who won the first-ever Olympic gold medals in surfing at Tokyo 2020?

Moore also won the world title that year, the first surfer to do both in one season.

Where was the Tokyo 2020 Olympic surfing competition actually held?

It sits about 40 miles outside Tokyo; Olympic surfing is limited to shortboards.

The Paris 2024 surfing events were held about how far from Paris, a record for an Olympic medal event?

Competitors at Teahupo'o in Tahiti stayed on a ship, the first floating Olympic village.

The name Teahupo'o loosely translates as what?

It refers to an old battle in the village; the wave breaks over reef as shallow as 20 inches.

What height did Guinness certify for the record wave surfed at Nazaré in October 2020?

Sebastian Steudtner rode the 26.2-metre wave at Nazaré, Portugal, in October 2020; Guinness later ratified an even larger Steudtner ride from 2024.

What underwater feature makes the waves at Nazaré so enormous?

The Nazaré Canyon focuses and converges incoming swell; Garrett McNamara's 78-footer there in 2011 started the record run.

Which Brazilian set the women's big-wave record of 73 feet at Nazaré in 2020?

Rodrigo Koxa, also Brazilian, had held the overall record with an 80-foot wave in 2017.

Big wave surfing is generally defined as riding waves of at least what height?

Riders use boards known as 'guns', or are towed in behind jet skis on shorter towboards.

Laird Hamilton and friends pioneered tow-in surfing in the early 1990s at which Maui break?

They were dubbed the 'Strapped Crew' because their feet were strapped to their boards; Riding Giants tells the story.

The Banzai Pipeline breaks off which Hawaiian island?

It sits off Ehukai Beach on the North Shore and got its name from filmmaker Bruce Brown in December 1961.

What is the name of the famous right-hander that peels away opposite Pipeline on a north swell?

On big days the deeper Second Reef starts breaking with longer walls.

Mavericks in California is named after what?

Maverick swam out with three surfers in 1967 and seemed to enjoy it more than anyone; Jeff Clark later surfed it alone for years.

Which Hawaiian big-wave legend died surfing Mavericks in December 1994?

He had flown in with Ken Bradshaw and Mike Parsons during a week of huge swells.

Eddie Aikau, namesake of 'The Eddie' big-wave contest, was the first lifeguard at which bay?

He saved more than 500 people there and died in 1978 paddling for help from the voyaging canoe Hokule'a.

How old was Bethany Hamilton when a tiger shark bit off her left arm in 2003?

She was back on a board 26 days later; her story became the film Soul Surfer.

Which surfer was attacked by a shark on live TV during the 2015 J-Bay Open final in South Africa?

The great white got tangled in his leash two minutes into the final; he escaped unhurt.

Which Australian break hosts the world's longest continuously running pro surfing contest?

The Rip Curl Pro has run at Easter since 1962 on Victoria's Great Ocean Road.

Which surf move is specific to longboarding?

Modern longboards run 9 to 10 feet, echoing the earliest boards.

How many fins does a modern 'thruster' shortboard have?

They are typically 6 to 7 feet long and evolved from the late-1960s shortboard revolution.

The 1957 novel Gidget was based on the author's daughter's tales of surf culture at which California beach?

Frederick Kohner wrote it in six weeks from Kathy's stories, and Sandra Dee starred in the 1959 film.

Who directed and narrated the 1966 documentary The Endless Summer?

Mike Hynson and Robert August paid $1,400 each for their own round-the-world tickets.

Which member of the Beach Boys was the only one who actually surfed?

He suggested the band write about the sport; the label wanted to call them the Surfers until it turned out that name was taken.

In Point Break, the surfing bank robbers wear rubber masks of what?

Reagan, Carter, Nixon and LBJ; Kathryn Bigelow directed Keanu Reeves as FBI agent Johnny Utah.

Which giant Hawaiian break did Danilo Couto and Marcio Freire first paddle into in January 2010?

For two years they were the only surfers to have paddled into it, until it was surfed to the right in 2012.

Which wetsuit pioneer lost his left eye in an early surf-leash accident?

Early leashes used surgical tubing that overstretched and catapulted the board back at the rider; the eye patch became part of his brand image.

Who won the men's Olympic surfing gold at Teahupo'o in 2024?

The Tahitian-born Frenchman won on his home reef, while Caroline Marks of the United States took the women's gold.

Which California break was chosen to host surfing at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics?

Paris 2024 had staged its surfing at Teahupo'o, a record distance from the host city; LA 2028 organisers picked a break on home sand.

How tall was the then-record wave Garrett McNamara rode at Nazaré in November 2011?

He was towed in by jet ski on a 6'0" Dick Brewer tow board; the ride put the Portuguese fishing town on the big-wave map.

In 2007, McNamara rode Alaskan waves created by what?

He and partner Keali'i Mamala chased tsunami-like waves thrown up by 300-foot ice walls collapsing into the sea.

Which ancient Hawaiian surfboard type was reserved for royalty?

These solid wooden boards could run over 24 feet long and weigh up to 90 kg, which is part of why commoners rode shorter shapes.

Which aerial did Gabriel Medina become the first to land in competition, at the 2016 Oi Rio Pro?

Media reports credit him as only the second surfer ever to pull the move; he landed it in front of a home crowd in Brazil.

The Hawaiian term for surfing, he'e nalu, literally means what?

Joseph Banks described Tahitians riding waves on a canoe stern during Cook's first voyage in 1769, one of the earliest European accounts of the art.

Who developed the template of the modern surfboard fin in the 1960s?

His flexible, swept-back fin designs fed directly into the shortboard revolution that reshaped the sport later that decade.

John John Florence was the first Hawaii-born surfer to win back-to-back world titles since whom?

Florence, born in Honolulu, took the 2016 and 2017 crowns and is regarded as one of the most dominant Pipeline surfers of his era.