KEN ADLER PROFILE BY CHRIS BYSTROM (1996)
Chris Bystrom's profile on 1965 Queensland champion Ken Adler ran in a 1996 issue of Pacific Longboarder (Vol 1, Issue 2). This version has been slightly edited.
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When I think of the expression "speak softly but carry a big stick," Ken Adler comes to mind. Over the past 52 years, Ken has made his mark on Australian surfing as a shaper, competitor, world traveler, and big wave rider.
Born in 1945, Ken and his family grew up in the Sydney beachside suburb of Maroubra. His family moved north to Brisbane when Ken was six, and this left quite a negative impression on him. Brisbane is a full hour from the nearest wave and Ken never really forgave his father for moving the family away from the coast.
Frank Adler, Ken’s dad, was a lifetime beach and ocean enthusiast who had learned many a shortcut to bettering his rivals of the day. Back in the 1920s a sport named "surf-o-planing" was all the rage in Sydney and Frank was the king of the rubber mats. Later, Frank would be the first man in Australia to build hollow surfboards. He'd read articles about Tom Blake in Hawaii and more or less copied Blake's design. His new board tipped the scales at an unbelievably light 25 pounds!
Frank spent six months learning to perfect paddling and riding his new lightweight hollow board. Other surfers made fun of his hollow design, telling him it would be impossible to ride such a light board. In his first race, however, Frank finished ahead of the other competitors by a huge margin. As Adler told the story later, as soon as he was declared the winner, all you could hear was the sound of hammers and nails making copycat hollow boards.
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Ken rediscovered the ocean as a young teenager. Some friends of his told him about a longboard that had been left on the beach at Greenmount, on Queensland’s Gold Coast. The next day Ken got a ride south with some mates and, lo and behold, he found the board right where he heard it would be!
A short time later Ken bought his first custom from Roger "Duck" Kieran. It was a beautiful balsawood design and cost the tidy sum of 28 pounds. Ken was a quick learner and soon became a member of the Surfers Paradise Surf Club.
It didn’t take Ken long to realize that the best waves were on the southern end of the Gold Coast, and in 1960 he switched allegiance to Kirra Surf Club. He would travel to Kirra from Brisbane whenever possible, sometimes spending weeks at a time at the club on Kirra Point. In those days, Ken literally had to look for people to surf with. Kirra would be pumping and there would be no one out!
Clubbies looked down on members who were too caught up in surfing because they didn’t want to do the patrols, which were required of all members. Every time there was a swell, the surfers avoided lifesaving patrols because they were already out in the lineup surfing their brains out. In the end Ken left the Kirra club because it was cutting into his surf time.
Though there still weren’t a lot of local boardriders in the early 1960s, Ken does remember quite a few colorful characters. Fellas such as Jeff Godby, Graham Black and "Bogangar Bob," a true soul surfer—before George Greenough personified this type of lifestyle. Ken also singled out Gary Birdsall, Mal Sutherland, John Cunningham, Mickey Stafford and Keith Paull as hot young Queensland surfers of this period.
Frank Adler, meanwhile, tried unsuccessfully to lure young Ken into the family trade, which was refrigerator engineering. Ken absolutely hated it and told his father he wanted to continue pursuing his interest in surfing. When Frank was convinced that his son meant business he showed Ken how he could make some money to finance his dreams of travelling around the world.
The two began shipping boards up from Sydney and selling them from the front yard of their suburban Camp Hill home in Brisbane. Eventually Ken saved up enough money to travel to Hawaii. Ken says he was never afraid of the ocean and he tells an interesting story about an early experience, bodysurfing with his dad in big stormy conditions at the beachbreak just north of Burleigh Heads. Frank told Ken to take off on a particularly hollow wave; Ken went over the falls and got throttled. His dad said to him, “That'll teach you never to trust your father."
Ken became a devotee of the Phil Edwards and Midget Farrelly school of smooth, stylish surfing. By 1964, Ken had travelled to the North Shore of Oahu and was a dedicatee big-wave surfer. His favorite breaks were Sunset and Makaha. He broke the nose off his first Hawaiian board at Pipeline, a board shaped by Midget himself.
In 1965, with months of big wave experience under his best, Ken travelled to the World Surfing Championships in Peru. While there, he became close friends with California great Mike Doyle. Ken was thrilled to keep advancing through the meet, which featured big name surfers such as Midget, Doyle, Nat Young, David Nuuhiwa, Rich Chew and Felipe Pomar.
Phil Edwards was the head judge and the highest points were awarded to the surfer riding the biggest wave closest to the curl This greatly enhanced Ken’s chances, since he was ways taking off late and riding ‘Island Style’ right in the hook. Other surfers, including Nat Young, would later complain that their more radical, performance-oriented surfing had been underscored, but in the big waves at Punta Rocas, Ken did exactly what has required to make the eight-man final.
Felipe Pomar won the event. Nat and Ken were the only Australians to make the final; Nat placed 2nd and Ken took 8th.
After the world contest in Peru, Ken travelled with Mike Doyle to Southern California where he worked for a time as a shaper at Hansen Surfboards in Encinitas. He then moved back to Australia with Candy Calhoun and eventually opened San Juan Surfboards in Byron Bay. George Greenough and Bob McTavish would both work at San Juan in the late 1960s.
