Water man: A new biography of Duke Kahanamoku reveals the long shadow he casts on surfing and South Bay culture
Duke Kahanamoku on the beach at Waikiki. Duke shaped many of his own surfboards from trees he cut down. Photo from the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Duke Kahanamoku was not one to suffer from butterflies. Kahanamoku was a native Hawaiian whose ocean-bound childhood enabled him to dominate competitive swimming in the early 20th century. And at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, his first, he nearly missed the finals of the 100-meter freestyle. But Kahanamoku was not psyching himself out in the locker room or fleeing with cold feet; he was taking a nap underneath the bleachers. Rushed to the starting block by his teammates, he captured the gold anyway. The story exemplifies a kind of stoicism that is now the ideal of surfing. Unwritten rules indicate that one shouldn’t “claim” a good ride, shouldn’t talk excessively in the lineup, and should never speak the name of secret spots. And while brevity may be the soul of wit, it is the bane of biographers. As memories fade and records disappear, how to capture the inner life of the surfing subject? David Davis’ enjoyable new biography, Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku, presents a man of many accomplishments…
Read this story on easyreadernews.com