surfresearch.com.au  newspaper  : menu

The overview summarizes and analyses a multitude of transcribed newspaper articles associated with surfriding reproduced in the newspaper source documents menu.
These documents add substantial material to the subject, often in considerable variance to a number of widely published accounts.
While the general subject surfriding, the focus is mostly surfboard riding, and considerable material pertaining to racing, sailing and surfing outrigger canoes has not been included.
It is essentially chronological, with a minimum of digressions, and minimal cross referencing with the established literature; the compilation of a comprehensive review of all the possible confimations, inconsistencies or errors would be repetitive, tedious and exhausting.
Enthusiastic readers will need to consult their bookshelf or nearest library.

Two exceptions are Harold Yorst's Outrigger Canoe and Surfing in Hawaii- 1778 to 1930 by Tim DeLaVega, referenced for 1908, a pivotal year in surfing history.
The year saw the formation, in name and substance, of the Outrigger Club and, augmented by the visit of the Great White Fleet, the continual thriving success of the Waikiki Regattas.
These events generated extensive press coverage, including details of early competitive surfing formats and a divergence in views among Waikiki's surfers about surfboard design.

It is necessary to make some comments about Alexander Hume Ford, the founder of the Outrigger Canoe Club.
Despite the numerous articles relating to Ford and surfing, these comprise about a third of the material he generated in the Honolulu press in the summers of 1907 and 1908.
Whereas many of the club's founding members and supporters were high profile citizens with an extensive range of political, commercial and social interests in Haiwa'ii; Ford was essentially a transient journalist whose principal subject appears to be the promotion of his own ideas for the improvement and edification of wherever he happened to be visiting.

Acknowledgements.
Several persons have generously assisted with comments and contributions.
Thanks to Patrick Moser, Joel T. Smith, Chris Cook, Sanda Hall, Skipper Funderberg, John Clarke,

The menu titles are often taken from the article's heading, but sometimes are my own description.
The menu location usually refers the where the event occured, although it occasionally refers to the place of publication.

Up to 2010 the majority of newspaper extracts were located on mirofiche, printed and then scanned with OCR and the text corrected.
These have only the original source noted.
Since 2010 many extracts were located thanks to introduction of the National Library of Australia's Trove (newspaper files up to 19??).
These entries have had the online OCR text corrected (from the pdf. file when necessary) and give the original source and the Trove reference.
Further extracts were located at  Chronicling America (newspaper files up to 1922), a similar resource by the Library of Congress, introduced in 2012.
As above, the online OCR text has been corrected and the original source and the Chronicling America reference noted.

The Trove and the Chronicling America websites are not static, and new titles are being added and, at some point, later editions may be available beyond the current dates.

The corrections are not always completely correct, however most are simple spelling errors.
In the case of spelling errors in the original text, I have tried to note these with (sic) and, when obscure, a suggested word.
Some words are simply indecipherable, usually due to bleaching of the ink or damage to the paper.

The text has been formated for easy screen reading (ESR)- each sentence takes a new line, paragraphs are indicated by a space.
When used, italics are as the origininal text, or they denote captions to illustrations.
Printers' hyphens have been eliminated and broken sentences (over two pages) are indicted by ... .

"The more we look into the traditional Dark Ages of surf history —the period between missionary Hiram Bingham’s departure in 1840 and the Ford/London arrival in 1907— the more evidence we find that surfing endured in native Hawaiian communities and among whites attracted to the sport."

- Patrick Moser: Revival, Kurungabaa. Posted on February 25, 2011 by Clifton Evers, viewed 24 June 2012.
http://kurungabaa.net/2011/02/25/revival-by-patrick-moser/

After observing local native surfers at Kailua on the large island in December 1874, two visiting Americans, Professor Forbes and Charles Lambert, borrowed surfboards from Simon Kaai, the local Sheriff.
This was apparently not an unusual request, however, in this case, Lambert drowned while surf riding, and his death was widely reported by the press.

In June 1877 Kamehameha Day was to celebrated at Waikiki with displays of surfriding, unfortunately the waves failed to cooperate and the event was cancelled.
Surfriding requires surfable waves, the result of a complex combination of meteorological events, and the ephemeral nature of good waves both fascinates and exasperates surf riders.
To illustrate, on the same day at Lahania, on Maui, the celebrations were blessed with rideable surf and four board riders competed, including the highly favoured Poepoe and  Nakooko, the eventual winner.
Nakooko was a mature woman: "past her youth, yet ... of a comely form."
Like a template for future surfing contests, it was held over a specified time and judged subjectively by an experienced elder.
Also note that the four riders who presented for the public contest probably were the most skilled representatives of a much larger group of recreational surfers.
Subsequent successful surf riding dislays were reported at Waikiki (1887) and Hilo (1893) and during this period the local press also noted particular high surf events at these locations.

In New Zealand, the Christchurch Swimming Club's carnival of December1890 included a high diving event and an "African surf-board race."
The contest was probably held at the West Christchurch School bath, where two years later the  surf-board race was won D. H. Cashbolt by a yard from  E. Sneddon, with G. Gray and A. H. White also competing.

Perhaps the most unusual and culturally interesting is  Edward Townsend's 1893 article, Waikiki ... where ... laziness is an art.
Townsend describes the members of a white privileged class succumbing to a mellifluous "native" or Polynesian lifestyle, augmented with the latest technology (in this case the telephone), where deemed useful.
There is an implication that the "native servants" actively (and sometimes, like their masters, less actively) share in many of the benefits of living at Waikiki.

Of particular importance are the visits of Hawaiian surfers to demonstrate their skills in California.
While three Hawaiian princes attending school in California in 1885 are known to have surfed at Santa Cruz, in the summer of 1893 a native of Kona, Hawaii, John Ahia, was employed by the La Jolla Park Hotel to give "surf riding shows."

In a letter to friends in Hawai'i, dated 1st September 1893 and later published in Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, an Hawai'ian language newspaper, Ahia wrote of his work as a fisherman and surfer in California.
[Translated by John Clarke, September 2012, with many thanks.]
Headed "A True Hawaiian in a Foreign Land," the article reproduced the printed header, "La Jolla Park Hotel, Johnson and Ritchie, Proprietors," from the hotel's notepaper of the original letter.
Ahia, perhaps with some sense of pride, indicates that this formal address identifies his employers and the hotel as his residence.

The La Jolla Park Hotel was constructed in 1888, but, apparently due to local injunctions, it did not open under the management of Howard Johnson and Charles. H. Ritchie until 1st January 1893.
It closed in February 1896 and, four months later, the vacant building was burnt to the ground.

John Ahia is known to be in Honolulu in April 1889 and in April 1893 he turned up in San Francisco with three other Hawai'ians after an aborted lobster fishing expedition to St Nicholas Island, off the California coast.
Soon after this he made contact with Johnson and Richie who employed him pricipally as a fisherman at the rate of $25 per month and the relatively substantial fee "for surfing is $10 for each day."
Presumably, this was initially for the summer months when there were most hotel patrons and day vistitors; the surfing demonstrations were probably only given on weekends or holidays and, of course, dependent on conducive weather and swell conditions.

Ahia notes his previous acquaintance with Johnson and Ritchie in Honolulu in their role as the managers of the Hawaiian Hotel, Honolulu.
Located on the corner of Hotel and Richard streets, it was opened in early 1872 by Allen Herbert.
Howard Johnson was manager by October 1891, and around this period it was re-named the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.
In September 1892 the management secured a lease on a bathhouse and three cottages on the beachfront at Waikiki, where "the sea bathing being unsurpassed on the Island."
Known as Waikiki Villa since 1889, the new venture was re-named the Hotel Park Annex.
The site was later purchased by the Matson Navagation Co. for the construction of the present Royal Hawaiian Hotel, which opened on 1st February 1927.
Given his fishing experience, it is most likely that John Ahia made contact with, and was possibly employed by, Johnson and Ritchie at the Waikiki Annex.

Modest about  his surfing abilities, Ahia  is "the most unskilled" in Hawai'i, however, in California he is "number one."
It is unclear if he is number one by definition (that is, the only local boardrider) or that he is significantly more skilled than the local enthusiasts.

The letter has social elements of particular interest to the newspapers readership.
He is impressed with the unanimity with which he is treated in California and also expresses an enviromental awareness, noting that "even the birds are protected by law here, which is the ultimate."

Ahia leaves the reader in anticipation as he promises that an account of the "wanderings that led me here ... will come later."
Intending to remain in La Jolla for the next six months, his future  plans include a possible visit "to the east to New York."
John Ahia's travels (and those of Johnson and Ritchie) exemplify historian Matt K.Matsuda's concept of "trans-localism" in his definitive Pacific Worlds (2012).

The letter was translated and paraphrased by the Hawaiian Gazette on 3rd October, and  a brief summary, without mentioning Ahia by name, was printed in the Hawaiian Star on the 23rd November, 1893.

In 1894 a large contingent travelled to San Francisco to present the Hawaiian exhibit at the 1894 MidWinter Fair comprising a replica village, aquarium, and a wide range of products and handicrafts, including outrigger canoes and "an old-fashioned surf-board."
Later, there would be recurring calls to construct a similar attraction in Hawaii.
The party included a group of hula performers and two surfers, James Apu and Kapahee, who were to give board riding exhibitions.
Interviewed by  the San Franciso press, Apu noted that his custom surfboard was of constructed from redwood, which " is preferable to koa, being so much lighter."

At Redondo Beach in 1895, the local hotel presented the Hawaiian National Band as one of their summer attractions.
In addition to their musical performance, band members were also scheduled to demonstrate high diving and surf riding.
Whereas the diving (from eighty feet) by John Inea and Sam Kaaua was a success, a letter home from a band member notes that "they could not do some surf-riding there being no surf."
After California  the band was expecting to travel for engagements in New York, but is unknown if they and their surfboards travelled to the East coast.
The Hawaiian National Band appear to had some residual impact at Redondo, three years later the locals celebrated the summer with "boat races through the surf, high diving exhibition and swimming races."

Hawaiian Gazette correspondent,James K., wrote in July, 1896 that "Kalahale, the ablest surf-rider on Molokai, is still living in Halawa Valley and at the very advanced age of over seventy years,"  .
Whereas Kalahale (presumably) recalled "it was a craze among, the youth of those days," the reporter noted that"that branch of acquatic sports now almost unknown to the rising generation of Hawaiians."
To ride "standing in various attitudes," Kalahale advised that "practice makes perfect."
Athough now lacking strength and agility of his youth, for him
his surfriding feats were an enduring memory, and his "most wonderful and graceful feats" were confirmed by elder Halawa locals.

In the late 1890s, images of surf riding become regular features of Hawaiian promotional material for the tourist trade, initially by the shipping companies.
Before the turn of the century, images of surfriding were of varying quality and accuracy and most artists struggled with presenting its essential dynamics
With beginnings of surf photography in 1890, illustrators adapted photographs to produce far more realistic representations.

Prof. John R. Mustek's Hawaii - Our New Possesion was published in 1897 with an illustration of " a native on a surf board" on the cover.
In the late 1890s, Burton Holmes' commenced his touring Illustrated Lecture on the Hawaiian Islands, which included motion pictures of surf riding in native canoes.

On the 5th January 1897, Frank Davey arrived in Honolulu on the Australia , to begin work as a photographer.
He was responsible for several early photographs of surf riders before departing Hawai'i in 1901.
At an exhibit of postal cards in Paris in 1900, Honolulu photographer, Davey, received awards for "artistically colored pictures of surf riding and the lei women."
The surf riding image was possibly of an outrigger canoe at Waikiki, included in Davey's personal album dated April 1898.
Stock number 248, titled Surf Riding, Waikiki, Honolulu, H.I., illustrates two natives surfriding in an outrigger canoe with Diamond Head in the background.

With the formation in 1897 of the Hui Pakaka Nalu by native canoe owners, under the management of W. W. Dimond, canoe surfing became an enduring emblem of Waikiki Beach.
In 1910, another Waikiki surfing club would use a variation of name, the Hui Nalu.
Previously, the enjoyment of a canoe shoot was limited to canoe owners, their family and friends; but now, for $1.00 an hour, the hui offered the pleasure of canoe surfing to all.
The Hui Pukaka Nalu advertised in the local press and was a significant presence on the beach, with up to eight canoes regularly in action.

Following an accident in "moderately high" surf at Waikiki, Harry Kapulu and P.L. Kumukahi defended their reputation as skilled surf riders in a letter to the press in 1899, and  identified some of their experienced colleagues as Marshall Brown, Leslie Scott, Ed Macfarlane, and Willie Dimond.
The attraction was widely reported in the local  and national (mainland) press over the next couple of years and canoe surfing was automatically  pencilled in on the itinerary for every visiting dignitary and military serviceman to Oahu.
An enthusiastic account by one visiting officer was published in 1898 under the heading "Royal Sport of Surfing" - a description that would thereafter regularly appear in print.

Hawaii, 1900.

In April 1900 heavy north swells caused the suspension of the local steamer services and the foreshore was threatened at Hilo Bay.
There, the day after the peak of the swell, a "considerable number of young Hawaiians" were seen surf-riding.
Despite some reports of the decline of surfing at Hilo, these surfers were sufficiently skilled and experienced to appreciate the challenge of what was probably the biggest day of the year.
That year, "a large Hawaiian made canoe" was offered at auction and work commenced on the Moana Hotel, the prospectus noting that  the location "is ideal ... being at a point that faces the only place available for surf riding."

A'a, the first racing canoe of the modern era, built for Prince Kuhio. ????

The next year, concern was expressed for the depletion of the sands of Waikiki Beach, large sections then being mined by the building industry.
At the Waikiki Regatta that year an extensive program included canoe and swimming races.
Canoe surfing franchises expanded, operating from the Long Branch Baths and in 1901 the Wakiki Inn advertised canoe riding at 50 cents per session.

Images of canoe or board surfing continued to feature in print such as the brochure for the  Royal Hawaiian Hotel (1903) and Emma Metcalf Nakuina's Hawaii, Its People and Their Legends (1904).
The later was booklet for published by the Promotion Committee and was widely distributed with local hotels providing complimentary copies to their patrons.
The introduction noted that "for the purposes of reproduction in magazine or newspaper, the copyright on the contents of of this volume is waived."
One page, captioned "Surf Boating and Riding at Waikiki," has a photograph of canoe surfing, one of several prone of boardridrers, and one of a lone standing surfer.
The images are accredited to Rice and Perkins, the page design by Julian Greenwood.
The three images were also reproduced around this time on a hand-coloured postcard with the caption "Surf Riding at Waikiki,Honolulu" and the standing surfer photograph was later reprinted by several newspapers.
Surf-riding was given official sanction in July 1905 when a design incorporating Diamond Head and a surfing canoe was adopted as the county seal of Oahu.

In April 1904, Winfield S. Crouch, visiting from New York, drowned while board surfing at Waikiki.
Two months later Jack London, the novelist on his first visit to Hawaii, benefiting his status, was taken for a canoe ride.
London was far more impressed with surfing three years later, at this point in a letter to his future wife he merely noted that he had bathed at Waikiki.
During the year the Tourist Promotion Committee encouraged as many people as possible to help in the photographing of beach scenes and a proposal was considered for the construction of a replica native village "where canoeing, surf riding and fishing would be features."

Isobel Strong published her novel, The Girl from Home - A Story of Honolulu, in April 1905.
The step-daughter of Robert Louis Stephenson, she resided in Honolulu with her husband Joseph Strong from 1882 to 1890, where she was a drawing teacher in the public schools was was known in the local art scene for her drawings and cartoons.
The novel, set during her stay, contains one chapter centred around a night surfing party held at Waikiki by the then king, David Kalakaua.
Night surfing parties were known to be held to coincide with the full moon.
The guests are treated to sumptuous meal, during which the conversation includes a discussion of the ancient sport of hill-sliding.
"Old Kaipo," who the king describes as "the only one left who can come in standing" on a surfboard, announces that the surfing conditions are suitable, and the guests are taken for canoe rides.
Here, Strong's description shares similar elements to Hawaii's Royal Pastime, attritbuted to "O.K.D.," printed in New York's The Sun in 1898.
After they return to the beach, Kalakaua summons Kaipo to give an exhibition of surfboard riding.
The character old "old Kaipo" is possibly based on "Kalahale, the ablest surf-rider on Molokai, is still living in Halawa Valley and at the very advanced age of over seventy years," as reported by James K. in The Hawaiian Gazette of July 28, 1896.
Although popular in Hawai'i and widely promoted by the local press, the book was initially given a poor review by the Honolulu's Evening Bulletin in August 1905.
The 1912 edition was promoted with large advertisements in the Honolulu press, at $1.00 a copy, for the next two years.

The first recorded headstand, considered by some the ultimate demonstration of skill, was at the 1905 Waikiki Regatta and at the end of the year the discovery of a cache of antiquities, including a sled and a surf board, made the front page of the Honolulu press.
Also making front page news was the president's daughter, Alice Roosevelt, and her obligatory "first experience as a surf rider" in a canoe.

In 1906, photography would make a substantial impact at Waikiki.
A dramatic water shot of an outrigger canoe shooting past Diamond Head was published in the New York Tribune and Mr. Bonine, of the Edison Moving Picture Company, secured film of surf riding at Waikiki.

Hawaii, 1907.

The Waikiki Regatta of 1907 featured surfriding events for boards and canoes.
The nominated entrants in the surfboard contest  were Harry Steiner, Curtis Hustace, Dan Keawemahi, Duke Kahanamoku, William Dole, Keanu, Dudy Miller, Atherton Gilman, Lane Webster, and James McCandless.
(George Freeth is listed in the swimming team for the Diamond Head Athletic Club.)
The event was postponed and rescheduled for March where  the board and surf canoe entries were "to be made at the judges' stand."
Before "the biggest crowd ever known at this beach", the judges, J. E. P. Law, C. W. Macfarlane, and Olaf Sorenson, awarded first place in the board competition to Harold Hustace and the canoe event  to the Hanakeoke.
Hustace "stood on the board, head up and head down and as an extra turned a somersault or two," and the performances of Harry Steiner and James McCandless were also praised.

Alexander Hume Ford arrived in Waikiki sometime in May 1907, followed by the novelist Jack London and his wife, Charmian. aboard the Snark in June.
Ford was a widely traveled professional journalist who, like London, had previously visited Hawai'i.
His published articles included The Chinese Eastern Railway (McClure's Magazine, c.1899-1900), Home Life in Japan (Outlook Magazine, 1901), and The Americanization of Paris (unknown magazine, 1906).

On this visit London was more enthusiastic about surfing, Ford was enthusiastic.
Their stays were brief, but their impact was huge with both promoting surfriding in widely circulated articles.
Central in their writing was George Freeth, lauded as "probably the most expert surf board rider in the world" and who "has probably done more to revive the wonderful art of the ancient Hawaiians here at home than any other one person."

In an article printed in 28 June 1907, either written by or initiated by Ford and probably fictitious, George Freeth is said to be "the only man Iiving who has ever surfed on the Atlantic coast."
It is claimed that he had stowed away on a steamer to Atlantic City (without the knowledge of friends, relatives, or the press), shaped a surfboard there from a local "woodpile when the cook wasn't looking", surfed standing on his head and rode between the piers, taunted the local life-savers, and, for his efforts was arrested and assaulted by the police.
It is unlikely that Freeth actually did any of this.
However, the story may have been based on the knowledge that someone from Hawaii had previously ridden at surfboard at Atlantic City, to the concern of local officials.
Maybe the Royal Hawaiian Band surfers did make it to the East coast in the late 1890s, and  in 1912 it was reported that the  "City Commission forbids the use of boards in the ocean."
The article was accompanied by  "a snapshot of of Freeth riding the breakers, the picture being pronounced. the very best photograph ever taken of a surfer in action ... by Mr. Ford, who stood up to his neck among the breakers for days in order that he might be able to get a series of such photographs."
 

The article was probably published to boost Freeth's profile before his departure to the mainland to demonstrate surf riding.
Alternatively, it may had been intended to cement the negotiations with potential East and/or West coast promoters,.for his appearance; if so, this goal was achieved.
It is difficult to speculate on what the local surfers thought of the article; some may have believed it, some may have seen it as a comic hoax on Freeth's West coast sponsors, some were perhaps glad that Freeth was leaving Waikiki.
Five days later Freeth departed on the Alameda for Southern California to introduce "the royal Hawaiian sport".
[Repeated in America]

By August 1907, Freeth and Kenneth Winter were in California, but found the surf at Long Beach unsuitable.
Freeth was more successful at Vience Beach, his exhibitions "drawing immense crowds along the beach and on the piers."
At the end of the month the Vience lifeguard service launched its first lifeboat, imaginatively named Vience, captained by P. M. Grant, "an expert swimmer" and in the five crew, George Freeth.
Freeth would later appear at Redondo Beach, which had previously hosted the surfers of the Royal Hawaiian Band in 1895.

Ford returned to Honolulu on the 1st October after a two week trip to Fiji, before arranging for his departure to Australia.
A week later, as the Snark was about to leave from Hilo, Kenneth Winter returned from California.

London 's landmark article, "Riding the South Sea Surf", appeared in the October 1907 edition of the widely circulated  A Woman's Home Companion, .
Although a Honolulu paper announced the article's publication and printed excepts on 7th October, the Snark had reportedly left from Hilo on that same day and it is possible that London did not see it in print until he returned to San Francisco.
In England, the article was reprinted in Pall Mall magazine the following year and in 1911 it appeared in a collection of London's writings from the Pacfic, Voyage of the the Snark, under the chapter heading "A Royal Sport", by which the article is now commonly known.
The article was written in the first weeks of June, several months before publication, and London's copy was probably already on its way to the Home Companion editor before Freeth was profiled in the Honolulu press at the end of the month.

It begins "That is what it is, a royal sport for the natural kings of the earth."
Here, "royal" appears to imply "regal" or "stately", and the article does not specically denote the role of the ancient Hawai'ian royalty in surfing's heritage.
London locates himself of the shores of Waikiki, a scene dominated by the "majestic surf," where a native Hawa'iian, a "Kanaka," rides a breaker for a quarter of a mile to the beach.
In a flamboyant description, this surfboard rider is "a Mercury" who has "mastered matter and the brutes and lorded it over creation," more an Olympic god than an earthly king, a role that London himself seeks to emulate.

The next paragraphs detail a scientific explantation of the motion of ocean waves and an explanation of the dynamics of surf riding.
The concept that the water in an ocean wave does not move but rather is the result of a circular motion, which when interrrupted results in breaking surf, was probably enlightening to the general reader, but the scientic community had been sudying this phenomena for a century
The first wave theory was proposed by Franz Gerstner of Czehoslovakia in 1802, followed by experiments in Germany with the first wave tank by the Weber brothers in 1825.
By 1867 wave motion theory was noted in books about water sports, one such work a likely source for London.
He also describes waves of translation, broken waves where the water does move shoreward, and the difficulties they pose to the surfrider.

The analysis of the dynamics of surfing is insightful in attempting to describe the concept of triming, where the board's position relative to the wave face appears both stationary and moving - "you keep on sliding and you'll never reach the bottom."
He suggests that board speed equals wave speed.
While this is a necessary, or minimal, condition for successful wave riding, London does not consider one of surfriding's exciting attractions - that surfboards often travel faster than wave speed.

London records his first attempts at prone surfing with a small board at Waikiki, unsuccessfully attempting to emulate a number of juvenile natives, before taking instruction from Alexander Hume Ford.
Ford is a recently arrived surfriding enthusiast, by implication "a strong swimmer" who London credits with prodigious atheletic ability.
In a matter of weeks since arriving on Oahu and without the benefits of instuction, Ford has mastered prone surfing and, after purchasing a "man's sized" board, is now riding standing and sharing waves on the outer reefs with George Freeth.

Ford lends his large board to London for a prone surfing lesson, and in half an hour he is successfully catching waves and has advanced to  "leg-steering" to change the board's direction, particularly useful in avoiding other bathers.
The next day Ford takes London to the "blue water " of the outer reefs where he is introduced to George Freeth and rides prone on his "first big wave."
Evidently, London had no difficulty in previously obtaining a small board and Ford is, likewise, able to procure another suitable large board for the second day's surfing.
While Freeth is clearly experienced and willing to offer useful advice, London does not otherwise directly assess his surfing skill.
.
London's enthusiasm gets the better of him and four hours later he returns to the beach with a severe case of sunburn.
The Honolulu press suggests this was in the first week of June.
The article concludes with London writing from his bed and resolving to ride standing, like Ford and Freeth, before leaving Hawai'i. .

Before the end of the year the Londons had departed for the South Seas, Freeth was in California, and Ford was on his way to Australia.

Hawaii, 1908.

Ford returned to Honolulu from Australia on the 3rd March 1908, stating "I have come back to Hawaii because I am homesick."
(His previous period of "residence" was less than six months.)
 Two days later, identified as "the writer and surf-board expert", Ford publicly announced his vision of "some sort of a canoeing club, with headquarters at a club-house on the beach."
The initial motivation was to "develop ... the greatest sport a man can find", although this would later have various additions and adjustments.
The idea of a canoe-surfing cub was hardly radical, and no doubt the concept had been discussed previously, if not acted upon.
The Waikiki Regatta Committee provided a competitive model, having successfully presented a series of vigorously contested canoe and surfboard events, and there was the precedent from ten years earlier with the introduction of the Hui Pukaka Nalu.
The important concept was the acquisition of coastal property, giving the club a tangible identity.
The premises would provide a centre for administrative, competitive and social activities in addition to beach front storage for surfboards and/or access to an extensive range of surf craft, probably the most important function for active members.

Ford was possibly influenced by Sydney's fledging surf lifesaving clubs on his visit there in 1907-1908.
To consolidate their public status, the clubs were actively petitioning their local councils for the provision of beach front property, ostensibly in recognition of their voluntary community service.
During 1907, a precedent (one of many) was set by the Bondi Surf Bathers' Lifesaving Club when it was granted permission to construct premises in the beach front park by Waverly Council.
The council also contributed substantial funds, and the first Bondi clubhouse was operational by October.
At Waikiki, Ford would substitute voluntary community service with a variety of ideals, including to enjoy and develop surfriding,  the conservation of a traditional art, the provision regular surfing competitions, to preseverve and promote Pacfic maritime culture, the promotion of Hawai'i as an international tourist attraction, and, in the face of rapidly increasing restrictions, to preserve beach access for future generations; as the Outriggers' raison d'être.

On the 14th March, eleven days after Ford's initial press release, Honolulu's Evening Bulletin announced that the manager, Mr. Stout, and the proprietor of the Seaside Hotel had allocated a site a clubhouse "at Waikiki for surf-boarders, and ... canoe surfing."
This arrangement was "at the request of Alexander Hume Ford ... and 'Jack' Atkinson has promised to promote and organise the club."
The previous day Burton Holmes and Ford had toured the beach front lanai, taking photographs and expounding various expansive plans for the future.
These comprised a combination of several existing ideas; the club buildings would replicate traditional Hawaiian contraction and promote native arts (essentially a tourist native village, circa San Francisco 1894, the concept revived in 1904), regular contests (the Waikiki Regattas), and the collection of other Pacific craft (echoes of Ford's concept of a Pan-Pacfic Union).
A range of membership fees was suggested ($10  for men, $5 for boys) and, having inspected the site, the stabilization of the lagoon and the provision of anchorage was considered.
A potential tourist boon for the islands, it was also suggested that the adjacent Seaside and Moana Hotels were likely to benefit financially from the patronage of club members and their guests.
The formation of the club had the support of  the poet Mrs. Ella W. Wilcox and, in absentia, novelist Jack London.
Mark Twain was to be honoured with "a special chair and corner of the Outrigger Club's lanai."
Compounding the impression that the acquisition of the site was a formality, the article included a photograph of Waikiki beach captioned "Outrigger Club Headquarters".

At this point the Outrigger Club had four members, 'Jack' Atkinson and  Alexander Hume Ford plus non-resident members Burton Holmes and R. K. Bonine, and, apparently, a significant block of waterfront property.
It later transpired that the property was controlled by the the trustee of the Queen Emma Estate, Mr. Bruce Cartwright, and without further documentation, the role of Mr. Stout and the Seaside Hotel is unclear.
Stout's name later appears on an early list of Outrigger Club members and he competed as the captain of the Kamaapake, one of two canoes owned by the Seaside Hotel.
Furthermore the  announcement was perhaps somewhat premature as any development was likely to require, at least in-spirit if not official, consent of the neighbouring land holders.
Subsequently, the property negotiations proceeded behind closed doors.

[For an account of the property negotiations, lease agreement and early membership, see Yorst, Harold: The Outrigger Canoe Club, 1971, Chapter 3.
Additional information may be available in Barbara Del Piano's Outrigger Canoe Club- The First Hundred Years, 1907-2007, Outrigger Canoe Club, Honolulu, 2007. (unsighted)]

This bold announcement, before support was canvassed or endorsed at a public meeting, was possibly germinated on the 6th March when all four "members" and the guest of honour, Ella W. Wilcox, were present at the Kululani School in celebrations in memory of the death of Princess Kaiulani.
Ford's initial announcement had appeared the day before, and it was likely that it was enthusiastically discussed among the official party.
The property negotiations were probably facilitated by the connections of A. L. C. Atkinson, who, as the Territorial Secretary, was the top government official in Hawaii.
Furthermore, at canoe surfing Atkinson was noted as "an expert at the business", he was a member of the Regatta Committee, had his own team of female paddlers, on Regatta Day was the starter for the canoe races, and he assisted Bonine in shooting his surfing films.
He was also the president of the Healani Boat Club, which may have been considered a conflict of interest.
As there were already several functioning clubs who had teams competing at the Waikiki Regattas, there may have been some concern that the new club may prove attractive to their membership.

Ford's multitude of  "original" ideas for the benefit of Hawaii was humorously critiqued by the Hawaiian Star a week later, concluding: "Ford is full or ideas and by the way, Honolulu does not recognize an idea until a malihini (visitor) springs it."
Ford was not the only target of cynics, and the acclaim for Jack London's "A Royal Sport" was not universal.
On the 14th April one correspondent commented on the claims in the current  edition of the Woman's Home Companion:
"All of which may advertise Jack London but which is pretty poor promotion stuff for Hawaii.
"London did not force himself into the settlement (the leper colony at Molokai), as everyone here well knows, but went under official escort, and as for the risk he took with his neck at Waikiki, it is the same risk that every ten-year-old boy in the Islands takes and enjoys."
This was the only time that an embellished account of the leper colony caused friction.
In October 1908, R. K. Bonine revealed to the press that in a recent letter Burton Holmes apologised for a similar story recently published in the Ladies' Home Journal, "intimating that he related the 'incident' under the influence of Alexander Hume Ford."

The Outrigger Club promoters' announcement initiated action, and reaction.
On the 16th April, Ford was reported to be in conciliatory negotiations with H. L. Herbert, representing the interests of those who used canoes for fishing at Waikiki.
 "A call, setting forth the objects of the Club" was circulated, signed by J. F. Morgan, A. H. Ford, James A. Wilder, Wm. R. Castle, J. A, Gilman, Richard H. Trent, J. Waterhouse, J. A. McCandless, H. P. Wood, A. M. Brown and A. L. C. Atkinson.
[An existing typed copy of "the call", and signed in the exact order as above, is dated a week earlier, April 7, 1908, and the title is the Outrigger Canoe and Surfboard Club; reproduced in Yorst: The Outrigger Canoe Club (1971), page 38.]
Mr. H. P. Wood was the  secretary of Hawaii Promotion Committee, and in regular contact with Alexander Hume Ford.
Richard H. Trent was the  President of the Trent Trust Company with offices in Honolulu.
Apart from Atkinson, several of the signatories had beach connections and/or were active in competitive surfing.
Wm. R. Castle and A. M. Brown held waterfront property at Waikiki, the later the owner of the large outrigger Alabama.
J. A. McCandless was a competitive board rider and  A. A. Wilder (son of James A.???), like Atkinson, was a member of the Regatta Committee and a starter for the canoe races.
The article repeated the claim that the club would build on property adjacent to the Seaside Hotel, the schedule of fees, and added that "about one hundred members have been secured."
The same edition noted that Atkinison, in his role as president, had called an meeting of the Healani Boat Club on an unspecified day of that week and on unspecified matter.

A week later, on the 22nd April, the press carried an announcement that a "meeting of persons interested in organizing the Outrigger club will be held next Friday afternoon in the rooms of the Promotion Committee for the purpose of completing the organization of the club."
This meeting was postponed, and another was scheduled for the 24th, this time under the title of the "Outrigger and Fishing Club."
The adjustment to the name may have been a concession to H. L. Herbert and his fishing devotees, and/or an move to increase the membership.

The "first" Outrigger Club (now without the "and Fishing" tag) meeting on the 24th, was chaired by Acting Governor E. A. Mott-Smith, a temporary board was elected (Ford, Trent and Wood), and a working committee appointed, although there was some variation in identifying the members.
One newspaper reported the meeting was attended by "quite a large number of surfing enthusiasts ", conversely another noted "a rather small number were present".

During April, the National Geographic Magazine published a full page advertisement for the Hawaii Promotion Committee designed by Gr. Noetzel.
Titled  Winter Sport in Hawaii, it feaured palm trees, a large central  image of a surfboard rider, and a single outrigger canoe rider framed by Diamond Head.

At the next meeting on the 1st May, the official positions were filled and A. H. Ford was now formally President.
L. H. (sic) Herbert was elected Vice -President, perhaps facilitating the inclusion of some of the Waikiki fishermen.
However five days later, Ford was still unsure of the name (or names) when he commented "When we get through with the Outrigger and Fishing Clubs, there'll be something to do along the line of reviving the ancient sports of Hawaii."

On May 15th, the press perceived a lack of activity, suggesting that the " only one that seems to take any interest at all in the sports is the one who started the club."
While apparently in limbo, the behind the scenes negotiations had produced a pivotal achievement.
Four days later (Before the end of the week ??) it was announced that the Outrigger Canoe Club had "secured its leases from the Queen Emma Estate."
Thanks were extended to  Mr. Bruce Cartwright, among others, but only for assistance with legal processing and there was no mention of Mr. Stout or the Seaside Hotel.
Less accurately, the article noted that the lease was for twenty years and the club had 200 members.
Compounding  the mystery surrounding the property arrangements between the Outrigger Club and the Queen Emma Estate, over six months later, a brief item in the press stated that the "grounds were yesterday (28th December, 1908) leased ... to three members ot the club for fifty years at a rental of five dollars per year."
Alexander Hume Ford was unlikely to be one of these three members, having already departed Hawaii before this date.

The agenda for the next  meeting included the erection of a lanai, the procurement of canoes and surfboards, and preparations to entertain the soon-to-be visiting US fleet.
Later known as the Great White Fleet, its arrival was eagerly anticipated by the islands' commercial, social and sporting bodies.

At the next meeting on 21st May the purchase of canoes and surfboards was authorised "for the members who have paid their dues."
The fees were apparently set at the previously suggested  $10 full and $5 junior membership.
("The call" of 7th April indicated $10 for full members, who were able to invite guests, and $5 for "actual surfers" and junior members)
While it is difficult to assess what a disincentive the fees were to membership, note that the $5 was two and a half times the price of a new surfboard.

It is impossible to determine how many new boards, if any, were purchased.
The number of registered members was substantially less than the 200 as previously claimed, the number of paid up members was likely to be smaller still.
The statement of intention indicates that there were experienced shapers and suitable timber billets available to supply these boards, if required.
As for the canoes, Ford would later write that some "long forgotten" native canoes were located and restored by club members, but new koa-wood boats were only available from the big island Hawaii.
In July 1908, a report on a recently opened koa mill noted that "it is not unusual to have logs that are six feet in diameter, and eighteen to twenty feet in length," certainly suitable dimensions for building a substantial canoe.
However, before the end of the year, a canoe was being built on the club grounds by ???
A building committee, one of several, was instituted and plans for the visiting  fleet comprised "placing the boards and canoes unrestrictedly at their service at all times on the day."

Three days later, the club acquired ownership of two authentic grass houses, " built by old-time natives brought from Maui, Kauai, and Hawaii", at  the recently defunct Kaimuki Zoo.
It is unclear to what extent this was at the instigation of, or endorsed by, the newly formed building committee.
Before the end of the month they had been dismantled, transported to Waikiki and were being re-erected on site.

With the establishment of the clubhouse buildings, the Outrigger Club was now more than just an idea and over the following months the press noticed an "great number of canoes and boards" at Waikiki, which it attributed to the activity of the club.
It may have also been particularly good summer for surf.

The end of June saw a visit from Secretary of the Interior, James R. Garfield, include the standard canoe surf at Waikiki and at the beginning of the next month the Hawaiian Gazette reported that Ruth Soper was capable of catching her own wave and a week earlier "stood on her board, but not in the big surf."
The reporter also noted the efforts of Mr. A. B. Leckenby who "learned in three lessons to stand upon the surfboard."
Mr. Leckenby was seventy years old.
At the other end of the spectrum, "little" Margaret Restarick, with the assistance of Kenneth Winter as her starter, rode standing from "the cornucopia surf to the beach."
Kenneth Winter had previously accompanied George Freeth to California in August 1907 and was now "the captain of the Outrigger Club".

By mid July the Regatta Committee released its program and prize list for the upcoming festivities for the entertainment of the fleet.
The entrants for the sixth event, "Surfboard Contest In Big Surf", were Sam Wight, Curtis Hustace, Arthur Gilman, Atherton Gilman, Lane Webster, Harold Hustace, Harry Steiner, David Center, T. J. Carter, Ted Carter, all of the Outrigger Club; Jimmy Keolanui, Major Keaweamahi, Herman Mahi.
Most of these competitors also crewed in the numerous canoe events.
Members of the Outrigger Club had "decided to ask for cups in place of money prizes."
This was probably a concern about maintaining amateur status, a potential issue if competing in athletics or swimming.
Three months later,  the Pacific Amateur Athletic association of the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States disqualified George Freeth from its swimming events because his employment as a lifeguard at Venice beach.
The sixteenth event was a "Beginners' Surf board Race in Small Surf", the prize a cup, followed by a "Surfboard and Surfboat Contest in Canoe Surf" as a finale.

There were two opposing schools of thought of surfriding at Waikiki in the summer of 1908 - a division between short boarders and long boarders.
(To be technically precise, the distinction is between low volume and high volume boards.)
For the surfboard shapers at Waikiki in 1908, design was not static.
In the program, some junior members of the Outrigger Club submitted several rules and guides for judging board surfing.
The first rule stated "No wave caught after it has broken shall count."
While these events were usually scheduled as "Races", clearly this was a judged on wave riding performance, and the take-off should be on the green swell.
The second was an interference rule, "the man knocked off gets credit" and "the man that fouls another is discredited."
There were three suggested criteria for judging- wave size ("big waves are harder to start on than a small one"); critical positioning ("surfing in the middle is harder than on the sides"); and the length of ride.
Here the junior members demonstrated their support for the  short board school, noting that "distance depends on the size of the board" they sought to minimize this advantage by stating "distance covered after the wave has stopped breaking shows no skill."
The dispute would continue.
The judges were to be A. A. Wilder,  S. M. Kanakanui, and Robt. Atkinson.

The Evening Bulletin published Alexander Hume Ford's first extensive article on surfriding, "Riding Breakers", on 17th July 1908.
The brief introduction; at school in South Carolina, an illustration in his geography book invokes dreams of surfriding; almost reads like fantasy.

In Surfing in Hawaii (2011, pages 18-19), Tim DeLaVaga reproduces an etching of a Polynesian beach scene from William Swinton's Grammar School Geography, published in 1880.
That year Ford would have been about twelve years old and probably was in school.
It does not illustrate Ford's recollection of "Hawaiian men and women (in impossible attitudes) ... standing on the tiniest of boards,... upon the crest of monster rollers."
It does show a woman and child swimming, a double canoe with a sail and six crew riding a swell towards the shore and a bare breasted woman poised on a surfboard, submerged just below the surface and heading out to sea.
Assuming this last element of the illustration is meant to represent surfboard riding; it is unrealistic, confusing and counter-intuitive.
If Ford did see the book at school in the 1880s, his initial interest may have, like that of his classmates, rather focused on the bare breasts.
Significantly, the illustration also depicts Polynesians in repose on the beach in front of two grass houses, with a large mountain in the distance.
Photographs of the first buildings on the Outrigger site at Waikiki bear a remarkable similarity.

The introduction is followed by details of the various surfing breaks of Waikiki and a description of the elements of surfboard riding.
These passages are probably based on Ford's personal experience, however as a journalist he also may have collated material from experienced surfers.
He certainly had information, if not inspiration, from one inexperienced surfer, Jack London.
Ford had returned with a canoe from the Hebrides, which probably was the outrigger named Liola which competed in six-paddle races at Waikiki in mid 1908.
Captained by Curtis Hustace, with Ford listed as the owner, she also competed in the "Old Style" canoe sailing with Ford at the helm.

The second half of the article is essentially Ford's first history of the Outrigger Club.
Here he presents two similar, but not identical, motivations for the club's creation.
Initially, he writes that surfing's future, personified in "the small boy of Honolulu," was threatened by restricted surfing access due to coastal development at Waikiki.
This was a recent threat, in the past three ("several") years, and has been arrested with the formation of the Outrigger Club.
More succinctly, less poetically, and from a slightly different perspective; the closing paragraph states "The Outrigger Canoe Club has been organized solely to revive and popularize the Hawaiian water sports that have made these islands famous the world over."
While this is a relatively straightforward statement of values, the first implies an air of local urgency where the acquisition of beachfront property is a necessary solution.

According to Ford, the enthusiasm of the Outrigger Club members was not confined to the beach, they "ransacked" Honolulu for "long forgotten" native canoes.
 He writes that surfing "has come down to the 'haole,' from the old Hawaiian Kings of Hawaii", not only confirming surfing's royal Hawai'ian heritage, but perhaps also invoking St. Paul preaching to the gentiles.
While praising the skills of the native helmsmen, "there are white boys fully as expert as any Hawaiian youths, both in the canoe and on the surfboard."
This is further qualified- a white man was the first to win a surfing contest and a "half white" (presumably George Freeth) is the best, at everything.

The members' social areas with change (and sanitary?) rooms, and the storage facilities, located in the "finest specimens" of native grass houses, are all noted.
Half the amount previously stated, full membership fees are now said to be $5.
The claims of a membership of 200 and the twenty year lease are repeated.
Finally, the club successfully introduced new enthusiasts to the sport, in particular young women, and there were plans for a women's auxiliary, to be situated on land courtesy of the Seaside Hotel management, again.

The waves and wind provided excellent conditions for the July Regatta, and, boosted by the crews of the visiting fleet, the attendance was estimated as between four and five thousand,  "the largest crowd ... ever"
Even with the addition of the visiting sailors, the majority of the spectators and competitors were Hawaiians and during the afternoon there were up to fifty outrigger canoes and sixty surf board riders in the waves.

There was some debate as to which was the most exciting event; some thought it was the four-paddle canoe race while others were enthusiastic about the race between three canoes "manned by buxom Hawaiian women".
Overall, it was probably  the surfboard riding that was judged the most impressive.
About twenty competitors vied for honours, and the contest featured representatives of the two schools of board design.
Outrigger captain, Kenneth Winter, and Sam Wight rode the "longest and thickest boards known to Waikiki."
Short board devotee and the previous years champion, Harold Hustace, demonstrated all his skills, but on the day the performance of the long boards, critically in length of ride, saw Winter and Wight declared joint winners.
The junior competition was also a tie, between Lane Webster and Harry Steiner.
Despite Hustace's dismissal of the long boards as "canoes", one reporter predicted that they had "come to stay."
This dispute would continue.

Where previously the Moana Hotel was the focus for the regattas, the grass houses of the Outrigger Club now became the contest headquarters and the location of the gallery- a group of fellow competitors, supporters and experienced elders who commented freely on the action, with particular appreciation expressed for the wipe-outs.
The Outrigger Club was now a significant, and enduring, presence on Waikiki Beach.

In August, Ford had a second surfriding article published, this time by the mainland press, in St. Nicholas magazine.
Titled "A Boys' Paradise in the Pacific" it was specially tailored for the magazine's family readership and was primarily focused on surf board riding, with some comments on body and canoe surfing.
He notes that surfing is practised by both genders, has a regal Hawai'ian heritage, and has been successfully adopted by "white" residents.
The other major racial groups in Hawai'i; the Japanese, Chinese and Portuguese; were, according to Ford, either less proficient or had little interest in surfing.
While the relative canoe surfing skills of the whites and natives are debatable, he concedes that the native helmsman is superior when "there are large waves to encounter."

Whereas, Jack London reported in 1907 that Ford had accomplished standing surfing in a matter of weeks and without the benefits of instruction, here Ford recalls that he "learned the from the small boys of Waikiki" and that it took  "four hours a day to the sport for nearly three months."
Body surfing is, for Ford, a "difficult feat, and one which I succeeded in accomplishing but once."

The majority of the accompanying photographs, some presumably by the author, are of surfing and one, "Coasting Down a Wave," was previoulsy  printed by the Hawaiian Gazette in June 1907, where it was titled "George Freeth" with copyright by Alexander H. Ford.
It is of superior quality compared to the earlier newspaper reproduction.
Also discussed and illustrated are a variey of juvenile pastimes such as mountain climbing, sliding on ti leaves,"foot-diving," horse riding ("Paa-u races"), raising ducks, swimming,  flume riding, and diving for coins.

The Outrigger Club administration responded to the demand for a ladies' auxiliary in September, noted by Ford in two months earlier, and indicated that work would start on their building, once one hundred women members were enrolled.

The Regatta Committee may have been inconvenienced by the sudden departure of Jack Atkinson to the large island Hawaii, as they prepared a slightly shorter program for a second fleet regatta.
It included surfing contests for boards, outrigger canoes, and outrigger canoes manned by visiting sailors, although in this event each crew was augmented with a Hawaiian helmsman.
Whereas almost all the canoe events carried cash prizes, the surfboard competition was for a cup.
As at the previous regatta, the judges were A. A. Wilder, S. M. Kanakanui and Robt. Atkinson.
In the conflict between the two schools of design, the short board lobby appeared to have a significant victory.
The rules now stipulated that "Surf Board Contest Boards not to be over 8 ft. long."

The waves for the October Regatta were perhaps even better than in July, and the numbers in attendance comparable.
A solid swell and a brisk offshore wind was excellent for the surf riders, but created difficulties in the sailing events.
The swell added drama to all the paddling races and the skills in negotiating the break, including those of the women paddlers, were highly praised.
One reporter noted that while some results settled on a technicality, the judges' decision was accepted in good spirits by all the competitors.
The surf board contest was won by Vincent Genoves with [Guy] Rothwell in second place.

The first Outrigger Canoe Club Carnival was planned for November with some events in the surf and others on the lagoon adjacent to the clubhouse.
Admission was free, but tickets at 50 cents were required for the dances held at the Seaside and Moana Hotels.
Kenneth Atkinson (relation of A. L. C. Atkinson?) had replaced Kenneth Winter as the club captain.

The program featured a number of surf riding events; surfboard contests for men and girls, bodysurfing, and canoe surfing.
The first event of the day was a men's' surfboard riding contest, in three disciplines- a long distance race,  a  relay, and finally "Fancy stunts in canoe surf."
The women's' competitors included Ruth Soper, who also captained a canoe, and five year old Kinau Wilder.
The daylight program included a novelty event, "Spear-tilting on surfboards", and ended with swimming and body-surfing.
After dark, several events enhanced by "illumination" were to be held on the lagoon and in the surf, including "electric surfboarding."

The Outrigger Club postponed the competitive regatta to the 5th December, but proceeded with the social carnival on the 7th November.
Some members had commitments at the Castle Home Fair and others to a yachting cruise, and there was some disquiet that the aquatic and social activities were not compatible.
Apparently the illuminated events on the lagoon and in the surf were completed.
Canoes were to be illuminated by "torches of bamboo, filled with oakum and benzine", while, at this point, it was intended that the surfboards use onboard "storage batteries" while ridden in the surf.
This system was developed by Kenneth Atkinson, however later reports suggest that, after further experimentation, the light source was "acetylene".

In the days leading up to the carnival one reporter praised Ford's vision in reviving a sport "which was fast dying out," probably a reference to Ford's "Riding Breakers" published in mid July.
The article noted that "the nucleus (of this little club) ... was ... Alexander Hume Ford, Dr. F. H. Humphries, Judge Ballou, Mr. James Wilder and Mr. Guy Rothwell."

The program for the December regatta largely replicated the events proposed for November, and detailed the course, presiding officials and the prizes.
The first event was the men's competition over three disciplines.
A long distance race  from Outrigger beach to canoe surf and back, followed by a  relay from judges' stand to point opposite the Seaside Hotel and return, and finishing with "Fancy stunts in canoe surf."
The committee was Ben Genoves, Harold Hustace, and Kenneth Atkinson.
The prizes for first and second place was a surfboard, third place was awarded club membership for 1909.
The sixth event was "Spear throwing from surfboards", requiring contestants to spear a balloon tethered in the surf while standing on their boards.
The committee was Harold Hustace, Marston Campbell, and Arthur Gilman, with a surfboard as the prize.
This was immediately followed  by the women's' competition, where Ruth Soper was the chairman.
First place went to the girl "standing best and longest" on her board for three waves, second place to the "one coming in farthest without paddling."
Not previously identified (but surely assumed) is the judging criteria of style- "standing best".
Length of ride was the other criteria and this is the first report of scoring a specified number of waves.
The prizes were items of jewellery.
Another surfboard riding event  was scheduled for late in the afternoon, the course from the buoys to beyond canoe surf to the beach.
The committee for this event was Arthur Gilman, James McCandless, and Chas. Brenham, and the prize a koa steering paddle.

The evening program was to feature illuminated displays similar to those held during the previous month.
Kenneth Brown was the chairman and a "koa surfboard offered as a prize to the most strikingly illuminated canoe."
Most reports of surfboards do not indicate the timber, while the paddles offered as prizes are said to be koa this is a rare reference to a new koa surfboard in this era.
The press reported that leading up to the regatta, members were enthusiastically practising in the surf and all the club's craft were in daily demand.
On the site, a caretaker [Pat O'Brien] had been appointed,  the grass houses repaired, and some new buildings erected.
In addition to the numerous press articles promoting the regatta, a number of "handsome" posters were displayed, "depicting members.. indulging in aquatic sports".
To speculate, some of the posters were possibly souveniered by eager young surf enthusiasts the day after the regatta, if not before.

Unfortunately articles confirming the results of the regatta are as yet to be located, however two later reports indicate that it was a success.
In a letter to the editor in December, George Osbourne recalled that the day was as impressive as the previous regattas held during the visit of the Great White Fleet, and the illuminated events were "a grand display".
A similar assessment was expressed by Mr. H. L. Herbert, vice-president of the Club, several days later when interviewed while visiting Sydney.

Ford had a third surfing article, Aquatic Sports,  published in the December edition of Paradise of the Pacific magazine and before the end of the year, Jack London’s  "Riding the South Sea Surf"  was reprinted in England's Pall Mall magazine and Burton Holmes, was touring his Illustrated Hawaiian Lectures in the mid-West of America.
Reminiscent of the Mid-winter Fair of 1894, Guy Rothwell suggested that outrigger canoes be included in the Hawaiian exhibit,  to operate on Lake Washington, Seattle, at the Alaska-Yukon Exposition of 1909.

Only days after first Outrigger Club carnival, Alexander Hume Ford announced to the press on the 8th December that he was departing immediately for British Columbia, the beginning of a World tour.
Inconveniently, Mr. H. L. Herbert had already left Honolulu to sail to Australia, leaving the club without a President and Vice President.
Ford revealed that the tour had been arranged several weeks earlier, but he had delayed it until the completion ot the new Outrigger Club buildings.
Described as "an expert oarsman and trained athlete", Ford's interview incorporated an updated history of the Outrigger Club.
He started it to prevent surfing "falling into oblivion", membership was approaching 300, he leased the site for twenty years, the first building was a grass house purchased on a neighbouring island (incorrect, the zoo was on Oahu).
Since then new buildings were erected, most recently a dancing lanai over the lagoon (just in time for the carnival), a caretaker appointed, and there were arrangements for "serving meats."
Everything was "shipshape."

Not surpassingly, some were less positive about the achievements and the future of the club, and one was distinctly displeased.
The following day, the sports editor of the Evening Bulletin wished the club success following the departure of Ford.
In the article he implied that the mainland had no equivalent surfing conditions, probably an understandable misapprehension in 1908.
More accurately, he predicted that "in time, sportsmen may flock here in large numbers" for the surf.
Some might have thought the were enough surfers at Waikiki already.

In a letter of the 18th December to the Hawaiian Star , George Osbourne expressed concern for the clubs' future.
While he congratulated Ford and the club's recent regatta, he suggested the club was "not everything one could wish."
Osbourne was less than enthusiastic about Ford's grass house-Hawaiian village concept, he regarded the current facilities as inadequate and noted that many members would have preferred a modern clubhouse, the site required substantial landscaping, and the recently installed dancing floor was in urgent need of a roof.
He also thought that  the use of Outrigger Club canoes and surfboards required regulation, apparently these were being ridden by some unscrupulous non-members.

Pat O'Brien was distinctly displeased.
In an interview published in January 1909, Pat O'Brien was described as "Ford's right hand man about the precincts of the Outrigger Club"- he was the manager referred to by Ford, and others.
O'Brien used the term "muckinmuck".
He claimed that he was employed by Ford at $20 a month, and took the job on a promise that Ford would arrange a vendor's license and supply the equipment and stock for O'Brien to sell iced soda and ham sandwiches (Ford's "serving meats"), to Outrigger members and guests.
The license, equipment and stock failed to materialize.
With Ford's sudden departure, O'Brien resigned after a failed attempt to have Allan Herbert and  Mr.Trent clarify his situation, and was hoping for, at the least, steerage passage home to "America."

Hawaii, 1909.

Despite leaving Honolulu with the Outrigger Club in a less than ideal situation, in early January Alexander Hume Ford cabled news from the mainland of the forthcoming Polynesian Olympia in Honolulu in 1911.
Clearly a Pacific version of the modern Olympic Games recently
held in Paris in 1908, these would include native Americans from the West coast, Japanese, Australian aborigines, Soamans, Fijiians and, of course, native Hawai'ians.
Apparently, none of these potental participants were otherwise informed of Ford's plans.
Aware that this would require some extensive organisation, he confidently stated "I am certain that the Outrigger Club is now strong enough to handle the proposition."

Later that month the Hawaiian Star published an article praising the work of the Outrigger Club.
Perhaps coincidentally, four days later a follow up article made a case for the club to be assisted financially by the Promotion Committee.
At the end of January, the Evening Bulletin published a letter from Frank C. Clark announcing  donatation of two four silver cups to be competed for at surf-board and outrigger canoe competitions.
The contests were to be held in conjunction with arrival of Clark's cruise ship the Arabic on two visits to Honolulu on the23rd January and 12th February, 1910.
Ford's inference that suitable waves would be available for contests at Waikiki on these specific dates was, at best, optimistic.
The tone of the letter was casual; the donation of the cups was in response to "a very pleasant call" from Alexander Hume Ford stating he was organising the contests, the cups could be made in Honolulu to whatever design was appropriate, and "advise me of the approximate cost."
Clark appears unfamiliar with the club's name- two cups were to be engraved to " the Canoe Club," the other two for "the Surf-Board Club."

In February 1909,  the Los Angeles branch of the A. A. U. banned George Freeth from amateur swimming competition for "having taken money for fancy diving exhibitions and services on the life saving crew."
The status of amateur and professional sportsmen would be a regular topic of dispute in the early years of the century, and Freeth did not get amateur accreditation until August 1911.

With the approach of summer there were more "would-be Freeths" in the surf and by April the Outrigger Club, now with "a fine lot of officials are in charge," had completed the ladies' annex building in preparation for the season.

Meanwhile, Alexander Hume Ford was diligently doing his utmost to promote the club and Hawai'i, even if he was now located in New York.
In a letter published in Honolulu in May, he cited a list of (his) achievements and important contacts.
These included the establishment of Clark contests with their silver cups, unprecedented exposure in booklets advertising the Clark cruises, securing a supply of superior fireworks for use on surfboards at night, and an upcoming article (with photographs) to be printed in Collier's magazine and "a handsome color cover" for Travel magazine.
Ford's article Riding in the Surf, with three photographs by A.R. Gurrey Jr., was published in Collier's National Weekly in August 1909, however, the colour cover for June's Travel did not eventuate (surfboard riding finally made the cover in 1937).

Most importantly, Ford reported that the response to the Polynesian Olympia concept was enthusiastic, even if it was now to be held in "the summer of 1912 or 1913."
Previously expressing confidence in the Outrigger Club as capable of organising the event, Ford now considered it may require his expertise and suggested that a recent supporter, David Walker, an editor of Cosmopolitan, "may run over with me to help promote this."
He had also made contact with and "the best motion picture and color slide artist in America," Howard Kemp, who he would bring with him on his next, as yet unspecified, homecoming.
Ford  recognised his work at Waikiki was not complete, stating "I wish to remain in Honolulu long enough to really put the Outrigger Club on its feet."

At the same time, early May,  the Alameda was preparing to leave Honolulu with a party of bound for Seattle with exhibits for the Alaska-Yukon Exposition of 1909.
The exhibits included a koa outrigger canoe, intended for use on Lake Washington under the supervision of Guy Rothwell, and surfing films by M. Bonine.

Among a variety of bands and displays, the Elks-Parade in Los Angeles in July, the "Hawaiian float depicted a surfriding scene and a quartet of Hawaiian singers rode in the surf boat and sang their native songs."
At Waikiki, the press noted a number of days of quality surf during the summer, and a number of injuries.
On one occasion, two solid swells from different directions created unsual surfing conditions, forming "an angle at which the riders coming from Ewa and Waikiki directions met."
A reporter commented that the board riders had recently encroached on almost every part of the beach, apparently "with the idea of 'showing off' the stunts which some are learning."

In the first week of August, Alexander Hume Ford notified Honolulu that he about to leave New York for Hawaii, although travelling by via Europe and Asia, his arrival was likely to be somewhat delayed.
Despite his absence, the Outrigger Club was said to be "going along with a swing.,"
Ford's one page article about surfing, with three photographs attributed to the author (but possibly by A. J. Gurrey), Riding the Surf in Hawaii, was published in August edition of Collier's Outdoor America magazine (alternatively Collier's National Weekly).
It saw Ford's influence spread to Florida.
Inspired by the Riding the Surf article, Eugene Johnson immediately acquired "what is called a surf board" and, with his wife, spent an "afternoon riding the waves" at Daytona Beach.

The Hawaiian Star announced the publication of Dr V. E. Collins's Sea Bathing in Hawaii in September 1909.
An illustrated booklet, its chapters included  Certain Special Features ot Honolulu as a Bathing Resort, Bathing for Pleasure, Bathing for Health, Sun Baths and Sand Baths, Honolulu as a Winter Bathing Resort, and Surf Riding.
The last, by Alexander Hume Ford, is a reprint of his Riding the Breakers article of July 1908 in the Evening Bulletin.
A review by the Bulletin in February 1910 commented "Taken all together Dr. Collins' book is a valuable additon to the literature on Hawaii."

Ford confirmed in late September from New York  that he would be back in Honolulu for the first of the Clark Cups in January 1910, and enquired "how is the club progressing.''

In October the Outrigger Club presented a number ofsurfing films and the vocal group, the Outrigger Club quintet, at a local theatre, the proceeds for the building fund.

Walter H. Biddell, a member of the Bronte Life Saving Club, was on Oahu in November where he gave life-saving demonstrations at the Healani Boat Club and the Outrigger Club, where he was assisted by George Osborne.
Apart from his "expert"instruction, he also demonstrated "Dr. Lee's'Torpedo-shaped Life Buoy."
In Sydney, Biddell's numerous innovations were ignored, in particular the torpedo buoy was rejected in favour of the Bondi club's belt and reel.
It would be adopted by Califonian lifeguards and subesquently become a universal standard life saving device, eventually replacing the belt and reel in Australia.

Biddell was not the only Australian to visit Ohau during 1909.
"Bob" mailed a postcard  from Honolulu to a Miss Nell Lewis at 33 Hunter Street, Hobart, Tasmania, on the 14th September,1909, with the imaginative message, "Here is the card I promised you."
The coloured postcard, titled "95. Famous Surf Riders. Hawaiian Islands,"  was distributed by Jas. Steiner at The Island Curio Company, Honolulu.
James Steiner's sons were active Outrigger Canoe Club members and the eldest, Harry, was a renowned board rider.
(Item detailed at ebay.com, viewed 14 September 2012.)

Hawaii, 1910.

In January, Alexander Hume Ford returned to Honolulu, the press predicting "the Outrigger Club of today won't be seen for dust when he gets to work on some of the plans he intends to carry out in the future."
It is unlikely that he came via Euope and Asia, as he had indicated earlier.
Before the end of the week, Ford had unveiled his latest idea - a "glass-bottomed canoe for use on the reefs."
He noted that similar tourist attractions were available in Bermuda and California, and was sure it would be a success at Waikiki (and Fiji and the New Hebrides), just as soon as  "the Outrigger club boys find an attractive marine garden."

In the lead up to the Clark Cup Contests, a "chowder" was attended by about fifty Outrigger Club members, despite the bad weather.
The "spread" was provided by Kenneth Brown, who, along with Alexander Hume Ford, Mr. Scudde and others, spoke after the meal.
The Clark silver cups, said to be worth $100, were to to held for a year and could be secured by a competitor after three consecutive victories.
Several Waikiki riders had mastered the headstand and some were now riding tandem- "in some cases two individuals mount the same board and come in together."

The first Clark contest, on 23rd January, was plagued by a small swell and a brisk off-shore wind and the surf riding competitions postponed.
Once aware of the poor conditions, many local spectators returned home, but the vistors provided a large crowd and the organisers arranged some alternative events.
Fifteen competitors lined up for a surfboard paddling race, which was won by Vincent Genoves.
Generally the tourists appeared entertained, and despite the lack of waves they enjoyed the canoe rides, bathing and the board riding efforts, especially those of "Miss Pratt and her girl friends- Misses Ruth Soper and Coral Low."
As the afternoon wore on, boredom got the better of two young members and they "got up a poi fight at the clubhouse," to the amusement of the visitors.

The second Clark Cup was scheduled for 12th February and preparations included the constuction of an Outrigger Club float for the Floral Parade by Horomoto, the carpenter, and "Charley," the caretaker, and the arrival of another film crew, led by  M. Bonvillain of Pathe Freres, Paris
Galvanized iron piping for the erection of a stand in the surf from which Bonvillain was to shoot film of the contest was provided by K.O. Hall & Son.

Bonvillain shot some preliminary scenes of junior Outrigger members collecting their boards from the grass houses and paddling out next to the Moana pier, these included Lionel Steiner, Harold Hustace, Marston Campbell Jr. and "Duke."
The later was presumably Duke Kahanamoku.
One the day of the contest, "Duke Paua" was listed as a crew member of one of two Outrigger Club canoes (the B team, the "Strawberry crew") competing in the six paddle canoe race.

Harold Hustace issued an open challenge for a short course race between any single canoe and his surfboard.
The surfing judges were to be Watson Ballentyne, Kenneth Winter and Guy Macfarlane.
With the postponement of the first Clake cup events, at the second, the four cups were now to to be awarded in seperate categories- canoes and on surfboards to "the ones doing the best surfing stunts, to the girl, boy or man."
This abandoned the original format of two cups, one for canoe and one for board surfing, coninciding with the arrival of the two Clark's cruise ships.
The rule previously advantaging the short board lobby was now overturned and the competition was open to "every kind of surfboard."
Recognising the failure of the first contest due to the lack of swell, the press reported that "the man in charge of the tides" was confident that conditions would be favorable.

A week before the annual general meeting, those standing for positions in the Ourtrigger Club were noted and the adgenda included the adoption of a constitution and by-laws.
The main body of the membership were adult members from town who supplied the majority of the dues, but  the organisers made an attempt to represent different interest groups in the membership.
"Ten of the twenty-two juniors under sixteen years of age are represented by a father on the proposed board of directors.
The dozen army members are represented ... by Major Hart, and the eight Waikiki members by Kenneth Brown, as captain, while the nine members from Punahou College, three of whom are Waikiki boys, are represented by the club collector, Alfred Young."
The new bath house had cost $800, but this was largely covered with contributions of $200 from the Ladies' Auxiliary, $90 from winning crews of the Outrigger Club, $137 from Bonine's films, $50 from Allan Herbert, and the ongoing sale of lockers at $5.

The evening before the contest  the 24ft steel structure was ferried out to the reef on the largest available canoe, the crew , with their "hair parted in the middle," accutely aware of the need to maintain balance.
Through design or accident, a wave upset the load and the scaffold was deposited at "in the midst of the big breakers."
Unfortunately, it slipped sideways on the reef and only with great effort was Kenneth Brown and his crew, particularly Neut Peterson, able to secure it correctly.
In addition to the large platform on the reef errected for Bonvillain, a small one was to be placed in front of the Moana Hotel.

The February contest was also to include a swimming race between the teams of the Outrigger Club and the Diamond Head Althetic Club.
will be participated in by the following:
The Outrigger team was Ben Vincent, Alfred Young, Cooper, Harry Steiner, Evans and "Rusty Brown, captain.
The D. H. A. C. was represented by  D. Center, Glirdler, Duke, L. Cunha, C. Oss, and Archie Robertson, captain.
Note that the same report lists David Center and Duke Paua as crews of Outrigger canoes in the six paddle race.
At this time, club membership appears flexible, with some competitiors changing from club to club or holding multiple memberships.

If the swell was small for the first of the scheduled Clark contests, in February "the Pacific Ocean absolutely refused to roll a wave of any size at all."
Worse, the Outrigger laggoon had recently broke its banks, pouring polluted fresh water into the surf.
The canoe races were held and one Clark cup was awarded to the Outrigger Club A-team for their win in the six-paddle race, and not for canoe surfing as originally stipulated.
Captained by Kenneth Brown, the press notes that the crew were "all haoles and they did remarkably good work in defeating the Kams (Kamehameha Aquatic Club)."
Aware of the disappointment, if not cynicism, of the visitors, A. H. Ford suggested they view Bonine's surfing stunts films, then showing in town.
At the least, the films were suitable evidence that surfriding was not a case of "you should have been here last week."

At the AGM on 15th February, Judge S. B. Dole was elected Outrigger club president; Alexander Hume Ford, first vice president; Judge P. L. Weaver, second vice president; and Kenneth Brown, captain.
Other committee  members included Alan Herbert, Ed. Dekum, Charles Hustace and D. ("Dad") Center.
A proposal to allow the payment of juniors for providing canoe surfing services was firmly rejected; in the discussion some members, no doubt, refered to George Freeth's difficulties in California.
While the local press praised club's endorsement of the purity of amateur competition, it alienated those members whose major source of income was working for the various beach concessions and probably initiated the formation of the fiercely competitive Hui Nalu in 1911.

Not long after the Clark cruise had left Honolulu, a new party arrived  from Columbia Park on the West coast and were welcomed at Waikiki and initiated to canoe and surfboard riding.
Upon returning home, a member of the party noted "We did not have much success at it, but it was great sport."
The Outrigger Club now had over a hundred lockers and another grass house, previously used in the Floral Parade, was converted into a bathouse for the girls.
At the end of February, the Outrigger Club announced a surfing contest for "next Sunday" (? March), to award the outstanding Clark cups.

On the 1st March, Mon. Bonvillain and Alexander Hume Ford left  to film the active volcano, Kilauea, on the big island of Hawaii .
Ford was certain that their efforts would surpass all previous footage.
On returning to Waikiki, Mr. Ford was to complete arrangements for a special surf riding exhibition to be filmed by Mons. Bonvillain, to be shot only "when weather and sea are perfect."

In mid-March,  H. P. Wood and other representatives of the Hawaii Promotion Committee departed for Atlantic City to present an "Hawaiian bazaar" on the resort's famous board walk.
Stopping first at  Los Angeles, Mr. Wood intended to take George Freeth, and some surf boards, to Atlantic City to give exhibitions in life saving and surf riding.
In April, Burton Holmes presented his Our Own Hawaii lectures in California, augmented with Bonine's surf riding films.

On the 10th June the Outrigger club presented a summer carnival comprising a chowder, stage performances, dances and illuminated canoe and surfboard riding.
A regatta in the afternoon would include competition for the Clark cups.
In the "young ladies" board riding contest, Josephine Pratt and Caroll Low shared favoritism; both had performed admirably at the first Clarke cup event back in February.
Three days later, in a brief report, the press noted "Miss Josephine Pratt won the surf board contest and one of the Clark cups."
The silver cup with antler handles is inscribed "The Finest Amateur Girl Surfboard Rider in the Outrigger Club.
Winner for 1910 - Josephine C. Pratt."

Meanwhile, H. P. Wood wrote from Atlantic City, noting that the Hawaiian bazaar, featuring a "huge surf board of heavy wood", was very popular, especially "the new pineapple juice."
The New York Tribune reported that theHawaiians would ride the board at Atlantic City beach, when the water became more temperate.
At a presentation for the Atlantic City Business League, Wood showed films of Hawai'i, interspersed with musical numbers by quintet of musicians and soloists.
The footage of surf riding attracted particular attention and John Peterson, leader of the Hawaii quintet, suggested to interested business men that a delegation should visit Hawaii and acquire a supply of boards.

At a meeting of a number of local athletic clubs on 27th June, James H. Fiddes, president of the Hawaiian Association Football League, was delegated as the representive to the Amateur Athletic Union conference in New York.
Those present included H. Tuttle, of the Outrigger Club, and Alexander Hume Ford, representing the Ocean Club and the Trail and Mountain Club.

Another Outrigger carnival was planned fot the 4th July, with another attempt to successfully hold the Clark cups but now with an additional award, the.Sperlight (spelling?) cup, for a six paddle canoe race.
As at the Great White Fleet regatta of 1908, crews of visiting ships were invited to compete, in this case from  the Chattanooga, the Cleveland and "the Belgian training ship."
The paddling races, including between the visiting crews, were completed, but when it came to competing for the Clark Cups, whereas previous contests had suffered from a lack of swell, at this carnival there was "a surf running that is seldom equalled at Waikiki."
The officials attempted to run the canoe contest, but most canoes were swamped and only Marston Campbell, Jr., successfully rode one wave.
As the rules stipulated that the contest was scored on three waves, this, and the boardriding events, were again postponed.

In August, the Promotion Committee considered several poster designs for the upcoming floral parade.
The submitted works were considered inappropriate, the press in stronger words, described them as "the three atrocities."
One member suggested an alternate design based on the image of a surf rider, "which has been displayed here as an advertisement," which was well received by the committee.
This was, presumably, the photograph of Duke Kahanamoku, taken and by A. R. Gurrey Jr. and used in promoting his photographic studio, see below.

At the end of August, the Honolulu press anounced that George Freeth had recently received a medal from Congress in honor of  saving the lives of seven Japanese fishermen off the coast of California on 16th December 1908.
The report stated that his mother and sisters received "the congratulations of their many friends" and since working as a life-guard at Venice "he had nearly fifty lives to his credit."

A.new 20 foot koa canoe arrived at Waikiki from Kona in September 1910.
Purchased by the Magoon boys, it was "deftly constructed without a nail, koa pegs having been substituted."
In mid September, George Freeth arrived back in Honolulu and he took a water polo team, variously his "combination" or  his "seals,"  to play a team of soldiers at Fort Shafter, winning  7-0.

A. R. Gurrey Jr. published his widely reproduced company logo featuring Duke Kahanamoku surfing at Waikiki in the Evening Bulletin of 23rd  November, and two weeks later the newspaper announced the release of Alexander Hume Ford's Mid-Pacific Magazine.
On 164 glossy pages with halftone photographs, it represented a "high standard in the printer's art" and it was claimed that it would appear simultaneously in London, Boston, New York, San Francisco and Sydney.

During 1910 Ella Wheeler Wilcox published The New Hawaiian Girl; a short play in verse set in Hawai'i with colour plates by John Prendergast
Mrs. Ella W. Wilcox was noted as one of the earliest supporters of the Outrigger Club (Evening Bulletin, 14th March 1908).
Illustration 2 featured two surfboard riders.

1911

In May, the Hawaiian Gazette's commentator, The By Stander, wrote a humorous overview of Alexander Hume Ford's activitities, focusing on his current voyage to Maui.
A sample:
"Crossing the Equator Club is formed with Ford as the Grand Equinox.
He says the equator is an imaginary line and may just as well be imagined here as anywhere else.
Announces a magazine story entitled 'Lines I Have Crossed,' by that eminent writer H. F. Alexander."

In H. M. Ayres' poem, The lid is off at Waikiki, published in the Hawaiian Star on 16th May , "Surf-boards are now in large demand."

At Waikiki in July, Ted Cooper introduced aquaplaning, being towed on his surf-board by a line from the Heideman boys' launch.

At the end of the month, Ira Canfield donated another silver cup to the Outrigger Club, for surf-boarding novices.
Around the same time, the Hui Nalu, described as "Waiklki rowers and swimmers, composed chiefly of Hawalians," was admitted to the local branch of the A.A.U.
This new club was largely an offshoot or a faction of the Outrigger Club, those previously identified as Outrigger members included Duke Kahanamoku, Vincent Genoves, Kenneth Winter and Curtis Hustace.
On the 5th August, the Hui Nalu added twelve new members, making a total of 27.
E. K. Miller, W. H. King and R. W. Foster were elected as their delegates to the A.A.U.

The establishment of the Outrigger Club, with its prime focus on contests in the surf at Waikiki, allowed the wide program of events that previously comprised the earlier Waikiki Regattas to be diversified.
The rowing and sailing races moved to the more suitable flat water of the habour and the swimming events, now under the auspices of the A.A.U.,  to the slips between the docks where the length of the course could be effectively measured.

The program for the upcoming aquatic meet was released on the 8th August, initially to be at the Bishop slip.
As the dock was being used commercially on the day of the event, it was moved to the Alakea slip.
.
Entrants from the various clubs included Geo. Freeth and  L. Cunha (Healani); D. Center (Myrtle); and D. P. Kahanamoku and Vincent Genoves (Hui Nalu).
Freeth's eligibility was questioned, but after meeting with John Soper, his application to join the A.A.U. was accepted.
The program did not include a swimming team from the Outrigger Club, one reporter suggesting that "the members got cold feet as soon as the entry list of the Hui Nalus was scanned."
It later transpired that the club had intended to enter a team, but due to misadventure, if not "treachery", the correct documents were not lodged before the official closing time.
Circumstantial evidence suggested the involvement of the Hui Nalu in the matter.
While the press report suggested that disgruntled Outrigger members might console themsleves with that evening's moonlight dance in the club's lanai, elsewhere on the same page it was noted that the Hui Nalu club was "at present giving more attention to swimming than dancing."

Any questionable pre-contest manourves by the Hui Nalu proved to be unnecessary, and the club emphatically dominated the swimming races on the 12th August.
In excellent conditions, the "water was as calm as a mill pond," Vincent Genoves won the  440, the 880 yards and one mile and Duke Kahanamoku won the 50, 100 and 220 yards events.
In addition, Kahanamoku broke world record times for the 50 and 100 yards.
In a sudden leap to international fame, the press noted that at the time Duke was "not well known among the people of Honolulu, but is remembered by many tourists who have visited Hawaii and taken a dip in the surf of Waikiki."

As Hawai'i's first event sanctioned by the A.A.U., considerable care was taken to correctly measure the course before the carnival and the events were timed by several officials.
Due to some cynicism as to the validity of these record breaking swims, the course was re-measured the following day by a surveyor.
It was later reported that it was, in fact, longer by one and a half feet; however the records were not officially recognised at the time.
In an entertaining display, George Freeth won the Fancy Diving in a tight competition with B.K. Fuller.

In a regular column, Honolulu Newsletter published in the Maui News in August, Oscar Brenton reviewed the failure of the Outrigger Club to enter a team in the recent swim meet.
He implied that the club, under the direction of Ford, had alienated a number of junior members with its rigorous interpretation of amateur status.
This probably stemed from the rejection of a motion to allow the payment of juniors for providing canoe surfing services, passed at the AGM on 15th February 1910.
As Duke Kahanamoku "happens to get his livelihood making surfboards and occassionally taking tourists canoing at so much a head", under the rule he was unable to compete "for the Clark cups, or anything else under the auspices of the Outriggers."
It is likely that this dispute over the definition of amateur status within the Outrigger Club significantly contributed to the formation of the Hui Nalu in mid 1911.
Twelve months later, the reasons for the defection of some Outrigger members, notably Duke Kahanamoku, to the Hui Nalu were still considered a mystery by most in Honolulu.
In July 1912,  a reporter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin stated "many know, but more do not and the writer of this is with the latter."
With an element of regret, the article noted that it "would have been a good thing from the point of view of the promoter of tourist travel to the islands" for the international reputations of Duke and the Outrigger Club to have been combined.

In eary September, Charles Allbright and A. J. Stout rescued  two men from drowning with their "Hawaiian surf boards" at Long Beach, California.
The press claimed that this was the "first time in ... history" such a rescue was completed in California.
Visiting from Hawai'i, Allbright was a Honolulu newspaperman and Stout was formerly the manager of the Seaside Hotel at Waikiki and identified in the earliest report of the acquistion of the Outrigger Club site in 1908.
They were entertaining a crowd of beach-goers with their surfing skills when they were alerted to two bathers in difficulty.
Their koa wood surfboards were "much larger than those used on this coast being six feet  long, three inches thick and eighteen inches wide," suggesting that some locals were surf riding with small prone boards.

The regatta day planned for the 12th September was to take place in Honolulu harbour for a series of races for barges, ship's boats, shore boats, whaleboats, and modern and old canoes.
There were also sailing races for boats and canoes.
A barge race was competed by groups of local government workers as Federal, Territorial, or County Employees.
Visitng crews included those of the Resolute, the Patterson, and  the Robert Searle.
Competing clubs included the Healani Boat Club, the Myrtle Boat Club,  the Puunene Athletic Club, the K. A. C. Seniors, the Outrigger Club, and the Hui Nalu.
The Hui Nalu secured  the A, Prince Kuhio's canoe, previously used by the Kona paddlers, to compete in the six and four-paddle canoe races.
Crew members included  lngworth, Duke Kahanamoku, O'Sullivan, Archie Robertson, and Vincent Genoves.
They won both canoe events, placing ahead of the Kamehameha's and the Outrigger in the six paddle, and beating the K. A. C. Seniors in the four-paddle race.
The event was well attended with most support  for the Healanis and the Myrtles, but there were also a significant presence of the "black and gold" for the Puunene Athletic Club and the "blue" of the Hui Nalu.

Towards the end of September, the Outrigger Club announced plans for fundraising carnival to include contests in the surf for the Clark trophies and the Canfield Malihini Cup.
This contest may have been postponed, and another event was planned for 4th November.
Prizes for the November contest were to included cups, dance tickets, steering paddles and surfboards.
The paddles were rated in value; koa, spruce, pine, and then "N. W."
Similarly, boards were awarded in order of spruce for first place, then pine, "N. W. board, fancy," and "plain."
It is unclear what "N.W." indicates.
The Clark cup contestants were to be taken "out to the big surf with their boards" in a six-paddle canoe manned by committee members.

Senor Igancio de Arena, the recently appointed Spanish consul, arrived in Honolulu at the end at of September.
de Arena spent several years in Hawai'i before returning to Spain, reportedly with an Hawai'ian surfboard and a copy of A.J. Gurrey Jr.'s  The Surfriders of Hawaii.
Each book comprised a varied selection of hand printed photographs and some text, published in conjunction with Gurrey's photographic studio in Honolulu, circa 1911-1914.

Results for the Outriggers' November carnival noted that the "surfboard race" was won by Malcolm Tuttle, followed by Elbert Tuttle and Frank Winter.
All the entries appear to be confined to Outrigger members and there is no mention of the awarding of the Clark or the Canfield cups.

The autumn of 1911 provided large waves at Waikiki.
At the end of September canoe and board riders rode surf, said by experienced elders, to be "higher today than at any time in the last nine years."
Another substantial swell arrived in November, which persisted for several days and at one point was large enough to keep the local fishing fleet at home.

1912

The New Year saw steps to secure funds to send Duke Kahanamoku  to the mainland to take part in the Olympic trials.
About $230 was already collected but the trip would require at least $1000, and "an extra five hundred wouldn't hurt a little bit."
The reporter noted the need of  a manager/coach to avoid  "the wiles and wrinkles of important amateur athletic competitions" and warned that suggestions by George Freeth that Duke seek employment in California may prove detrimental to his amateur status.

In January 1912, "Breastsroke", the swimming correspondent for Wellinton's (NZ) Evening Post, commented on "a number of photographs in one of the New Zealand illustrated papers showing bathers using surf boards at New Brighton beach."
The surfers were said to ride "lying, kneeling, standing" and the reporter emphasised the potential danger of "a board about five feet long, and an inch thick, weighted with an eleven-stone man, hurtling down towards the small of some unwary bather's back."
The article also noted that in Sydney, several bathers had beeen "badly bruised by careless breaker-shooters" and "members of the lifesaving clubs check the practice as far as possible."
The "New Zealand illustrated paper" article is yet to be located.

The Hui Nalu Club arranged a dance on Saturday, January 27, at the Young roof garden
Tickets were $4 each, the proceeds going to the Duke traveling fund.
At the time swimming was the club's main focus, the press noting the "Hui Nalu is not a rowing club at present."
Meanwhile the promotion Committee confirmed that 1913 poster for the Foral parade will incorporate "a surf board rider coming in on the crest of a wave."

In the first week of February, Frederick Shaffer, a crewman of the visiting cruiser Colorado, drowned at Waikiki while attempting to rescue a woman in difficulties.
Shaffer's companion and the woman were in turn rescued by the Outrigger's youngest and most recent member, thirteen-year-old Ralph Williams,  Alexander Hume Ford and Duke Kahanamoku.
Williams and Kahanamoku used their surfboards and Ford had grabbed in the smallest outrigger canoe available.
Despite an extensive search by Hui Nalu members and a search party raised from the Colorado, Shaffer's body was not recovered that day.
Ford later noted that the Waikiki boys had regularly performed rescues, " the Hustace boys with a score of life savings."

During the following week, Duke Kahanamoku and Vincent Genoves gave a free swimming exhibition in the Bishop slip before about 200 (?) spectators.
Although neither produced record breaking times, they gave respectable performances under less than ideal conditions.
At Waikiki, in a  reponse to calls for an improvements to beach safety, The Outrigger Club announced its members would man a patrol during the tourist season.

Duke Kahanamoku and Vincent Genoves, accompanined by Lew G. Henderson and "Dude" Miller departed Honolulu on the 7th February to compete in the U.S. trials for the 1912 Olympic games.
At the dockside, members of "the Hui Nalu gave their club yell, a quintette club sang 'Aloha Oe,' Berger's band struck up 'Auld Lang Syne.'"

In February, the liner Cleveland visted Honolulu and the passengers entertained by the  Promotion Committee, the Public Service Association and the Outrigger Club at Waikiki.
Arrangements for Ell Crawford to bring a native group from Kailhi to populate the grass hosues and demonstrate surf sports failed to materialise, but an urgent call to the Oahu College saw Marston Campbell Jr. and his fellow students present a suitable exhibition.
The swell was large enough to discourage the  Kamehameha Aquatic Club boys from bringing their canoes around  from Kalihi, but " the Outrigger youngsters made nothing of toying with the biggest waves in sight with their smallest surfboards."
Music was provided by Ernest Kant's quintet and Crawford oversaw the preparation traditional poi,  taro and pig.

The press anounced that Theophilus, "the revenue cutter Thetis' pet bear," would appear at the Waikiki Inn on the 2nd March.
A remarkable list of promised feats included riding on a surf-board, saying his prayers, chewing tobacco and putting "on and .. off his own bathing drawers!"
The bear, probably obtained during the cutter's service in the Northern Pacific, was also said to "catch and devour a live chicken" and "play with the children."

The Hawaiian Star printed a letter on 12th March from Dr. A. E. Friesel to his brother, a local athlete, with an account of the Olympic trials in Chicago.
He noted that Genoves was severely disadvantaged by the short course tank which required numerous turns, losing "one and one-half to two yards on every turn," and failed to qualify.
The tank was less of a problem for Duke Kahanamoku, in "the finals he won the fifty yards and the 100 yards by about two feet each" and he was selected for the U.S.A. team to swim in Stockholm.
Emphasizing Hawai'i's status as a U.S. territory, "Duke was brought out wrapped in the American flag."
Friesel requested that his brother send him an autographed copy of  "one of those large photos showing him (Duke) standing on his head on a surf board" to be framed for his office.

On the same day the newspaper also noted the initial court proceedings in the case of Mrs. Grace A. Fendler versus Richard Tully.
In a long running action, she claimed Tully's successful play The Bird of Paradise had copied plot elements, including surfboard riding, from her manuscript, In Hawaii.
Initially settled in Fendler's favour, the case was later reversed on appeal.
The touring production of  The Bird of Paradise was noted for popularisng Hawai'ian ukelele music on the mainland, and Tully's play was subsequently filmed, with brief surfing sequences, in 1932 and 1951.

On  the mainland, Kahanamoku competed in a series of competitions and, as of 22nd March, he had won every race he entered, with the exception of one event at the Pittsburgh Athletic Club where he retired from the race with cramps,
Described as 21 years old, six foot and 185 pounds, in particular, the press noted "his style is different from anything ever seen before in this country."
In interviews Duke accredited his swimming success to his surf riding experience at Waikiki.
Despite the years of strenuous publicity by A.H. Ford to give the Outrigger Club an international profile, its fame was now rivaled by "the Hui Nalu ('Ocean Wave' Club) of Hawaii."

At a meeting of the Hawaiian  board of A.A.U. met on the 25th March to discuss the upcoming swimming championships.
The report identified the Healanis, Myrtles, Puunenes and Hui Nalu as interested clubs, apparently the Outrigger Club was not considered as currently operating as a swimming club.

The Thetis bear was scheduled for a second appearance in the Waikiki surf on the 11th May, the spectators "requested to equip themselves with a plentiful supply of peanuts."

In mid May, Waikiki experienced a large swell and "an unusually large number of surf board riders were in evidence," while on shore, a benefit dance was arranged by the Hui Nalu Club to raise funds for Duke Kahanamoku's trip to the Olympic Games in Stockholm.
Set for Saturday, May 25, it was to be held at the Outrigger Club "and tickets will be sold at 50 cents each."

The Honolulu branch of  the Y.M.C.A.  offered handicraft classes for local boys in June 1912; projects included making "boats, surf boards, aeroplane models and useful articles."

Vincent Genoves had returned to Honolulu by the 13th June, where he won three races at the second annual A.A.U. swimming meet.
Although considered a successful event with about a thousand spectators, "no world records were smashed."
Other well known surfer-swimmers  included Marston Campbell. Jr., Curtis Hustace, D. Center, and Lawrence and George Cunha.
The teams competition was won by the Hui Nalu, followed by the Henlauis, the Myrtles, and Punahou.
As expected, the Outrigger Club was not represented.

After a complex series of events and negotiations, Duke Kahanamoku won the 100 meters swimming finals at Stockholm on the 10th July, 1912.
After setting an Olympic  record of 62 2-5 seconds in the heats (ratified after a protest from Germany), Kahanamoku and the other American qualifiers, failed to appear for their semi-final due to confusion about the schedule.
After meetings with the Olympic officials and the consent of the qualified competitors from Australasia (a combined team from Australia and New Zealand) and Germany, a repercharge heat was run and two Americans, Duke and Kenneth Hustagh, advanced to the final.
Kahanamoku placed first with Cecil Healy, representing Australasia, second; Hustagh was third, followed by Germany's K. Bretting and W. Ramme.
Australia's champion, William  Longworth, although qualifying for the final, was too ill to compete.

The complications in running the event were compounded by difficulties in communication and it wasn't until six days later that the Honolulu Star-Bulletin was able to announce Duke's victory and world record.
Apart from an outstanding athletic performance, Duke's "style" also made an impression.
During the games, James H. Randall, the San Francisco Call's correspondent in Stockholm observed that he was " the talk of the town today, not only for what he does, but for the easy, nonchalant way in which he does it."
Furthermore, the generous approval by the Australasian and German competitors to a rescheduling of the semi-finals was highlighted by Dagens Nyheter, the Olympic Games' special paper.
On 10th July, it stated "the whole world of sport will ring with applause for your sporting action in permitting the semi-flnal of the 100 metres to be re-swum."

Apart from Cecil Healy's extensive career as a competitive swimmer he was also a leading member of the Manly Surf Club, one of the four clubs then operating on Manly Beach, Sydney's closest equivalent to Waikiki.
Healy was, no doubt, aware of the surfboarding exploits of Tommy Walker of the neighbouring Seagulls Club and of Duke's surfing reputation..
As such, he had a bond with Kahanamoku that was rare in Stockholm, and later was one of the principal figures in issuing an invitation for Duke to tour of Australia.
In the southern summer of 1941-1915, he reported on the Kahanamoku tour as a journalist for The Referee and was directly involved in the Sydney surfboard riding exhibitions.

Following his success at Stockholm, the Hawaiian Gazette reported on the19th July that Duke Kahanamoku would tour Europe and the United States, before a scheduled return to Hawai'i on the 23rd August.
Meanwhile,  preparations were underway to honour him, "the gift probably to take the form of a house and lot, in addition to a purse."
It printed selected excerpts from some of Duke's letters back home and suggested that he would return via "Atlantic City where the crowds will see him on the surf board."

Duke Kahanamoku arrived in Atlantic City on 10th August, New York's The Evening World reporting that "he brought with him two of the surf riding boards used by the Hawaiians."
The boards were forewarded from Honolulu directly to the East coast, possibly to the care of George Macfarlane or the Henderson family, awaiting his arrival.
The article also noted that "the City Commisson forbids the use of boards in the ocean, but has granted him permission to employ the surf runners two hours a day."
Atlantic City was not the only civic authority to restrict surfboard use; in March 1912, the NSW Government enacted an ordinance giving  local inspectors power "to order  bathers to refrain from surf shooting, whether with or without a surfboard, where the practice was likely to endanger or inconvenience other bathers."
Both cases indicate that these regulations were in response to the activities of local surfboard enthusiasts.
Furthermore, another report of Duke surfing at Atlantic City noted that his board was "longer than the boards seen here."

Of course, this was not the first appearance of Hawai'ian surfboard riders on the East coast.
Kahanamoku was preceeded by a group of surfing musicians, "the Hawaiian quintette", who were booked to perform at Atlantic City and Ashbury Park, N.J., in July 1910.
At Ashbury Park, their board riding, "skimming on the crest of a wave for hundreds of feet", was admired and copied by some locals, with limited success.

Duke later wrote to his father that he was "having a great time ... riding the surf ... thousands of people were on the Million Dollar Pier."
The New York Herald of 16th August reported that his appearances in Atlantic City had immediate impact.
It noted that "amateur surf riders here ... have provided themselves with surf boards," presumably larger designs than those previously used, and  "a new impetus has been given to surf ridlng and boys and men may be seen at any hour of the day when the tide is just right for the fun trying their skill striding in with the waves."
His upcoming  itinerary included appearances at Ocean City, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.

Interviewed at the end of September, following his return to Sydney  from the 1912 Olympic Games, the manager of the swimming team, Mr. A. C. W. Hill, raised the prospect of a tour of Australia by "the brilliant American sprint swimmer Duke Paoa Kahanamoku."
This was only one of the numerous invitations to Duke following his Olympic success and the Australian tour would not eventuate until the southern summer of 1914-1915.

Edward Rayment, the director of the New South Wales Immigration and Tourist Bureau, visited Hawai'i in October 1912 on his way to London to relieve Percy Hunter, who was to return to Sydney, via Honolulu, "arriving here during February and remaining for carnival week."
He was given the standard tourist treatment including an "afternoon surfing in canoes and watching the Hawaiian boys and Outrigger members disporting themselves on the surfboards."
At the Outrigger Club, Rayment met with Duke Kahanamoku and reiterated Hill's invitation to visit to Australia.

Later that month in Sydney, Hill reported to a meeting of the NSW Association that he had approached several international champions in Stockholm about their availability to tour Australia, and Duke Kahanamoku was the most enthusiastic.
The association resolved to apply to the Australian Swimming Union for power to extend a formal invitation.
Although the invitation was for a series of swimming exhibitions, "Merman,"  the natatorial correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, commented:
"Should Kahanamoku come to Sydney (he is claimed to be the world champion surf-shooter in Honolulu), he will surely astonish local surfers with his evolutions in the breakers."

A group of cabinet members from Washington visited Hawai'i in early October to observe the completion of dredging works in the construction of Pearl Harbor.
Their itinerary included the regular visit to Waikiki and canoe ride, unfortunately marred on this occassion by a lack of swell.
Meanwhile, the Promotion Committee approved the design of a German poster artist  for 1913 Mid Pacific Carnival and Eighth Annual Floral Parade.
It represented "a powerful Hawaiian riding the surf ...  the power and curl of the wave is force fully expressed."
The theme was consistent with "the surf-riding reputation which Duke Kahanamoku has made world renowned."
There were two sizes, small cards with the surf-riding figure and a limited number larger posters with a picture of Kahanamoku.
A reporter confidently predicted that "they are of an artistic merit that assures their being kept as souvenirs."

In November, the Hopkinsville Kentuckian detailed the contents of that month's edition of  Wide World Magazine, including one titled The Surfboard Riders of Hawaii.
The article was said to describe surfing as "the king of summer sports" and reported that "the white man has taken to it with enthusiasm and bids fair to beat the native at his own game."
Similar in title to A.J. Gurrey Jr.'s  The Surfriders of Hawaii, published around this time, the article was accredited to H. J. Shepstone.
In March 1913, New Zealand's Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle reprinted selections from Shepstone's article, subtitled A Sport That Beats Flying, however not containing the quotes as related by the HopkinsvilleKentuckian.
As yet, no copy of this edition of the magazine is known to have been located, although a copy of the article is currently being prepared.

In the same month, San Francisco's The Argonaut, published a story by H.W. Miller titled A Futile Struggle- The Tragedy of a Voyage Under a Tropical Sun.
It opens as an ill or injured "haole" is paddled by two "Kanakas" in an outrigger canoe towards Ohau.
Meanwhile at Waikiki, the "usual Sunday crowd of bathers assembled at Waikiki ... the sky was a flawless blue ... sea was as clear as crystal."
The "surf had never been better" and was enjoyed by many canoe and surfboard riders, some performing head or hand stands.
They included the"eel-like Harold Hustace, as brown as any Hawaiian, ... with his surf-board, and that bronze Apollo, Duke Kahanamoku, later to win enduring fame at Stockholm for his prowess in the water."
Despite the efforts of the crew in the outrigger canoe, the Waikiki locals fail to recognise their difficulty, and when the canoe is swamped in the surf, the three men perish.
The story, lightly edited, was reprinted under the title Three Black Dots by Northern Star (Lismore, NSW) in late July 1913 and Queensland's Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser a week later.

Preparations were well under way in Honolulu in December for the Mid-Winter Carnival, the program was to feature "the Landing of Kamehameha the Great", accompanied by a large fleet of canoes, at Waikiki.
He was to arrive on a traditional double war-canoe, requiring Prince Kalanianaole's canoe and one other to be brought from Kailua, Hawaii.
At Waikiki, they were to be "lashed together by a Hawaiian who did the same for those in the Bishop Museum."
Other events included  surf riding and canoe races, in particular "Duke Kahanamoku will be a star attraction la the surfing and swimming performances."
 
 

(The station chose August to begin honoring James Matthias Jordan Jr.'s introduction of surfing to the Atlantic coast. He received a surfboard from an uncle in 1912.)

1913

On 29th January 1913, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin was quick to pour scorn on a recent story in the oppostion Advertiser, later widely repeated, proported to record "Duke Kahanamoku's terrific battle with a high-powered, man-eating eel."
Under the sub-heading "Quick, Officer, the Padded Cell,"  the HS-B reporter interviewed the Duke who confirmed that there was a confrontation, that is "Duke was nipped by a small eel when he stuck a finger into a crevice in the coral."
The original story was repeated in the Long Beach Press on 29 January, 1913.
The HS-B also included an interview from the San Francisco Call of the recent return from Hawai'i of "the winner of the Call's girl wage earner beauty contest," who included Duke Kahanamoku amoungst several gentlemen with whom she was romantically linked.

At the beginning of February The Salt Lake Tribune published an extensive and flambouyant article on Duke Kahanamoku who "Made the Fastest Swimmers of the World Look Foolish at the Stockholm Olmypiad, Was Reared in the Surf of His Island Home and as a Boy Dodged Sharks for Sport."
It was accredited to Jim Nasium, "Copyright by The Philadelphia. Inquirer Co.", and was reproduced in several other mainland papers.
Accompanied by two photographs of Duke, there was also a dramatic surfboard riding illustration, copied from the cover of John R. Mustek's Hawaii - Our New Possesion, published in 1897.

Two weeks later the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reproduced selections from the Nasium article, identifying it as "a Sunday story in the Philadelphia Enquirer," and made light of the stories of shark dodging, the headline reading "Hold on tight, This story makes Duke Kahanamoku's giant eel look like a bait worm."

On the 21st February, the Mid-winter Carnival celebrations featured "the Landing of Kamehameha" at Waikiki beach, although, due the the late arrival of a party of tourists aboard the Mongolia, the floatilla's arrival was somewhat delayed.
The day was an declared an "undoubted success" and the crowd numbered in the thousands, however the other sports planned for the celebrations were abandonded as "the crush of people was so great, the policing: facilities so inadequate."

Despite the best efforts of John Wise, the pagent organiser, a large number of participants failed to arrive and their role were hurredly filled by the Hui Nalu who manned  seventeen canoes and the Outrigger members, "with a coating of grease paint, a malo and a flashing paddles," provided a further twelve canoes for the flotilla that numbered about forty craft.
There was a considerable swell running that morning, and four of the smaller canoes were swamped in "the big breakers" on the outside the reef.

In March 1913, New Zealand's Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle reprinted selections from The Surfboard-Riders of Hawaii by  H. J. Shepstone, from the November 1914 edition of Wide World Magazine.

Towards the end of May, at the request of a visiting team of Australian cricketers, Duke Kahanamoku gave his first swimming exhibition  since his return to Honolulu.
Held off the Moana Hotel pier, the event was a casual affair with no starters or timers, Duke demonstrating his style and skill in company of a number of locals.
Before starting, he posed for more than half an hour at the request of tourists and local photographers.
Afterwards Duke took some of the visitors from "Kangarooland" into the surf in one of three large canoes manned by the Hui Nalu, while other club members gave exhibitions of surf riding.
The cricketers expressed a desire to see the champion swimmer compete in Australia, a prospect that was regularly canvassed in their national press.

In Honolulu on the 17th June, a morning paper (The Adveriser ?) reported that Duke Kahanamoku was considering an offer to appear in vaudeville, reputedly at $1000 a week.
The claims were emphatically rejected by Duke in the afternoon edition of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and he made it clear that there was no prospect of him turning professional.
He indicated that his prime focus was on the upcoming swimming events in California, and the day before he had collected "his special surfing board"  from Waikiki in anticipation of riding it at Long Beach.
Duke also expressed an ambition to surf on the beaches of Florida, but noted few people visit the resorts there "in the baking hot summer months and the big hotels are virtually closed until late in the fall."

In a review for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on 18th June, Ernest N. Smith was scathing about the many inaccuracies and misrepresentations in "a moving picture panorama of the Hawaiian Islands" recently shown in San Francisco.
In particular, Smith, clearly knowledgable about surfboard riding, noted:
"The Bonine pictures of the natives surfing were among the most interesting and best-llked, and I discovered the surfing trips were much longer than in the old days, the natives 'riding the boards in from two or three miles off shore.'
The surf-riding on boards was described as being very dangerous and many were kilied at the sport."

On the same day, a team of seven Hawaiian swimmers, including Duke Kahanamoku, left for San Francisco on the Wilhelmina to compete at the Sutro Baths on the 4th July.
Led by William T.Rawlins, their arrival was eagerly anticipated and there were suggestions that further swimming events may be arranged in Los Angles and surf riding at Long Beach, "where the breakers usually are heavy and suitable for this kind of sport."

Before competing at the Los Angeles Athletic Club on the evening of the 11th July, at the invitation of Pete Lenz, captain of the Long Beach high school swimming team, the visiting Hui Nalu squad spent several hours at Long Beach.
Here, "they couldn't resist the surf and the Duke gave a thrilling exhibition of surfboard riding" before a crowd of "thousands."
After the day's surfing, Kahanamoku easily won his swimming events that night.

On "one of the most beautiful days of summer," two excursion trains organised by the Tacoma Elks and containing nearly 1,400 persons, traveled to Moclips on the 20th July for an "afternoon on the soft, velvety sands of the ocean beach."
"The raptures of the ocean surf carried away the crowds with frank enthusiasm" and "the Quinault Indians gave an exhibition of surf riding in a big Indian canoe."

Manager Rawlins and the majority of the Hui Nalu team; H. W. D. King, Lukelai Kaupiko, D. Keaweamahi, H. Kahele, C. W. Hustace, Frederick Wilhelmn and J. B. Lightfoot; returned to Honolulu from California aboard the Sierra on the 21st July.
Duke Kahanamoku was to return "in about a week" and Robert Kaawa was reported to have "yielded to the lure of the footlights and will go into vaudeville."
Rawlins detailed Duke Kahanamoku's success in California to the local press.
Apart from his expected victories, he won the the fifty-yard breast-stroke " though he has never practiced that style" and in a race against California's Ludy Langer over three-quarters of a mile, despite not contesting the distance before, he bested Langer's record by two and a half minutes.
During the tour, Curtis Hustace and Duke gave a surfriding exhibition at Venice where "Hustace came in on the surf -board standing on his head about twenty times, and twenty thousand people went wild."

The San Francisco Call adveritised Duke Kahanamokus's final mainland appearances would be at the Casino Natatorium, Santa Cruz, on the 26th and 27thJuly .
The event was said to include "all the crack swimmers and divers of the coast, in races, high and fancy diving, surf riding."

A lightly edited version of H.W. Miller's story A Futile Struggle- The Tragedy of a Voyage Under a Tropical Sun, first published in San Francisco's The Argonaut in November 1912,  was reprinted under the title Three Black Dots by Northern Star (Lismore, NSW) in late July 1913 and Queensland's Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser a week later.

The Maui News of the 9th August reported another invitation for Duke Kahanamoku to tour Australia with an offer "to pay the expenses of Duke, his manager and trainer."
It was suggested that a tour could start with within a month.
Furthermore, the article commented on the swimming skills of the Solomon Islanders, "where the great Wickman came from," particularly the  women, of whom it was said "would swim circles around anything Honolulu has so far produced."
Crucially, demonstrating the dispersion of the "crawl" style across the Pacific, they noted "the famous Duke kick is native, not to say indiginous (sic), to that section of the world and the women all use it."

The "great Wickam" was Alick Wickham, originally from the British Solomon islands, who was a leading competitor in the Sydney swimming fraternity and was often accredited with developing the "Australian Crawl" with the Cavill family in the late 1890s.
In 1949, Wickham was accredited by C.B. Maxwell with shaping the first surfboard in Australia around the turn of the century.
She noted that the board was not a success- it was hand carved from a piece of driftwood found on Curl Curl beach and sank.
During 1903 he set a world record for 50 yards and equalled the Australian record for 100 yards at Farmer's Rushcutter Bay Baths, Sydney.
In 1905 Wickham led the "Manly Ducks", a team that "performed exhibitions of fancy diving and swimming," the other members were A. Rosenthall, L. Murray, H. Baker, and C. Smith.
Harold Baker later identified Wickham, along with  "(Cecil) Healy, the Martins, Colquhoun-Thompson, Read, F. C. ('Freddie') Williams, and (Charlie) Bell", as one of "our best (surf) shooters" (bodysurfers).
Healy and Wickham were both members of the Manly Surf Club, and Wickham was one of Cecil Healy's strongest competitors in the lead up to his selection to the Australasian team for the 1912 Olympic Games.
In 1918, Wickham, then aged 33 and appearing under the name "Prince Wickyama," set a  the still-standing world's record by diving from a height of 205ft 9in. into the Yarra River at Deep Rock Baths, Melbourne.
The feat was nearly fatal, and Wickham was hospitalised for several days.

Wickham was not the first, or the last, Pacific islander to have a significant influence on Australian swimming and surfriding.
Bodysurfing was introduced at Sydneys' Manly Beach in the 1890s by Tommy Tana, a native of the island of Tana in Vanuatu (then the New Hebrides).
His style was studied and copied by Manly swimmers, notably Eric Moore, Arthur Lowe and Freddie Williams, who was considered to be the first local to master the sport.

On the 18th September, Mr. W. W. Hill, the Australian Swimming Union secretary, announced that Duke Kahanamoku would visit Australia to compete in Sydney and Brisbane at the 1913-1914 national championships
W. T. Rawlins, president of the Hui Nalu Club, had recently written to Hill confirming Duke's enthusiasm to tour and noted that on the recent San Francisco trip "he broke many records, among them the 100yds record held by your Wickham."
Rawlins wrote that, following another visit to California in October, "we will start for Sydney the first week in November."
This tour was formally cancelled in a cable to the the A.S.U. on the 4th December.

Another call for the development of a traditional Hawai'ian village, "located preferably at the public baths beach at Waikiki," as a tourist attraction  was made by John T. Warren of the Honolulu Photo Supply, at the beginning of October.
Warren cited the establishment of the Outrigger Club as a precedent, it had "revived the ancient surf-ridng and canoeing sport" and the "tourists are crazy about it."
He was confident that if "a family of Hawaiians, who can be depended upon ... which is sober and upright", were in residence in the village, they "can make the thing a success."

Mr. W. W. Hill, in his role as secretary of the New South Wales Rugby Union, was invited to referee several games in California during October 1913.
These included an annual match between the University of California and Stanford University, and matches played by the touring New Zealand "All Blacks" against the All-American team and California University.
Returning via Honolulu in December, he contacted Duke Kahanamoku "in regard to a visit to Australia," however, Duke was currently unavailable due to "private business" committments.
While at Waikiki, Hill "mastered the art of surf-board riding, and canoeing in front of the wave."
Hill noted that "the Hawaiian Athletic Union wants to send a team to Australia next season."

At the end of December, the Washington Herald reprinted a "humorous" anecdote from South Africa's Cape Argus, wherein a couple engaged in banter while they "started off on their Muizenberg run for a gambol with the merry surf boards."

On the last day of the year, the Sydney Morning Herald published an extensive article on Waikiki and Duke Kahanamoku, apparently based on a recent interview by a visiting Australian, perhaps W.W. Hill.
It detailed the Waikiki beachfront, the surfing conditions, and board and canoe riding, followed by a brief description and biography of Duke with  a list of his five current world records.
While he was always willing to demonstrate his swimming technique, "when asked how he 'kicked,' Duke was quite at a loss to explain; and he finally gave it up, and said he did not know, but just kept going naturally."
Informed of the nature of the harbour pools in Sydney, Kahanamoku "was surprised to hear of the enclosed baths, as, like all the natives, he has no fear of sharks."
Indicating that an Australian tour was confirmed for the next December (1914), the journalist suggested that the climate, the water temperature, and the 100 metres staightaway course of the Domain baths would see Duke swim times "even faster in Sydney than he has done hitherto."

1914
The Commemorative Pageant is rechristened the Mid-Pacific Carnival. ???

America, to 1912.
The earliest and most obscure report is from Union County Star and Lewisburg Chronicle of 17 January 1862,
Apparently (the document is barely legible), it records the sinking of a Union vessel and subsequent rescue of some of the crew, one supported by the wheel (as flotsom) and "three clinging to the surf-boards."

Of particluar importance are the visits of Hawaiian surfers to demonstrate their skills in California.
While three Hawaiian princes attending school in California in 1885 are known to have surfed at Santa Cruz, in November 1893 a group of native Hawaiians went to La Jolla, probably sponsored by the La Jolla Park Hotel, specifically to give "surf riding shows", although it is possible they provided an assortment of entertainments.
In 1894 a large contingent travelled to San Francisco to present the Hawaiian exhibit at the 1894 MidWinter Fair comprising a replica village, aquarium, and a wide range of products and handicafts, including outrigger canoes and "an old-fashioned surf-board."
The party included a group of hula performers and two surfers, James Apu and Kapahee, who were to give board riding exhibitions.

At Redondo Beach in 1895, the local hotel presented the Hawaiian National Band amoungst their summer attractions.
In addition to their musical performance, band members were also scheduled to demonstrate high diving and surf riding.
Whereas the diving (from eighty feet) by John Inea and Sam Kaaua was a success, a letter home from a band member notes that "they could not do some surf-riding there being no surf."
After the Californian engagements the band was expecting to travel to New York, but is unknown if they and their surfboards travelled to the East coast.

An all too brief report from Ocean City, Maryland, in 1900 notes that "Messrs Carter and Cooper are skilled in surf riding."
Apart from the early date for surf riding on the Atlantic coast, it should be noted that Carter and Cooper were Afro-Americans.

[Repeated in Hawaii]
In an article printed in 28 June 1907, either written by or initiated by Ford and probably fictitious, George Freeth is said to be "the only man Iiving who has ever surfed on the Atlantic coast."
It is claimed that he had stowed away on a steamer to Atlantic City (without the knowledge of friends, relatives, or the press), shaped a surfboard there from a local "woodpile when the cook wasn't looking", surfed standing on his head and rode between the piers, taunted the local life-savers, and, for his efforts was arrested and assaulted by the police.
It is unlikely that Freeth actually did any of this.
However, the story may have been based on the knowledge that someone from Hawaii had previously ridden at surfboard at Atlantic City, to the concern of local officials.
Maybe the Royal Hawaiian Band surfers did make it to the East coast in the late 1890s, and  in 1912 it was reported that the  "City Commission forbids the use of boards in the ocean."
The article was accompanied by  "a snapshot of of Freeth riding the breakers, the picture being pronounced. the very best photograph ever taken of a surfer in action ... by Mr. Ford, who stood up to his neck among the breakers for days in order that he might be able to get a series of such photographs.".

The article was probably published to boost Freeth's profile before his departure to the West coast to demonstrate surf riding.
Alternatively, it may had been intended to cement the negotiations for his appearance;  if so, this goal was achieved.
It is difficult to speculate on what the local surfers thought of the article; some may have believed it, some may have seen it as a comic hoax on Freeth's West coast sponsors, some were perhaps glad that Freeth was leaving Waikiki.
Five days later Freeth departed on the Alameda for Southern California to introduce "the royal Hawaiian sport".

In July, the Los Angles press reported that the organisers of the Venice Water carnival had  invited "surf board riders from all over Southern California" to participate.
Freeth, and possibly his predecessors, efforts appear to have a foothold for local surfers in California.

In August 1907, Freeth and Kenneth Winter were in California, but found the surf at Long Beach unsuitable.
Freeth was more successful at Venice Beach, his exhibitions "drawing immense crowds along the beach and on the piers."
At the end of the month the Vience lifeguard service launched its first lifeboat, imaginatively named Vience, captained by P. M. Grant, "an expert swimmer" and in the five crew, George Freeth.
That summer he would also appear at Redondo Beach, which had previously hosted the surfers of the Royal Hawaiian Band in 1895.

In the second  week of October 1907, Kenneth Winter returned to Honolulu from California.
He reported that George Freeth had plans to demonstrate surfriding at Atlantic City during  the next summer, but was currently working as a diver off the coast of South America.
This was misleading, at the same time the Los Angles press reported that George Freeth was in a party of fishermen aboard the launch Swastika, for "several days fishing up the coast near Malibu."

In early January 1908, plans for an athletic club at Redondo were announced, the instructor was to be George Freeth, "the Hawaiian lifeguard who last summer delighted and amazed audiences at Venice by his antics in the surf."
The program for the festivities at Venice at the beginning of August included "surf board riding by George Freeth, the Hawaiian boy and life saver, now of Venice."
He was also listed in the "fancy diving and high diving" event.

In mid October 1908,  the Pacific Amateur Athletic association of the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States disqualified George Freeth and Louis Hammel from their swimming  events.
Freeth and Hammel's amateur status was revoked because of their employment by the Abbot Kinney company at the Venice bath house.

George Freeth was acknowledged as the Captain of the United States Volunteer Life Saving crew at Venice in November.
In a severe storm and extremely high seas on 20th, he fell and broke his leg while attempting to secure a broken sewer pipe on the Center street pier.
The recently reorganized club was preparing teams for contests with other beach lifesaving organizations, including a team for the "Water Basketball league" (Waterpolo).

George Freeth was on the front page Los Angeles Herald in December1908 for his heroic rescue of seven fisherman of Venice beach.
The crew effected eleven recues in total, the press reported that "the waves dashed twenty feet or more over the piers along the beach."
In the following weeks, calls were made to publicly honour Freeth for his bravery.

On the east coast, inspired by Alexander Hume-Ford's Riding the Surf in Hawaii, published in Colliers National Weekly in August 1909, .Eugene Johnson immediately acquired "what is called a surf board" and, with his wife, spent an "afternoon riding the waves" at Daytona Beach, Florida.
It was suggested that the "fine  sport ... is taking well with surf bathers.

In April 1910, Burton Holmes presented his Our Own Hawaii lectures in California, augmented with Bonine's surf riding films.

Like the  Royal Hawaiian Band surfers who performed on the West coast at Redondo Beach in 1895, a group of surfing musicians, "the Hawaiian quintette", were booked at Atlantic City and at Ashbury Park N.J. in July 1910.
At Ashbury Park, their board riding, "skimming on the crest of a wave for hundreds of feet", was admired and copied by some locals, with limited success.

At the end of August, the Honolulu press anounced that George Freeth had recently received a medal from Congress in honor of  saving the lives of seven Japanese fishermen off the coast of California on 16th December 1908.
The report stated that his mother and sisters received "the congratulations of their many friends" and since working as a life-guard at Venice "he had nearly fifty lives to his credit."

Meanwhile at Redondo Beach, George Freeth was outclassing his rivals in water sports by returning a man in a weighted diving suit to the surface from "nearly forty feet down."
Following this feat, he  "delighted the crowds with a prolonged exhibition on the surf board."

In eary September, Charles Allbright and A. J. Stout rescued  two men from drowning with their "Hawaiian surf boards" at Long Beach California
The press claimed that this was "the first time in ... history" such a rescue was completed in California.
Visiting from Hawai'i, Allbright was a Honolulu newspaperman and Stout was formerly the manager of the Seaside Hotel and identified in the earliest report of the acquistion of the Outrigger Club site in 1908.
They were entertaining a crowd of beach-goers with their surfing skills when the two bathers got into difficulty.
Their koa wood surfboards were "much larger than those used on this coast being six feet  long, three inches thick and eighteen inches wide," suggesting that some locals were surf riding with small prone boards.

By the end of September 1910, George Freeth was back in Honolulu and he took a water polo team, variously his "combination" or  his "seals,"  to play a team of soldiers at Fort Shafter, winning  7-0.

On 26th August 1912, the Tacoma Times reported a group of day-vistitors traveled on theNorthern Pacific Railway to Moclips Beach in Washington where the various entertainments included "surf riding by the Quinalt (sic) Indians."
The Quinault Indians had developed a high degree of skill with canoes carved from cedar trees in a variety of specialized designs adapted to rivers, estuaries, and the sea.
Moclips may be a variation of the Quinault No-mo-Klopish, meaning “people of the turbulent water.”

surfresearch.com.au

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In the same month, San Francisco's The Argonaut, published a story by H.W. Miller titled A Futile Struggle- The Tragedy of a Voyage Under a Tropical Sun.
It opens as an ill or injured "haole" is paddled by two "Kanakas" in an outrigger canoe towards Ohau.
Meanwhile at Waikiki, the "usual Sunday crowd of bathers assembled at Waikiki ... the sky was a flawless blue ... sea was as clear as crystal."
The "surf had never been better" and was enjoyed by many canoe and surfboard riders, some performing head or hand stands.
They included the"eel-like Harold Hustace, as brown as any Hawaiian, ... with his surf-board, and that bronze Apollo, Duke Kahanamoku, later to win enduring fame at Stockholm for his prowess in the water."
Despite the efforts of the crew in the outrigger canoe, the Waikiki locals fail to recognise their difficulty, and when the canoe is swamped in the surf, the three men perish.
The story, lightly edited, was reprinted under the title Three Black Dots by Northern Star (Lismore, NSW) in late July 1913 and Queensland's Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser a week later.
 
 

1912
In January 1912, "Breastsroke", the swimming correspondent for Wellinton's (NZ) Evening Post, commented on "a number of photographs in one of the New Zealand illustrated papers showing bathers using surf boards at New Brighton beach."
The surfers were said to ride "lying, kneeling, standing" and the reporter emphasised the potential danger of "a board about five feet long, and an inch thick, weighted with an eleven-stone man, hurtling down towards the small of some unwary bather's back."
The article also noted that in Sydney, several bathers had beeen "badly bruised by careless breaker-shooters" and "members of the lifesaving clubs check the practice as far as possible."
The "New Zealand illustrated paper" article is yet to be located.

Evening Post

 SWIMMING.
(By "Breaststroke-")
This week there appeared
Perhaps a word of warning would not be out of place.
Some swimmers have imagined themselves in a very heaven of surfing  on surf -boards and flying before the long low combers toward the beach.
And all this the experienced surfer can accomplish without danger.
In the hands of a tyro, however, the surf-board becomes an engine of destruction.
Imagine , and it is not difficult to understand wherein the trouble lies.
Only last week Sydney Sun had a word or two to say on the subject: "Notwithstanding repeated cautions, a number of surfers will persist in using surf-boards, and a few instances have occurred recently where people have been
The offenders usually choose a time when the police are away from the beach.
The members of the lifesaving clubs check the practice as far as possible.
Let's hope they'll "keep off the glass" in Wellington.
Evening Post
, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 17, 20 January 1912, page 14.