Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe
Hulikohola Kahanamoku (August 24, 1890 – January 22, 1968)
was an American competition swimmer of ethnic Hawaiian
background who was also known as an actor, lawman, early beach
volleyball player and businessman credited with spreading the sport
of surfing.[2]
Kahanamoku was a five-time Olympic medalist in swimming.
The story of Duke
Kahanamoku--the Hawaiian who, in 1912, first drew the world’s collective gaze
upon the art of surfing--reads like mythology. Born in Honolulu in 1890, he is
credited in over a dozen feature films, surfed the world’s most imposing swells
before Californians knew what surfing was, won five Olympic medals in swimming
and was elected sheriff of his beloved home county thirteen times.
The Big Kahuna was a
tremendous athlete, to be sure, and by all accounts staggeringly cool, but he
also had a proclivity for heroics--one morning in 1925, just as dawn crept into
the summer sky over Newport Beach, a 40-foot fishing vessel called the Thelma
found herself in the grip of a sudden and violent squall. Waves hammered the Thelma’s
deck, and the vessel succumbed to the thrashing breakers, stranding its
crew in the surf. The Duke, who watched from the shore as he prepared for that morning’s
ride, rushed headlong into the maelstrom with his surfboard and, along with
three friends, managed to wrest twelve men from the clutches of the Pacific.
Despite his charisma on
the screen and two decades of Olympic triumphs, it is perhaps for moments like
these--for his character, his ease in the water, his deep and unending love of
Hawaii and her oceans--that Duke Kahanamoku is remembered most. He brought
surfing to the world, and by force of his magnetism and singularly Hawaiian
spirit helped The Islands achieve statehood.
Today, on his 125th birthday, Matt Cruickshank recalls the legend of the
“Ambassador of Aloha” with a Doodle of his iconic, 16-foot wooden surfboard and
his warm, blithe smile. “Most importantly,” a reverent surfer remarks in a
documentary about The Duke, “he was pure Hawaiian”.
