Years before Shaun Tomson reconfigured high-performance surfing in the mid-1970s, South Africa's best riders had proven themselves to be of international caliber: Peers Pittard was the fastest man alive in the long pointbreak peelers near Cape St. Francis; Jonathan Paarman threw his board up and down the faces of huge reef waves near his Cape Town home like the Afrikaner version of Barry Kanaiaupuni; and Mike Esposito, an elastic goofyfooter from Durban, was probably robbed when the judges h...
Chapter 6:
The Fortune Seekers
- Road to Santosha /
- The Kevin and Craig Show /
- Hippie Trail Gold /
- At Play in the Fields of Allah /
- Career Move /
- Grand Prix Dream /
- Follow the Money /
- Big in Japan /
- Rabbit's Big Adventure /
- Shaun Tomson's Tunnel Vision /
- South Africa in Black and White /
- Mark Richards, Gentleman Killer /
- Two Fins, More Wins /
- The Divine Miss M /
South Africa in Black and White
Visiting surfers did their best to ignore apartheid, but it wasn't always easy. In 1972, Gunston 500 invitee Eddie Aikau, a full-blooded Hawaiian, was given a polite but firm turnaround from the concierge at Durban’s Malibu Hotel. "I fear to walk in the streets here," he told a local black-owned newspaper.