Hollow? Maybe. Influential? Not so much. Photo: WSL
The Surf Abu Dhabi wave pool has been getting a lot of press lately, judging, at least, by the amount of coverage and comments in the surf media aggregate. And, like, duh. Years in development, they’ve built a bigger, longer, warmer and, from the looks of the typically mild local wind conditions (typically NE in the mornings, NW in the afternoon) a more consistently hollow (in both directions) version of the Surf Ranch in Lemoore, California.
However, putting aside tea cup controversies over who, exactly, “they” are, not to mention the moral question of supporting a high-end recreational surfing asset in a country with such a lamentable human rights record, I can’t see how the existence of an opulent wave pool on the shore of the Arabian Sea is going to have much impact on the broader sport of surfing and surf culture. On the other hand, there is a quantifiable list of global surf spots that over the decades have significantly affected the direction of the sport. Perhaps not the most “perfect” waves, or hollowest, or prettiest or most famous. But based on any reasonable standard, certainly the most influential.
The rippable walls of SI. Photo: Courtesy the Florida Pro
10. SEBASTIAN INLET, FLORIDA
When in 1970, Florida coastal engineers finished work on a 500-foot extension of Sebastian Inlet’s existing north jetty, the unintended consequence being the creation of a near-shore refraction pattern that saw the normally tepid Florida wind swell bounce off the new section of jetty and back into itself, forming a steep, hollow, wedgelike wave, they had no idea they were altering a sport’s entire consciousness. Not simply because of the parade of champions that emerged from the super-consistent, hotly contested First Peak, with a roster including everyone from OG’s Mike Tabeling, Greg Loehr and Jeff Crawford to Next-Gen world title hoarders Kelly Slater and Lisa Anderson, but because of the seismic shift in perception that resulted: virtually overnight East Coast surfing had become world class. And it’s never looked back.
Carissa Moore at Narrabeen. Photo: WSL
9. NORTH NARRABEEN, AUSTRALIA
Located in Sydney’s Northern Beaches precinct, the waves peeling over sandbars at the mouth of the picturesque Narrabeen Lagoon have long been a hotbed of high-performance Aussie surfing. Primarily responsible are the prime “lefthanders” breaking off the rockpool, consistently exhibiting the remarkable quality of being both hollow and rippable. Other than producing through the decades a veritable laundry list of top Aussie surfers too numerous to mention here, these are the waves in which alpha local Simon Anderson developed the modern three-fin thruster, one of the most pervasive design shifts in the history of surfboards. ‘Onya, North Narra.
Ian Walsh at Killers. Photo: Fred Pompermayer// Red Bull Content Pool
8. KILLERS, ISLA TODOS SANTOS, BAJA CALIFORNIA
In this new world of HBO’s “100-Foot Wave” series and a mega-wave surfing competition on Maui, of all places, it’s hard to believe that as late as the mid-1980s, Oahu’s Waimea Bay was the sport’s only big, big wave; the very idea of needing a board over eight feet anywhere else was laughable. The revelation of a 20-plus-foot, legitimate big wave spot located only a couple hours south of Upper Trestles changed all that, inspiring hellmen and women the world over to start looking beyond the North Shore for their adrenaline rush. The result has been a complete reconfiguration of the global big wave surf map—we’re now Planet 10-Times Overhead. And Killers helped establish that.
Mason Ho at the Bowls. Photo: Mason//Pringle//Screenshot
7. ALA MOANA, HAWAII
Beginning with the longboard heroics of Conrad Canha in the early 1960s, and then later refined in the late-1960s, early-70s by young Gerry Lopez and Crew, the hollow left bowl breaking at the mouth of the Ala Wai Harbor Channel is where the modern tube ride was born. Did this dynamic innovation lead to legions of surfers the world over riding in the tube the way Ala Mo locals like Gerry, Tom Stone or Brian Hamilton did? Not hardly. Viewed statistically, comparatively few surfers have actually ever ridden in the tube. But what Ala Moana did provide the wider surfing world with was a collective ideal; to this day riding in the tube remains surfing’s “ultimate thing.”
Photo: Tucker Wooding // YouTube
6. PEAHI, MAUI
Yes, I know, the acknowledged, first true tow-in session took place on a big day at Backyard Sunset, with aquanauts Buzzy Kerbox, Darrick Doerner and Laird Hamilton towing on their big-wave guns behind an inflatable boat. But it wasn’t until the Strapped Crew set their sights on riding the massive, fearsome reef break on Maui’s north shore that the entire concept of not only big wave surfing, but heavy water safety, changed forever. Can you say Kawasaki Jet Ski? Not only did the Ski revolutionize big wave performance, but it ushered in a new era of effective water safety protocols that have since pervaded coastlines the world over. Wouldn’t have happened anywhere else. Because of Peahi we have Nazaré; because of Peahi we have “Rescue: HI-Surf” on Fox.
Dick Metz, 1959, at Cape St. Francis, home of “the perfect wave.” Photo: Dick Metz Archives
5. CAPE ST. FRANCIS, SOUTH AFRICA
I honestly don’t think that any surfers who first watched Bruce Brown’s classic 1966 documentary film The Endless Summer summarily quit their jobs, kissed their mothers, boyfriend and girlfriends goodbye, bagged their boards and took off around the world in search of…sweaty, closed-out West African shorebreak, blown-out Sydney beachbreak, some weird Tahitian bellyboard spot or frigid, three-foot Capetown lefts. Truth is, Bruce and the Boys pretty much got skunked on their global odyssey. Truly, if not for a fluky, two-hour session near the tip of Cape St. Francis, South Africa, when in flawless, four-foot, perfectly uniform peeling right walls, the entire concept of film was transformed: no longer was this a search for an endless summer, but a search for the “perfect wave.” We’ve all been looking for it ever since.
Crowded and chaotic Malibu. Photo: Brad Jacobson//Screenshot
4. MALIBU, CALIFORNIA
I’ll make this short and sweet:
Birthplace of modern, bohemian surf culture.
Birthplace of modern surfing style.
Birthplace of the modern performance surfboard.
Birthplace of the cutback, the maneuver that ruined surfing.
Birthplace of the Gidget phenomenon.
Birthplace of virtually everything you know as surfing (including crowds).
Kelly Slater and Honolua Bay are lovely together. Photo: Screenshot
3. HONOLUA BAY, MAUI
Some surf spots have been an epicenter of the sport’s eventual evolution; in mid-January, 1968, Honolua Bay was the site of a surf species’ quantum leap during the course of a single session. Australian shaper/designer Bob McTavish’s short (8’6”), stringerless, wide-backed, deep-veed “plastic machines” were widely-panned on the North Shore that season. But as piloted by McTavish and 1966 world champ Nat Young on a fabulous, impeccably groomed eight-to ten-feet day at The Bay, the mind-blowing performance of the new “shortboard” was like nothing anyone had ever seen. Not until until Paul Witzig’s film The Hot Generation, which featured the paradigm-altering session, was released later that summer, along with a feature and photos shot by Witzig’s brother John that ran in the July issue of SURFER magazine. Within literally minutes of those twin Honolua Bay revelations, every single surfboard from every single manufacturer in every single surf shop was rendered obsolete. That’s influence.
Steamer Lane. A true classic. Photo: O’Neill Cold Water Classic Santa Cruz//Prefontaine
2. STEAMER LANE
Who, exactly, invented the surf leash is a topic oft-debated by surf history wonks. French surf pioneer Georges Hennebutte certainly has a legitimate claim, as way back in 1958 he attempted to patent a cord that attached a surfboard to the leg of the surfer, calling it a “fil à la patte” (roughly “wire to foot”). No patent was issued, no attention was paid. Not until over a decade later, when Santa Cruz kingpin Jack O’Neill and his young son Pat, tired of regularly sacrificing their boards to the voracious cliffs of Steamer Lane, stuck a rubber suction cup to the nose, then attached it to their wrists with surgical rubber tubing and Voíla!, the zing-string was born. The device was quickly adapted to the tail and the ankle (turns out Hennebutte got it right the first time) and within months of its debut in the surf mags, the kook cord was in almost universal use. No single innovation in the sport’s history has been more responsible for crowded surfing conditions than the leash — and we have the cliffs of Steamer Lane to thank for it.
Kai Salas on a keeper in town. Photo: Mike Ito
1.WAIKIKI, HAWAII
Coastal West Africans and Polynesian islanders had been riding waves on their prone tambuas and paipos for centuries, but it wasn’t until Hawaiian colonists reached the fertile south shores of Oahu in approximately 500 CE (“common era”), and the imminently accommodating billows of Waikiki, that stand-up board riding developed and flourished. To the point that, by the arrival of European explorers and missionaries in the late-18th and early 19th centuries, surfing had become an intrinsic element of Hawaiian cultural life. “The sport of surf-riding possessed a grand fascination,” wrote historian Nathaniel Emerson, in 1892. “It seemed as if it had the vitality of its own as a national pastime…there are those living who remember the time when almost the entire population of a village would at certain hours resort to the sea to indulge in this magnificent accomplishment.” Not to mention sophisticated board designs, surf stars, surf forecasting, surfing competitions, surf fashion, surf legend and lore…Waikiki is where this whole surfing thing got started, centuries before it got started.
