Of Polynesia

How To Excel At An Old Sport Of Polynesia

During the past few years in

Australia, the United States,

Mexico and South Africa, the

Did Polynesian sport of surf

board riding has grown tre

mendously in popularity.

IN Sydney, the sport now has so many followers that the Sunday newspapers devote special sections to expositions of it, and one of them re cently sponsored a surfboard riding championship with prizes running into thousands of pounds.

The reason for the great upsurge of interest in surfboard riding is mainly technological. Since the late 1940’5, the solid and oh-so-heavy planks of wood that used to do duty as surfboards have been replaced by boards made of lightweight foam plastic.

In this new material, boards are made to suit the fancy of every po tential surfboard rider—the pointed nose and square tail, pointed tail, spoon nose, spoon tail, pig shape, the the parallel rails, double-ended, south bay, thick nose, thin nose, semi-pig, etc., etc.

Needless to say, with boards of so many different designs, a beginner needs an expert to help him choose bis board; and, having chosen it, to give him a few clues on how to use it.

Grant Kuhns, a graduate of the University of Southern California, is such an expert. In an easy-to-read book called On Surfing, which has plenty of diagrammatic and photo graphic illustrations, he has set out pretty well everything a would-be surfboard rider should want to know.

There are chapters on the selec tion of equipment, getting out to the surf, the take-off, the ride, the pull out, and the various kinds of surf, plus appendices on surfing competi tions, and manufacturers and retailers of surfing equipment.

Finally, there is a glossary of surf ing terms wherein one may learn, for instance, that a difficult or unpre dictable surf condition is “spooky”, that a novice surfer is a “kook”; that “soup” means “swash” and that “swash” means “soup”.

The only quarrel that we have with the book is that Kuhns approvingly

quotes a writer on Hawaii as stating ;hat “while other (Pacific) islanders nay divide honours with Hawaiians for aquatic prowess in other respects, lone attained, until recent years, the expertness of the surf sport, which early visitors recognised as a national characteristic of the natives of this (the Hawaiian) group”.

This idea that the Hawaiians had a monopoly on surfboard riding is a lopular but erroneous one. The fact :s that the old-time Tahitians were pretty good surfboard riders, too.

James Morrison, boatswain’s mate if Captain Bligh’s Bounty, wrote a /ivid description of how the Tahitians went surfing at Matavai Bay in De cember, 1788, when the surf was so high that the Bounty was nearly Jriven ashore and wrecked. This is what Morrison (who used capitals and spelt as he pleased) said: “The part they choose for their Sport is where the Surf breaks with Most Violence. . . . They get peices if Board of any length with which they swim out to the back of the surf, when they Watch the rise of a surf sometimes a mile from the shore, and, laying their Breast on the board, keep themselves poised on the surf so as to come in on top of it with amazing rapidity. ... At this diver sion both sexes are excellent, and some are so expert as to stand on their board till the surf breaks. . . .”

This description makes it clear that the old Tahitians did not have much to learn from the Hawaiians about surfboard riding. But, strangely, the Tahitians of today seem to have abandoned the sport.—RL. (ON SURFING. Published by Charles E. Tutttle Company, Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo. Our copy from Paul Flesch & Co. Pty. Ltd., Melbourne. 42/9.)