49 Fun Facts About Surfing

What do surfers rub onto the deck of a surfboard to stop their feet slipping?

Wax is credited to Al Gallant, a California teenager who in 1935 noticed his feet sticking to his mother's freshly waxed floor and took her bottle of floor wax to the beach.

Fishermen in which country still ride waves ashore on reed boats called caballitos de totora?

Peru's north-coast fishermen sit astride the bundled reeds like riders, hence the name 'little reed horses'; Moche and Chimú pottery shows the same boats centuries before the Incas.

The first written descriptions of Hawaiian surfing come from the 1779 journals of which explorer's final voyage?

James Cook's officers wrote them at Kealakekua Bay within weeks of his death there: ship's surgeon David Samwell and Lieutenant James King both described islanders riding planks on the swell.

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

Jack London stayed out four hours on his second day and burned the backs of his legs so badly that he could not walk; he wrote the essay in bed.

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

Swimming made his name in 1911, when he beat the 100-yard world record by 4.6 seconds in Honolulu Harbor; disbelieving officials refused to recognise the time for years.

Which 'King of the Surf Guitar', a keen surfer himself, recorded the Misirlou heard over Pulp Fiction's opening credits?

Dick Dale played so loud for his crowds of surfers that he kept blowing up amplifiers, so Leo Fender worked with him to build tougher, far louder ones.

Off which California town did Duke Kahanamoku rescue eight fishermen from a capsized boat in 1925, paddling out on his surfboard?

Newport Beach, 1925: he paddled out again and again to the capsized Thelma and brought in eight men, and the rescue led lifeguards across the US to adopt surfboards as standard equipment.

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

Tom Blake took the keel off an abandoned speedboat in Waikiki and fixed it under his board; the wide-tailed boards of the day slid or spun out on steep waves, and the keel held the tail steady.

Which Australian shaper added a third fin to the twin-fin surfboard in 1980, a design now standard on shortboards?

Simon Anderson won two of 1981's biggest contests on his prototype yet never patented it, saying plenty of other shapers were working toward the same idea.

The wetsuit that opened cold-water surfing was invented in the early 1950s by a physicist whose wartime work was on what?

The Manhattan Project's Hugh Bradner designed it at Berkeley with Navy frogmen in mind, never patented it and saw his own wetsuit venture founder, while two California surf firms built an industry on the wetsuit.

Eleven-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater had a recurring acting role in which TV series in the early 1990s?

Baywatch cast him as Jimmy Slade, a part he says his mother and manager pushed on him; embarrassed, he resolved to win that year's world title to keep his credibility, and did.

Kelly Slater grew up in which Florida surf town just south of Cape Canaveral?

Cocoa Beach put up a bronze statue of its hometown hero, though not by the sea: he stands on a highway median where the A1A splits, and fans have to cross traffic to reach him.

Which surfwear brand, its logo drawn from Hokusai's Great Wave, sponsored Kelly Slater from 1990 to 2014?

Quiksilver backed him for 23 years; he left to start the clothing label Outerknown with Kering, the Paris group behind Gucci, which also owned rival surf brand Volcom.

Which Australian won a record eighth women's world surfing title in 2022?

Stephanie Gilmore did it the hard way: seeded fifth and last for finals day, she won five heats in a row, then said she had wanted to prove a surfer could come from the bottom and win.

Which Australian won six consecutive world surfing titles from 1998 to 2003, a run no other surfer, male or female, has matched?

Layne Beachley, born Tania Gardner, learned at eight that she was adopted, and threw herself into surfing to prove her worth; a seventh title followed in 2006.

Which 18-year-old Californian took Carissa Moore's record as the pro tour's youngest world champion in 2024, by six days?

Caitlin Simmers was 18 years and 316 days old, Moore 18 years and 322 back in 2011; Simmers even lost the opening heat of the title decider before winning the next two.

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

Ítalo Ferreira and Carissa Moore took the golds; Ferreira's board snapped minutes into his final, he swapped it and still won, years after first riding waves on the lid of his father's fish cooler.

Which spot on the Pacific coast east of Tokyo hosted surfing's Olympic debut at the 2020 Games?

Tsurigasaki Beach, Chiba was expected to serve up knee-high summer waves; instead Tropical Storm Nepartak sent in a swell, and organisers moved the finals forward a day to catch it.

Paris 2024's surfing was held at Teahupo'o in Tahiti, roughly how far from Paris?

About 15,000 km: organisers passed over four beaches in mainland France for Tahiti's reef wave, and the surfers slept aboard the Aranui 5, a cruise ship turned athletes' village.

The name Teahupo'o loosely translates as what?

'Place of skulls' is the popular gloss; other readings give a heap of heads or a wall of skulls, and the name is said to recall a battle fought in the village long before anyone rode the reef.

Which German surfer set the Guinness record for the largest wave ever surfed, 86 feet at Nazaré in October 2020?

Sebastian Steudtner grew up in Nuremberg, about as far from surf as Germany gets, and left for Hawaii as a teenager to chase big waves.

What underwater feature makes the waves at Nazaré so enormous?

A submarine canyon, Europe's largest at about 230 km long and up to 5 km deep, runs almost to the beach and funnels Atlantic swell onto one short stretch of sand.

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

Maya Gabeira nearly died at the same break in 2013: knocked unconscious with a broken leg, she was brought ashore and revived by CPR, then needed back operations before she could return.

Which technique did Laird Hamilton, Buzzy Kerbox and Darrick Doerner pioneer in 1992 on Hawaii's big winter waves?

Tow-in surfing began that winter with the trio dragging one another into big Hawaiian waves on a rope behind a Zodiac inflatable boat; jet skis replaced the boat later.

The Banzai Pipeline breaks off which Hawaiian island?

Oahu's North Shore break got its name in December 1961, when a visiting board shaper saw pipes being laid beside the Kamehameha Highway and thought the hollow waves looked just like them.

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

Backdoor shares its peak with Pipeline over the same shallow reef, so one surfer can pull in left at Pipe while another takes the very same wave right.

Mavericks in California is named after what?

A German shepherd dog called Maverick kept following the surfers who first tried the spot in 1967 into the water, so they tied him to their car on shore and named the break for him.

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

Mark Foo had flown in overnight for the swell and fell on a wave far smaller than many he had ridden; he was found over two hours later, still leashed to a piece of his board.

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

Waimea Bay lost not one swimmer on his watch, through more than 500 rescues in surf that drove everyone else off the beach; the slogan 'Eddie Would Go' remembers him.

Which 2011 film tells the story of Bethany Hamilton, who lost an arm to a tiger shark at 13 and kept competing?

Soul Surfer has Hamilton herself doing the stunt surfing for the scenes set after the attack, while AnnaSophia Robb's left arm was digitally erased from some 450 shots.

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

Mick Fanning punched the shark, escaped without a scratch and saw the final abandoned; a year later he went back to the same break and won the 2016 event.

Which Australian break is home to the world's longest-running surfing contest, first held in 1962?

Bells Beach winners get to ring a brass bell, the trophy handed out there since 1968; the pandemic cancelled the contest in 2020 and 2021.

Which surf move is specific to longboarding?

Hanging ten, all ten toes hung over the nose, takes a long, wide, heavy board, because only that much foam stays steady while the surfer walks to the front.

What feature defines a 'thruster' surfboard?

Three fins, all the same size: the idea came in 1980 from a friend's twin-fin steadied by one small extra fin, and the design is now the most widely used fin set-up.

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

Malibu's all-male surf crowd nicknamed 15-year-old Kathy Kohner 'Gidget', short for 'girl midget', because she stood barely five feet tall; her father turned her stories into the novel.

Who directed and narrated the 1966 documentary The Endless Summer?

Bruce Brown had planned only a trip to South Africa until a travel agent found a round-the-world ticket was $50 cheaper, and following summer around the globe became the film's premise.

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

Dennis Wilson, the drummer, pushed his brother Brian into writing about the sport; Carl Wilson later admitted the rest of the band had all tried it and 'were terrible'.

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

Former US presidents Reagan, Carter, Nixon and Johnson are the masks, so the gang is known as the Ex-Presidents. The film's Australian storm finale was really shot on Indian Beach in Oregon.

Which giant Hawaiian break did Brazil's 'Mad Dogs' begin paddling into in 2006, without jet skis or rescue teams?

Jaws (Pe'ahi) got its nickname in 1975 from three Maui surfers who watched the waves there turn huge and dangerous without warning, like the shark in that year's hit film.

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

Jack O'Neill, the wetsuit maker, was testing a leash, an invention credited to his own son Pat, when the board sprang back at him in 1971; the eye patch he wore from then on became part of the brand's image.

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

Kauli Vaast grew up down the road from the break and first surfed it at the age of eight; he won the final on just two waves, the first of them a 9.5 barrel.

Which California break was named in April 2025 as the surfing venue for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics?

Lower Trestles, near San Clemente, beat Huntington Beach, the other break in the running; surfing's world governing body said the quality and consistency of the wave decided it.

In which country is Nazaré, the fishing town where Garrett McNamara rode a record 78-foot wave in November 2011?

Portugal's Nazaré was put on the surfing map by that ride; a year later McNamara got married in the old fort beside Praia do Norte, the beach where he had set the record.

In 2007, big-wave surfer Garrett McNamara rode waves in Alaska that were created by what?

Calving glaciers: he waited for hours among the ice on the Copper River for 300-foot walls to fall, and called it the closest he had come to death.

Which ancient Hawaiian surfboard type was reserved for royalty?

Olo boards are thought to have been ridden only by chiefs; too long and heavy for steep waves, they were made to glide on big, gently rolling swells.

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

Backflip: Medina's earned a perfect 10 before a home crowd in Rio and knocked fellow Brazilian Alex Ribeiro out of the second round.

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

Wave sliding joins he'e, to slide, and nalu, a wave; old Hawaii took the sport seriously enough that people wagered on the outcome of surf contests.

Which Californian kneeboarder developed the template of the modern surfboard fin in the 1960s?

George Greenough modelled his narrow, flexible fin on a tuna's fin and rode it first on his own kneeboard; Australian shaper Bob McTavish then fitted it to the shorter stand-up boards of the late 1960s.

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.