Travels with Rico and Nugget: April 2019

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

CASTLES..WOW, 50 years ago

Tommy Holmes

Robbie Wilson

George Downing

May usually brings the largest swell of the summer season to the south shore. Photo shot from the beach captains perch, Outrigger Canoe Club by Wayne Faulkner, 1969

http://www.downwindproductions.com/tours/surf/castles1.html

George Downing, October 13, 2000
(from John Clark's Hawai'i Place Names)

To us, Castle's was Castle's—there was only one. The other names people use for it, like Bluebirds and Steamer Lane, were not actually Castle's. Bluebirds is to the west of Castles, outside of Techniques, and it forms only on a special swell, a more westerly swell. That's the spot that the Duke named Papanui. When Duke made his famous ride from Castle's to Canoes, he was riding a 16-foot-long skegless redwood board. To make that ride, the angle of his slide would have been important, especially to get from Castle's past Cunha's. That in-between section is Techniques, and it's a difficult section to get through. You had to have good technique to make it, especially on the old boards.

In the years that followed Duke's ride, there was talk among other surfers if he really did it or not — if anyone could actually make a wave from Castle's to Canoes. This bothered me, and I wanted to prove to myself that the Duke could have done it. In the early 1950s, I was out at Castle's on a big day, but using a smaller board, a 10-foot balsa/redwood with a skeg. I made the ride three times from Castle's to Canoes. In fact, I ended up past Canoes, inside of Populars, and there's no doubt in my mind that I could have made the Halekulani Hotel. But out of respect for the Duke's ride, I never went ashore. The Duke was something special, and I tried to be respectful of his image and what he did. I proved to myself that it could be done, and that if the Duke said he did it, he did it. The smaller board took a lot of maneuvering, compared to Duke's 16-foot board, which had a lot of glide, and the paddle back out between waves took at least 45 minutes. During the rides I remember thinking, "All right, I'm still going!" and at the end of each ride, I was always amazed that I had ridden so far.