A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Beschen, Shane

Surfing was introduced to the East Coast in 1912, when Virginia Beach resident James Jordon returned from a world cruise with a nine-foot Waikiki-made redwood surfboard; over the next several decades the sport developed a cult following in a few areas, helped along by occasional visits from surf world luminaries Duke Kahanamoku and Tom Blake, and proselytizing surf crusades from people like Bob Holland of Virginia and Bill and Dudley Whitman of Florida. But the East Coast surf scene didn't boom until the early and mid-'60s, when surf shops, clubs, and competition groups were founded by the dozens from New England to Florida. 

The 2,100-mile-long East Coast is often divided into three basic geographic surfing zones: the diverse and often rocky coast north of Long Island, New York; the beachbreak-lined areas of the mid-Atlantic, and the Southeast. The East Coast generally breaks best during fall, as Atlantic Ocean hurricanes track to the northwest; most areas have surf of one kind or another in winter and spring. Summer is often flat from New England to Florida.

Although surfing on the East Coast is split into hundreds of divisions and subdivisions according to region, age, equipment preference, and skill level, the entire region is nonetheless allied to a far greater degree than the American West Coast. 

Surfing in mainland America got its start in California, and California surfers, boardmakers, photographers, filmmakers, and writers largely remade the sport in their image after World War II. Thus East Coast surf culture, as it took shape in the early 1960s, was essentially flattened by the weight of California surfing history and surf enterprise. It didn't seem to matter that the East Coast was capable of producing first-rate surfers (Gary Propper, Claude Codgen, Mimi Munro, and Mike Tabeling all had national reputations by 1968), along with first-rate surf; the entire region was treated by the California-dominated surf industry/ media as little more than an American surfing annex, filled with barely differentiated surf breaks and hundreds of thousands of surf plebe consumers. 

Treated as a minority group, East Coast surfers to some degree pulled together. There have been factions, and even internecine fighting—most famously the north-south rift following the 1970 Eastern Surfing Association Championships. But East Coast surfers for the most part have used collective identity as a strength, drawn together by their own surf magazines (

 in the '90s and '00s), along with their own surf movies and videos, including 

 (1999). The 1967-founded Eastern Surfing Association has for decades been the world's premier amateur surfing group. The East Coast Surf Legends Hall of Fame was founded in 1996.

While the East Coast surf is weaker and less consistent than that found on the West Coast, it seems to produce a more enthusiastic wave-rider, and this may be the greatest difference between surfers from the East and West coasts. The jaded and enervated surfers sprinkled throughout California are nearly impossible to find on the East Coast, where waist-high waves are often treated as a gift, not an insult. From the '60s through the '90s, meanwhile, East Coast surfers were united by their desire to prove themselves equal to or better than West Coasters in competition. "We surf for fun, of course," world tour surfer Wes Laine of Virginia Beach said in 1991. "But we surf mainly to be better than the Californians." 

Laine and Charlie Kuhn of Florida were the first East Coast surfers, after Florida's Jeff Crawford, to perform well on the world pro tour, inaugurating a trend. The East Coast surf industry would remain insignificant compared to that of California, but East Coast pros, led by Kelly Slater, Frieda Zamba, Lisa Andersen, and CJ and Damien Hobgood, have long been dominant over their West Coast counterparts. As of 2012, East Coasters had won a combined 20 world pro tour championship titles, to just five for California.

East Coast of America

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