“Doyle Does it at the Duke,” by Drew Kampion, 

Once upon a time there was a contest, and a very bad one it was. And everyone agreed it was a very bad contest; and yet every year, come December, the very bad contest was held with all the surfers in it complaining of what a bad contest it was. 

[Note: Kampion is talking about the Makaha International.]

Then someone got a great idea. Why not have a very good contest? Then all the surfers in it would talk of what a good contest it was, and everyone would be happy. So a man named Kimo Wilder McVay, and another man named Fred Van Dyke, and another man named Larry Lindberg, and another man named Wally Froiseth, and a lot of other men decided they’d work together and make a very good contest. And a very good contest it was. For three years. This year, although the waves on the last day were the best in the four-year history of the Duke, the path to the finals was not all roses.

Nothing should, or could, be taken away from Mike Doyle, winner of the fourth annual Duke Kahanamoku Surfing Invitational (or the First Annual Duke Kahanamoku Surfing Classic, as it has now been officially appellated with the addition of a $1,000 first-place carrot). Mike surfed better and more consistently than anyone else in the finals, handling the twelve- to fourteen-foot surf confidently, masterfully, and often daringly. The win at the Duke meant more to Mike than it probably would have to anyone else. After so many years in surfing, and so many near misses in the Duke, Doyle finally had his first-place trophy, a trophy that 

to mean more to him than any amount of thousand-dollar checks. “Help! Get me out of here!” Mike gasped in the winner’s circle. “I always come in third, never first. I don’t know how to take it!” But he took it, and deserved it.

Val Valentine and his wife received a Golden Duke award for contributing so much of their time and energy, as well as their home, to the contest. And they deserved it too. Second-place finisher Ricky Grigg probably deserved his second-place trophy. A lot of surfers finished where they should have. But a lot didn’t.

Haleiwa—ten- to twelve-foot of gnarly, devouring, confusing, peaky, hollow, crashing, green-mud waves barreling like shock waves into a slew of rusty water laced with submerged coral heads. A beach of tin cans and glass rolling pleasantly to a coral and lava buttress that welcomes boards washed shoreward.

Fred Van Dyke was busy assembling all the scattered vectors into a unified force: a contest. But the surfers seemed skeptical.

This was Wednesday, the 18th of December. By 10:30 AM everyone stood at Haleiwa waiting for the go-ahead. This, after a morning of chasing from Sunset to Waimea to Laniakea to Haleiwa to Waimea and back to Haleiwa. Sunset had been big scattered peaks with lots of chop and backing-off waves, Waimea was just barely breaking—a steep takeoff followed by nothing. Laniakea was rough inside with an amazing zipper-quick lineup outside—too fast for riding. A good place for one-hour heats, best one wave.

Tuesday afternoon and early evening had been flat. Then, around midnight, cannons opened up on the beach. By dawn, it was a full-scale assault: a confused but solid twelve-foot swell.

Waiting for the contest to lurch into reality, a few of the surfers tried the Haleiwa waves, the most successful being Jeff Hakman, who worked the mean, muddy waves at maximum speed while still maintaining a degree of maneuverability. Corky Carroll sat outside waiting for a makable wave and finally dropped in on a nice, comfortable shoulder, cutting out to be greeted by a ten-foot set breaking in a couple feet of water. Corky successfully scratched over the first few waves but got ripped off his board by the biggest wave of the set. He spent the next hour of his life trying to get to the beach. He was sucked out in the rip that moved around the lineup and out past the Haleiwa boat harbor jetty, and just kept going. Finally, Hakman answered Corky’s calls and came over to give him a float. Both paddled the rip for another half hour before they made it into the harbor. Meanwhile, Ricky Grigg paddled out and was nailed as soon as he made the lineup, losing his board. He too fought the rip, finally succeeding in crawling onto the lava rock jetty. Grigg said it was the worst surfing experience he'd ever had.

“I’m not going out there again,” Corky said after he’d made it to the beach. “That was the most terrifying experience of my life. It’s not the size; it’s the conditions: the chop and the rip and the shallow water.”

And then Van Dyke called up the first heat of the contest.

Into the water went Eddie Aikau, Felipe Pomar, Paul Strauch, Billy Hamilton, Jeff Hakman and Nat Young. Van Dyke waited till all were outside in the lineup and then gave a blast of the air horn. Cameras merged in a single focus on the six surfers dipping around in the brown water. Pomar caught the first wave, an eight-footer, feeling out the way it moved, and cut out after only a short ride as the wave walled up.

Then Nat dropping into an eight-foot wall, carving it up and accelerating just ahead of the curl, and cutting out to find the same sort of set that Corky had faced earlier. With no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was nailed, Nat animal-crawled out at the fringing waves, his whole body contorted into the paddling effort as he burst through the back of one, two, three impossible waves, coming out the back of the last wave when he should have been planted on the bottom somewhere inside.

Eddie Aikau rode a beautiful wave but cut out a little early as the unmakable section in front of him stayed makable and kept peeling off in untracked perfection.

Then two things happened: Nat took off on a wave that probably would have won the heat for him; and, simultaneously, the heat was stopped and the contest moved up to Sunset for a look-see. “I don’t like being used as a guinea pig,” Nat said later.

Wednesday passed, the scene never materializing at Sunset, and for Thursday the surf did a full disappearing act. Thursday was the last scheduled day of competition, and it passed without even the prelims being held. But everyone in charge was confident that Friday would bring good surf and good cheer to the contestants, so Kimo McVay reminded all the surfers that they had to be out of their rooms at the Hilton Towers by noon the next morning. It was also announced Thursday night that the surfers invited to the Duke Contest might, quite feasibly, form the vanguard of the proposed PSA, or Professional Surfing Association.

Spawned from the acute business imagination of Larry Lindberg, the PSA would offer something more to surfers of the highest caliber than beach-break trophy contests—and that something is money. A series of 13 contests, all over the world, each one with prize money, and each one presented as a network TV show. Still remaining in the indiscernible haze was how other top surfers, besides the Duke invitees, would get a chance to enter the PSA, and what part Kimo McVay plays in the whole thing. Potentially, a professional surfing circuit, complete with television coverage, could be a giant assist for competition surfing and professionalism in the sport.

But meanwhile, there was the Duke to contend with; and on that Thursday night, McVay threw out a $1,000 first prize and christened the Fourth Annual Duke Kahanamoku Invitational the First Annual Duke Kahanamoku Surfing Classic. “It’s the least I can do for the memory of the Duke,” McVay said.

Once again, Thursday night, the ocean began to move. Friday morning, the last day of competition, the swell wedged dark forms out of the sea, and Sunset was chosen as the contest site. Still, morning is a slow time of day, especially when you’re waiting for a television crew to set up and for at least an f/11 reading so the cameras could be utilized at 100% efficiency. So all waited while the waves rolled through in perfect peaks, winding out beautifully for the surfers warming up out in the water.

At last, around noon, light meters were reading f/11, and the heats began—just as the surf began to blow out.

The same heat from the aborted Haleiwa effort hit the water: Aikau, Strauch, Hamilton, Hakman, Young. Nat rode the first wave, climbing, dropping, jamming off the ceiling, down again, and then up through the thick lip and out. Then Pomar dropped under a large peak, twelve feet or so, and got bogged down in the white water. Billy Hamilton drove along under the lip, was caught and devoured, losing his board. Strauch dropped into a wall that soon caught and passed him, his board looking a little slow for the sectioning Sunset walls. Aikau rode, carving off the bottom with the same gazelle smoothness he uses on four-foot waves. Hakman came across under the peak, carving close, high up under the lip, working against the back-lit ceiling of the waves.

During these first heats, the ABC helicopter played it close, hovering directly over, around and sometimes almost through the surfers. Hamilton was blown from a wave; others shouted for it to move away. The noise of the rotary engine and blades smothered the sound of the surf and interfered with the concentration of the riders.

While Nat rode Sunset during the first preliminary heat with the style contest audiences were learning to expect from him (unbelievable), there were some other surprises: Felipe Pomar seemed to reach beyond himself and turned in one of the most talented and consistent heats of the entire contest. Pomar’s long drives and perfect timing, combined with deep, carving turns and cutbacks, proved to be one of the most satisfactory examples of successfully merging hot-dog and big-wave styles in a single surfer. Other surfers, most notably Mike Doyle, Rusty Miller, Jock Sutherland, Jimmy Lucas, and Nat Young, have achieved the same composite approach, though each surfer’s approach, naturally, varies according to their individual philosophy of surfing. Still, it was interesting here in the Duke Contest to see the surfer with a composite style contrasted with the surfer who alters his style almost completely to fit the varying wave conditions. For instance, Midget Farrelly, Corky Carroll, and Billy Hamilton.

The second preliminary heat put Ben Aipa, George Downing, Barry Kanaiaupuni, Butch Van Artsdalen, Bruce Valluzzi and Jimmy Lucas in the water. By this time, the wind had begun to mature into a full Kona, moving directly onshore. In spite of the wind and the waves gone crumbly, Hawaiian Jimmy Lucas found the speed to make each wave he rode exciting, dramatic and high-scoring. Ben Aipa dominated the oatmeal waves with his driving, aggressive style, deep, weight-back turns and flawless judgment of the Sunset break. And “The Italian Surfing Champ,” Bruce Valluzzi: doing a fine job against almost insurmountable odds (five Hawaiians), and while he didn’t advance, he should have. Valluzzi ripped the blown-out Sunset waves with as much skill and aggression as anyone who had grown up in the Islands (Bruce is from Florida).

The heat ended and everyone waited with baited breath; the results weren’t released because there was a chance the heats might not count anyway (as it turned out, heat placings weren’t revealed for any heat during the whole contest except for the final).

Joey Cabell, Jim Blears, Charlie Galanto, Midget Farrelly, Rusty Miller, and Jock Sutherland were sandwiched into the third preliminary, with the surf rapidly disintegrating into a Colorado River panorama, and the palm trees along the beach bending over almost horizontal. Jock started the heat heavy, riding a beautiful left, and followed up with two rights: long, carving, speed shots that put him ahead in the heat. Charlie took off of a big one but got only mush, which is about all anyone was getting by this time. Till Midget got the biggest wave of the contest, a sneaker that steamed through and gave him something to play with. Rusty rode exceptionally well also, but had some trouble with his rails on the soft, thick-shouldered waves. The big letdown of the day was Joey Cabell, who sat most of the heat outside, obviously discouraged by the wind conditions, the helicopter, and the lack of a lined-up wall to work his speed equipment. Jim Blears took advantage of a left to gain points on a good wave, the rest of the time contenting himself with riding backside through the slop.

Heat four: Mike Doyle, Rick Grigg, Ryan Dotson, Mike Turkington, Corky Carroll, and Fred Hemmings spent some time adapting to boat wakes and helicopters, and the rest of the time trying to figure out what was happening with the surf, which had begun to improve slightly. Doyle and Dotson were the class of the heat, whild Grigg and Hemmings followed the traditional lines of acceptable Hawaiian surfing (biggest waves, longest rides, most critical position). Doyle and Dotson may not have covered as much distance in a straight line, but they more than made up for it in carving up and down across the faces of the waves, getting more mileage per yard of wave than anybody else in the heat. Doyle showed he is becoming one of the masters of the ski turns, the S-turn, and the low rotation style of surfing. Dotson, riding one of his ultra-speed boards, was able to maneuver more than others. Corky surfed solidly backside but was no match for the surfers who could face the waves. He was also hindered, at one point, by having to surf over the wake of the rescue boat.

After the prelims, the big decision was made to hold off any further competition until the surf and the light both got better. So Friday passed, and Saturday came, and the surf went flat again; on the other side of the island, the Makaha contest was scheduled to start. If you’re one of those people who enjoys watching others panic, you would have had a field day hanging around the Duke officials that weekend. There was even talk by now of running the final heat at a later date and letting everyone else go home. But the decision was for an unorthodox semifinal round of two heats, taking four men from each of the preliminary heats. Heat one: Aipa, Sutherland, Doyle, Pomar, Young, Downing, Blears, and Dotson. Heat two: Van Artsdalen, Grigg, Hemmings, Miller, Strauch, Lucas, Aikau, and Farrelly. The semifinalists awoke Sunday morning to find Sunset pushing fifteen feet, and coming over like an avalanche. However, it was a little gray, so, as the surf came roaring through, all waited, once again, for that elusive f/11.

Fred Van Dyke decided it was time. “This is where it’s at,” he said. “Just the surfer and the wave. Offshores with waves this big are the most difficult conditions you can get at Sunset. All the talk and the cameras don't matter now; all that counts is the surfer and the wave.” The greedy lenses zoomed in as the first eight surfers rose and dipped in the troughs between waves out in the lineup. The judges, spaced out across the Valentines’ front yard and porch, prepared themselves for judgment. Buffalo Keaulana jockeyed his boat back and forth at the fringes of the break, waiting to retrieve lost boards before the rip snatched them up.

Then the air horn blew and Ben Aipa dropped in right away—a nice peak, one smooth, deep bottom turn and a kickout. Jock drove straight to the bottom of a huge peak, cut a perfect 90-degree bottom turn and beat it as the whole wave collapsed over the track of his turn. Aipa rode, lost his board and didn't see it again. Buffalo came to his rescue. Mike Doyle, outside, dropped into the biggest wave so far, perfectly positioning himself beneath the peak. He and Rusty Miller had been out for an hour before the heat started, and it seemed as if the practice had paid off, as Doyle returned to the lineup to take a beautiful late takeoff and a long, hollow ride, almost to the channel. Then Doyle once again working a twelve-foot peak, S-turning off the white water, keeping his position tight. Felipe rode a beautiful wave that carried him, crouched, all the way to the channel.

Some waves began to break in the channel, and there was a long period where no waves were ridden, as the eight surfers attempted to get the erratic peak in their sights. Finally, Felipe rode again—a short ride, but it broke the ice. Nat, Jock, and Downing took off together: Nat and Sutherland cut out early, Downing hung in long enough to finish the wave. Felipe followed with his best ride of the contest: driving straight to the bottom on the takeoff and climbing and dropping aggressively all along a beautiful, transparent wall. Doyle followed with a medium-sized wall that he cut out of to find the wave of the day with Nat on it. Nat dropped out of the sky, carved off the bottom as daylight was shut out, crouched low under impending disaster and drove to beat hell till he shot, like a cannonball, out of the mouth of the tube and over the back of the wave. A close heat between Doyle, Felipe, and Nat, the results were never given in terms of placement, only in terms of who had made the finals and who had not.

The second semifinal heat had much better wave quality than the first. Rick Grigg rode the first: unfortunately, he did so before the horn sounded, and the heat started with Grigg inside, paddling out. From then on, the second heat surfers got more waves, rode them further, and spent less time sitting than did those in the first heat. Rusty rode a giant fifteen-foot nasty that almost tore his hair off on a short, but beautiful, ride. Strauch followed with a survival stance charge from the peak to the channel. Rick Grigg, who finally made it back to the lineup, rode two waves in a row, both long high-point rides that allowed him just enough room to squeak out at the ends. Van Artsdalen took off right, going backside, and was snuffed as Hemmings, riding the same wave, got a good, smooth, long wave. Strauch, outside, dropped into a heavy peak and kept dropping, right past the bottom and through, leaving his board to go its own way.

The big disappointment of this heat was the effort of Midget Farrelly. Midget only rode a couple of waves: one a short shoulder job, the other a wave shared with another rider which he cut out of early. Asked later what had been the trouble in the water, Midget shrugged and said, “the waves.” Jimmy Lucas also had difficulty, riding only a few waves, but on his last ride, really showed his potential before being snuffed inside. Lucas is fast and amazingly graceful even in the most challenging and graceless situations. Had he been better able to handle the shifting peak, he would have been a serious contender in the final heat.

An hour after the semifinals ended, the final heat paddled out: Eddie Aikau, Mike Doyle, Rusty Miller, Jock Sutherland, Nat Young, Fred Hemmings, Felipe Pomar, and Ricky Grigg. The waves had smoothed out and were now a consistent ten-to-twelve feet, although once in a while a fifteen-footer would rise up like a giant green-blue bear.

Once again the first wave of the heat was ridden by Grigg, and once again it didn’t count: he stood and was riding before the blast of the horn. The 

 first wave was ridden by Jock Sutherland, last year’s winner. Jock made a steep drop and deep turn, and drove all the way to the rip-torn channel. Then the Wax Mates, Rusty and Mike, did it together, Doyle doing it a little better than Rusty. Hemmings was outside, sneaking in under a cave-in wave, falling as he turned off the lip. Nat rode a fair-sized wave outside, carving under the soup and cutting over the mushing shoulder, followed by the Doyle-Miller duo again, this time the edge going to Rusty for best performance in a non-starring wave. Then Nat dropped in on the wrong side of the peak, which beat him to the bottom, leaving him in a free-fall which he miraculously survived, carving to the left off the bottom only to find the right next door converging with the left he had just escaped. He was caught at the bottom and, quite literally, consumed.

While Nat was swimming slowly after his board, Grigg rode several long walls; Felipe did some good carving, and Jock got into two fantastic walls on which he got going so fast that the slight V in the tail of his board lifted the fin out of the wave, and he spun out both times. At one point, on the second of these waves, he was moving so rapidly that his board, for a few yards, made no contact whatsoever with the water. Rusty had also lost his board at this time, and Buffalo was relaying him to where it floated in the channel. As for Nat, he was left to his own devices after taking the worst wipeout of the day.

Even on the poorer waves, Doyle worked with the maximum amount of style and class, always looking good, always doing something on the wave, never just waiting for the wave to do something to him or for him. This is what made Mike Doyle the best surfer on this particular day: his ability to make his style work on any wave that came through, his knowledge and wave judgment of Sunset, and his years of experience in contests on the North Shore and Makaha. All this finally came together for Mike Doyle this December; even though the Duke Contest has seen better days, Mike Doyle was indisputably the best surfer during the final heat.

However, other points did not meet with such overall approval. The other seven places seemed mixed up. They were: Grigg (2), Hemmings (3), Pomar (4), Young (5), Sutherland (6), Miller (7), and Aikau (8). Pomar, Sutherland, and Young deserved to place higher than they did.

Another question that remains in circulation is: which is more important—the surfers or the cameramen? Another: guinea pig techniques—acceptable or not? Another: is it right to send surfers into the water thinking they are being judged on five waves, then count only three? What about the helicopter and boat interference? What about rescue and board retrieving inequities? All these questions, and more, should be answered before the Duke does it again.

“Duke Classic: Sunset Erupts and Mike Doyle Wins $1,000,” by Craig Lockwood, 

The Duke Classic is scheduled to start this morning. You head out of Honolulu through the heavy morning traffic and on the way out you see Keith Paull and Claude Codgen. They point toward Haleiwa, then jet ahead. You follow, down the cane covered hill into town.

Haleiwa: False-front 1890 stores line the narrow ribbon of Kam Highway where it slices through the terracotta countryside. The narrow basin where the sampans are tied, the bridge, the breakwater, and beyond that, the surf. Haleiwa is big, a huge rip pulls seaward, and the big buoy lies over in the channel. LeRoy Grannis is setting his equipment up, testing his lenses, and keeping a weather eye on the massed bank of clouds hanging over near Kaena Point.

“They’ll go ahead and give it a try, ” Grannis says, then looking back at the ocean, “but they’ll probably decide not to have it.”

Granny is right. The first heat paddles out, and it looks really rough. The surf is 12 feet and bumpy, blown out, and nearly unrideable. Corky Carroll will later describe it as one of the worst experiences he’s had at Haleiwa, and Rick Grigg, who helped him paddle in, will concur. The officials call it off, have a quick confab with ABC’s Larry Lindberg, who is providing TV coverage for the contest, and everybody drives up to Sunset.

At Sunset it looks even worse. The middle reef is breaking, and now and then a cleanup set will break off the far reef. Hemmings and Van Artsdalen agree to guinea-pig it. Half an hour later they come in shaking tired heads. It isn’t worth it, they tell meet director Fred Van Dyke. Fred nods and then speaks to the people who have assembled around the porch of Val Valentine’s Sunset Beach house. “We’re having a meeting tonight that may lead surfing into a whole new era.” He won’t say anything else to the competitors and journalists. He smiles and then retreats inside.

We're all inside the imposing tower of the Hilton Hawaiian Village near Ala Moana. Van Dyke’s room is crowded, as the contestants and the press wait for the meeting to start. At one end of the room the huge perpetual Duke Kahanamoku Trophy sits impressively on the top of a TV set. You study it for a moment, thinking about the unintentional symbolism.

Larry Lindberg stands up; he’s chairing the informalmeeting. “I feel that, basically, we’re really blowing this whole thing with surfing. The sport is being run by people other than surfers. We’re foundering without direction or legitimacy.”

What it boils down to is that Lindberg feels the contest scene doesn’t give the surfer very much. A lot of money could be made off contests but it isn’t, and what money is made goes to people other than surfers.

“So here we are, and now something is happening in the TV world. The networks are in a significant transitional phase, and surfing is also. But surfing lacks any kind of national following. It is still relatively unknown, but it has a lot of potential as far growth. I doubt if last year we could have suggested something like this, and who knows—next year we might not be able to do it. But now I think we can.”

Lindberg outlines his plan. First, all the assembled surfers would form, under the direction of Fred Van Dyke, a professional surfer’s association. Second, the association could then approach television executives and try to interest a network in a series of professional surfing contests that would be held in various countries, much in the way pro golf or tennis meets are conducted. Third, the surfers themselves would get sponsors who would foot the bill for the new pros to enter the series. In exchange, the sponsors would realize a great deal of publicity.

“But who would sponsor something like that?” Jock Sutherland asks. “No surfboard manufacturer has that kind of money!”

“It doesn’t have to be a surfboard manufacturer. It could be IBM, Pan Am, United Airlines, or Coca-Cola. Any big firm, looking for publicity and television exposure, could sponsor a surfer.” Lindberg replied. The contest series would offer a cash prize of X dollars for each contest, and a final large cash prize for the winner of the series.

“How many contests would be held?” asks Felipe Pomar, the former world champ from Peru. “Thirteen contests, one each week for a quarter.” Lindberg explained that TV is programed in quarters, like many colleges and universities.

Many of the surfers appeared skeptical, but Lindberg went on, hammering home point after point. “You guys have the equivalent of a PhD in surfing. You’re the tops and you’re not using it. There’s money to be made if you are willing to take the chance, and you aren’t really taking any kind of chance.”

“I think it’s a damn good idea,” says Fred Hemmings.

“But you’re selling out the sport, man," Jock Sutherland snapped back. "Surfing isn’t a commercial product, you don’t try and prostitute your art form.”

“For some of us surfing is a living,” Corky Carroll said. “And a pretty good one. But if we could make more than just a living, why not do it? We spend all of our time getting good, and then get paid peanuts for it.”

“Because you’re ruining something that is beautiful," Sutherland replied. "And I can say for myself that I don’t want any part of it.” Without waiting for the meeting to adjourn, he got up, said goodbye, and left.

The meeting finally dissolved, with little groups going off down the hall to discuss the pros and cons of Lindberg's idea, and agreeing to meet the following evening to take further action.

The next evening, after a day of rain, Kimo McVay gave the surfers a few of the dollars and cents figures. “I’ve invested $162,000 in the Duke Contest so far. And I wouldn’t call it the best investment for the money. As a commercial venture, it's been pretty mediocre. I started it, however, to perpetuate the Duke’s name, not to make money, so I didn’t care. But I think that to get the ball rolling I’m going to change all that.”

McVay looked around the room and then dropped his bomb.

“I’m going to change the Duke Kahanamoku Invitational tonight. It will be known hereafter as the Duke Kahanamoku Classic. The first prize, winner take all, is $1,000 cash!”

Saturday. Makaha was due to start—it's been postponed. The Duke, too, is postponed another day. People sit around the North Shore chewing their nails.

Sunday. You wake up and look out the window. Long green lines. Two surfers are already out at Sunset, tiny dots exposed now and then in the valleys between the swells. The offshore wind is blasting, and ABC’s helicopter is keeping a respectful distance today, almost as if the waves might leap up and curl over the fragile-looking aluminum dragonfly.

The contest is on. Van Dyke gives terse instructions to the first heat: “This is survival surfing. It’s big, the wind is blowing 20 knots offshore, and we’re throwing the rule book out. Get a wave, that’s all. That’s the idea. Buffalo will be in the boat trying to pick up boards if he can. No-holds-barred surfing is the name of this game. If you can drop all the way inside, that’s good for points. We’ll give points for hair.”

Then Fred Van Dyke stands up, and shakes hands with the first heat, smiles and adds in pidgen: “Hey, Bruddas. You geeve ’um, ha? You go for broke.”

And it’s on. The channel at Sunset is a nightmare of turbulence. The simple act of paddling out is hairy. There is a lot of west in the swell, and piling up over the second reef the waves are held up to huge walls by the increasing offshore wind.

The opening horn goes off. Seconds earlier, Rick Grigg had caught a 15-foot wave. No good, it won't count. Rusty Miller is next, dropping down, trying to make the avalanche of a falling section. Then Paul Strauch. One of the officials notes that this heat will probably be judged on the best three out of five waves. Grigg gets a long, critical ride and then wipes out trying to beat out the inside section. Miller tries and makes it across the following wave, and Butch Van Artsdalen follows Fred Hemmings on the first and second waves of the next set.

Then Strauch, riding a big old-fashioned gun wipes off on a scary takeoff. The waves peak up into a huge set. Aikau takes off on an amazing mountain, but his ride is blocked by a 15-footer that is forming inside. On the rooftop, Diffenderfer yells, “He ate it!”

Then Hemmings, playing tactics, takes the drop on the shoulder but Rusty Miller out-generals him, and cutting way under the hook makes it and does a go-behind. Strauch and Grigg die on the next two waves, then Miller and Van Artsdalen vie on two long, long rides. Jimmy Lucas, the highly favored Island hopeful, has two fantastic rides and then suffers a terrible wipeout that sends Buffalo far inside to rescue him. He picks up Lucas, but his board is caught in the rip and in five minutes is a half-mile away.

Going into the finals it looks like a fight. Californian Mike Doyle, always a tough competitor in big-wave meets, has made it with Australian Nat Young who suffered some bad luck in the preceding heat. He tangled with the coral bottom and came out bleeding. Ricky Grigg, a former Duke winner, and Rusty Miller, also from California, are pitted against Felipe Pomar, Jock Sutherland, Eddie Aikau, and Fred Hemmings. Hawaii is heavily favored to win.

“It would take a real upset to beat the Hawaiians, they have the power” Bruce Valluzzi notes. “But it’s anybody’s guess once they get out there.” Valluzzi knows. The East Coast star has spent the last four years studying island surf and surfers.

Jock, last year’s champ, gets the first ride. Long, beautiful, fast. At the end, the wind spins him around like a top dancing off a table. He falls. Hemmings takes off too far over and wipes out. Then it’s Nat Young, followed by Miller. Nat turns to look at Rusty’s ride and then pulls the surprise move of the contest.

Outside is a monstrous set, angling in more west than the others. While paddling back out, Young studies the situation, strokes over the first two waves, then suddenly whips around on the third and drives deep into the hook—going left. Suddenly he tromps the tail of the board and swings it around—up, up, up! Then a double-section forms, and Young has no option but to prone out.

Hemmings is riding an 11-foot gun and has a great paddling advantage over Young, Pomar, and Sutherland. Fred is getting some good, long rides. The surfers riding smaller boards are disadvantaged by the gusting offshore wind, the terrible force of the waves they have to paddle through, and the length of the paddle. Grigg, Doyle, and Hemmings have taken a chance on riding big guns, and they are accumulating rides.

Doyle and Miller wipe out. Then here comes Jock, riding backside across the corduroy face of the biggest wave of the set. Suddenly, near the end, his board drops from under him, and he falls six feet to the deck, lands on his feet, and for a brief moment continues to ride. But he has lost too much speed and the fantastic recovery is obviated by the smashing wipeout that follows. Young drops, climbs, and drives along just under the hook and makes it, looking like the Sunset Express.

Pomar and Sutherland are in the middle break when they turn around and see Grigg riding prone, from way outside. They both paddle hard for the shoulder and make it, then they turn again. Grigg is standing up, coming out of the wall of soup. Doyle picks up another long, searing ride, elongating his climbs and drops into smooth, graceful spray-sheeting arcs. Aikau loses his board.

Jock picks up a fantastic pyramidal peak that explodes on itself and nearly erases him. He climbs, turns and spins out high at the top of the wave. Then he takes the following wave, bumps down, lands on hands and knees, climbs up, gets locked in and then is exploded off his board. Doyle gets two long rides in succession. His wave total is mounting up.

The wind increases during the last 35 minutes of the final. There is so much bounce that the surfers look like puppets on strings at the top of the towering waves. Buzzy Trent and Don James go after Jock’s board when he loses it near the end of the heat. Doyle again picks the right wave and the right moment. He zippers through the tube and drives hard for the needed inside section, making it. Then Pomar and Grigg follow each other along a long spray-ripped wall, racing to beat a hooking double peak that they make with nothing to spare. Hemmings leaves the pack to try for another point-making giant and somehow makes it.

Flushed, the finalists wait in a circle on the lawn of the house next to Valentine’s. The cameras grind, and into the circle steps Kimo McVay, smiling and pumping hands.

The winner is announced and you aren’t surprised when Mike Doyle’s jaw drops open. “Mike, you’ve done a great job, and I must say, in all candor, that you certainly earned this.” McVay hands Doyle a check for $1,000 dollars.

Second placer Rick Grigg turms and claps the big Californian on the back while Hemmings, third place, and Pomar, fourth, laugh at his surprise.

“You’ve really come through, Mike,” Nat Young in fifth, congratulates Doyle.

Sutherland, Miller, and Aikau finish sixth, seventh, and eighth.

1968 Duke Kahanamoku Surfing Classic

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