Paul Strauch’s First Surfboard

I am recalling another of Punahou School’s legendary surfers, Paul Strauch, a 1959 winner of the Makaha International Surfing Championships. Paul attended Punahou from 1955- graduating in the class of 1961. He was part of Punahou’s first group of students and teachers who attacked the Makaha International Surf Contest. These included Paul, Fred Hemmings, Vicky Heldreich, Tim Guard, Brant Ackerman, Peter Cole, Erick Romanchek, and Laura and Jimmy Blears.

Paul won second place in the inaugural Duke Kahanamoku Invitational Surf Contest behind winner Jeff Hakman (Punahou) and was one of the original four members of the Duke Kahanamoku Surf Team which included Fred Hemmings Jr. (Punahou).

Paul Strauch carved his way through the Makaha Surf Contests and the World Surfing Championships in the late 1950s and most of the 1960s. Credited with inventing the cheater five nose ride and participating in some early surf films like Endless Summer and Gun Ho, Paul left his mark as the smooth local Hawaii boy who would become one of the original members of the Duke Kahanamoku surf team.

So it is no wonder that I would catch up with surfing legend Paul Strauch at the 2014 Duke’s Oceanfest in Waikiki. I asked if he could remember anything about his very first surfboard. This is what he told me.

Photos in this video not taken by Kyle Metcalf of Tom Blake and one of his early swallow tail surfboard are used under the Fair Use doctrine for historical and documentary purposes.

Thank you to Bill Brooks for the use of his music on this video.

1960s Greg Noll Search for Surf ​

Another contribution from Kyle Metcalf
Kimo Doole shared this short video about Greg Noll.

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  • We forget that his birth name was Greg Lawhead but shortly changed to Greg Noll after his mother remarried; Noll was the name of his stepfather.
  • We forget that he visited Hawaii in 1956 and convinced his parents that he should attend his 1957 senior year at Waipahu High School so he could surf.
  • We forget that he filmed surfing along with the likes of Bruce Brown and Bud Browne in an attempt to promote his fledgling surfboard business in Hermosa.
  • We forget that he with a few others took the Malibu Chip surfboards to Australia, boards made of balsa that when stacked on the beach at Malibu looked like a pile of potato CHIPS.

In this film he mentions Dave Rochlen at Malibu who would later move to Hawaii, marry Rabbit Kekai's ex-wife Keanuenue, and open the Surf Line store on Piikoi and start the Jams World clothing business.

  • And we forget the kind words he had for the generation of big wave surfers that came behind him. James Jones, Brock Little, Clark Abbey and etc.