Originally published in the May 1971 issue of SURFER, with the title "Jeff Hakman: the Ultimate Flash?" No author credit, but probably written by either Drew Kampion or Steve Pezman.

I really didn’t like it at first. I just thought it was kind of miserable. It was cold and I didn’t have the right kind of surfboard or anything. I went on like that, just sort of riding whitewater and never really getting stoked, and then after about a year and a half I got a board that was lighter and floated me a little better and I got so my timing was better. I knew how to turn and trim right and everything, ’cause I watched others surf so much, but I couldn’t get the timing and the right positioning on a wave wired. When I finally did, the other things came easily—in fact, it was really just a matter of one wave.

Well, before I reached that point—my father took me out to Palos Verdes Cove a few times, and this one day it was about ten feet and I got pulled over backwards on a wave and hung it up for quite a while after that. But then about six months later, I tried it again, when the surf was about six feet; the kind of day when the waves weren’t really breaking top to bottom. I got into this one wave early and trimmed, just pulled in tight and went until I got blasted. The speed sensation was really stoking. That was the wave that got me going.

Yeah! Around the Torrance area in 1958. My dad surfed a lot.

It was a 6'6" Velzy-Jacobs balsa with a round bottom—almost impossible to stay on top of, it was so tippy. I kept rolling off the sides. That’s when I first started, when I really had trouble getting my timing down. The first board I actually got stoked on was a 7'10" balsa. It was about 15 pounds. It was actually a pretty good board for the times. My father made it.

About 1961. I was already into surfing over here. In fact, the first time I went to the Islands, I went with a friend and surfed Makaha a few times, then when I went back home I got my father stoked on going back over with me on vacation. He was so stoked he quit his job and we moved over. He went for about four or five months without working because he didn’t have a job lined up or anything. We just moved over there and that was that.

When did you start riding bigger Island waves?

After we made this move, our whole family was living at Makaha Point, so I surfed Makaha before school, after school—and during school. You know, I just surfed every day. I worked into bigger waves that way. Like a lot of days were 15 feet, but Makaha, being pretty slow and mushy, was a good place to get a feel for bigger waves.

What surfers from that period influenced you?

Paul Strauch impressed me more than anybody.

If you could go back in time to any particular era, when would it be?

I think the earlier the better, except for equipment. If I could have the boards I have now, ten or twelve years ago; it would really be neat.

Up until the last two or three years it was like . . . I’d go to school, you know, and I’d surf, and it was a good release and I really enjoyed it. But just over the last three years I’ve gotten more involved in surfing, and it’s become more and more important to me. Just everything having to do with surfing, like for example the people you meet from all over the world. In turn you learn things from all these people. Through surfing a lot of doors have opened to me.


Have you traveled to other countries where you’ve surfed?

Just Mexico and Central America, and I’m about to leave for Peru.

I expect the waves to be decent size, I’ve heard it's pretty consistent. I don’t expect it to have the quality or speed of Island waves. And I expect the ahh . . . social life to surpass the Islands. [Note: Hakman got runner-up in the 1971 Peru International surf contest.]

What are you taking in the way of boards?

Three at the most. It took me a year or two to find the right size range for my North Shore boards. I can really do it with two boards now. I'm trying to get it as compact as possible. Like one year I had five boards and none of them did the job. So I’ve come to the point where I've got t it down to two boards.

I have a 7'4" that’s good on anything up to eight or ten feet. I suppose I could use a smaller board in waves like three- or four-foot Velzyland, but it seldom gets that small, you know. The average North Shore wave is around five or six feet during the winter. Over, say, ten feet I have an 8'4" gun that takes over.

Having surfed well in the Islands the last few years, winning the contests and just surfing well generally, you seem to be reaching that “star” category. How does that feel?

I attribute a lot of my contest success to good equipment. Also, just living there helps a lot. Living at a spot—you just get it wired. But as far as actual social pressure or that kind of thing—I don’t feel it. It’s sort of a thing where, you know, you’ve been surfing the same all along, then all of a sudden the thing you’ve been doing becomes popular and you get recognized. It’s not like all of a sudden one year you’re hot, it’s just that you’re recognized more one year than another year. So I think . . . it’s just like my number’s come up.

What’s the biggest surf you’ve ridden in the Islands?

Well, you know, when it gets over 20 feet it’s just big!

Yeah. When Waimea’s big—well, you can call it whatever you want. Like you get these characters that call a wave 14 feet or 16 feet, but after a certain size it’s just a rough estimation. It’s just big!

Yeah! The first time I surfed Waimea. It was one of those times when you’re half into a wave and half out, and you’re paddling, just trying desperately to get in it because you feel like you can maybe you can do it—and you just never quite get there. Except by the time you realize you’re not going to catch the thing, you’re waaaay inside (chuckle). This happened to me and I turned around bummed on missing the wave, and suddenly I realized, “Wow! I’m inside!” and there was a 

 giant wave just feathering—you get the sudden rush of adrenalin, and you’re not quite sure whether to paddle towards shore or try to make it over. On just sort of instinct, I went for it, and over the next hundred feet or so I contemplated bailing out three or four times, but it would back off for a second and I'd think, “Wow! Maybe I can make it!” Then it would bounce up again, looking like it was all over.

I ended up just barely making it over, kicking my board through, and luckily I didn’t get sucked over. Scrambled back to my board and there was another one feathering, and it was the same shot, just making it over that one. This went on for maybe five waves in a row until I made it over the last one. I still don’t really know how I did it, but I was outside.

Yeah, that was scary. And then there was another time at Sunset, about 1964. It was one of those 15-foot-plus waves where the north swell meets the west. Horseshoe! Super pitch-out! I took off, pearled halfway down, fell on the face, and it started off like a normal wipeout. Then as I was coming up, my back was towards shore and I knew I just a couple feet from the surface. I’d just sort of gone in a big semi-circle under the wave, and was now coming up the back side. I was near the surface and letting my air out gradually, cause I knew I was about to pop through. But as I got about a foot from the surface—almost to the air—I got sucked back over the falls. I free fell about fifteen feet and hit the bottom really hard! What little air I had left got knocked out of me. Then I went into one of those super-deep, ear-hurting spins in all directions, like being trapped in a washing machine. I didn’t have any wind left at all. I was all purple and dizzy, and as I came up there was another lip coming down, right for my head! I just had time for a weak breath. That went on for two more waves. I finally got into shore where I passed out, and woke up about three hours later, laying there in the sand, barely out of the water.

No-o-o. There was one other car at the beach that day.


Do you usually feel some element of fear when you’re out in big waves, or is it something you grow to understand, that you finally overcome?

I think anybody that says that they’re not scared in big Island waves is either lying or an idiot. I’m talking about really big waves. I mean, 15-foot Sunset is nothing. I’m talking about over 20-foot, super big Waimea, or closed-out Sunset, or outside Pipeline, something like that.

Do you remember the most radical ride you’ve ever had or special any day?

Yeah! At Honolua one afternoon in 1967. There was a picture of Jock in the 

 that year, riding Waimea about 25-feet. A big, perfect, glassy wave. So that same day we were at Honolua, and it was 15-feet and just five of us out. It was a perfect tube from 15-feet all the way down to two-feet. Flawless! You could ride almost all the way to the boat ramp. And from behind the wave, in the lineup, you could see the guys riding, their entire bodies showing through the water, the waves were so thin. It wasn’t like a thick North Shore wave, it was more along the lines of Rincon, nice and thin. Except cylindrical! It was almost impossible to wipe out because the tube was throwing so far over your head that you never got wet. You were always in, like, a cylinder.

Yeah, I remember one where I came off the bottom—this is when we were all riding like 8'6" pintail guns—and I came off the bottom and went up to the roof, to where I went almost completely upside down, almost on the verge of being tossed out by the lip upside down. My board released at the last instant and I came back down. I had also seen people that day hit it off the bottom and the water was moving up the face so fast, going around in a cylinder so quickly, that guys would set their inside edges and before they could get to their outside edges they’d go up and over and out. They’d just get pitched. That evening I went home and looked through all my surfing magazines trying to find waves that were comparable, and I couldn't find anything. I even tried to dream better waves that night. I couldn’t!

When you’re daydreaming, or your conscious is drifting, do you ever ride waves in your mind?

Is there a recurring wave that you seem to ride every time?

That same day at Honolua. I have recurring dreams of that day.

How big a wave do you think can be surfed? Is there a limit?

Well, I won’t say a certain size, because it depends on swell conditions and wind, but I’ve seen an awful lot of days—even big Sunset, 15- to 18-feet—when those big sets all go by unridden. Nobody usually takes them, you know. You start feeling like a fly or something. Your mass compared to the mass of the wave is just so small that the wave would actually pitch over you before you could make it to the bottom. I don’t actually think riding the wave is such a problem. It’s just getting down past the lip.

What’s the motivation to ride really big waves?

I don’t know. Like, I’d rather surf a three- or four-foot perfect wave than a big, giant, bouncy wave. A six-foot wave, if it’s perfect, is great. But if you have a wave that’s much bigger and still just as perfect, it’s that much better. Like if you get into the 15- to 20-foot bracket and the waves are perfect, the whole thing’s magnified. You’re going that much faster. You’ve just got more water to work with.

What do you think surfing will be like in 1990?

How do you feel about contests and how they fit into surfing?

They’re good in the sense that you get a gathering of different ideas and equipment and everything. It all comes together, you know. But I have a feeling, too, that in contests there’s sort of a . . . restriction. You know what you have to do to win. It’s sort of a narrow trail, and if you can follow it you win. But you can’t really go too far off the trail.

You wipe out or something. A good example of a person who doesn’t restrict himself—who surfs the same in a contest as he would ordinarily—is Barry Kanaiaupuni. He just sorta goes for broke. Always. A lot of times he does the most radical maneuver of anyone and a lot of times he swims. Contests are really kind of a strategy. I’m just starting to learn it.

What kind of strategies have you picked up on?

Concentration is the key. You don’t let anything interfere with it. It’s almost more of a mental thing than actual physical thing, you know. In a contest like the Duke, everybody’s pretty evenly matched. So it comes down to discipline. You go out there and you know you’re being judged on three waves. You make sure you get those three waves and then you take it from there. Like Barry goes out there and he shoots down to the bottom and pulls a hard bottom turn and just shoots for the sky—maybe he’ll pull it off and maybe he won’t. He’s just trying to go to the outer limits on every wave. Winning is more of a compromising thing. You know exactly what you have to do and you do that and get it out of the way and then try to improve upon it.


How do you feel about the first Expression Session? [Note: the Expression Session events were designed as a surfing showcase; no winners or losers, just the best surfers gathering to ride at the same time.]

I was really stoked. We didn't really get the right kind of waves within the allotted time period. But as it ended up, the waves we finally did get and the actual surfing that came about was really spectacular. A full unleashing. Everybody got to cut loose; everyone was trying to push to the outer limits.

Well, I know when I’m surfing with a bunch of good surfers, each guy sorta prompts the others to try something a little bit more far out, to add a little something extra. That was the case in the Expression Session. There were so many good surfers involved that one person would pull something off and another person would try to surpass it. When it started out in the morning, it was a pretty good session as far as waves. Everybody was surfing pretty well—and then we went and had lunch and it all came to a climax that evening to where everybody was pushing each other to surf harder and further, trying more things. By dark it just unbelievable! It was rewarding, for sure. Barry and myself and Tiger Espere and Sammy Hawk were just jamming. It was some of the best surfing I’d had all year.

How would you describe what you try to do in the water?

It changes all the time, but at the moment what I’m trying for is a constant motion. Or rather, constant speed, and constantly changing direction. Just covering the most area on the wave as fast as possible. Acceleration! Accelerated turns and accelerating off the lip. A feeling of constantly setting an edge—a rhythm. It sort of depends on the wave, too. A place like Maalaea, where you’re really tight to the wave, you don’t really have time to get away from it or the thing will pass you up. You get a rhythm or a feel going and it’s like a song dancing through your head. And then there’s another kind of wave where there’s more of a slope. On that kind of a wave, I like to go way out in front of it and way up, then back, just swing a lot.

A lot! I can’t sing at all, but I can hum. I look at the surf and I’ll sort of get rhythm going and then I’ll try to apply what's in my head to the surf. Santana’s good for that.

Do you own a lot of material things! How do you feel about that?

I have a house in Biarritz, an A-frame in Aspen, a castle in Spain . . . no, I don’t have many material things at all. In fact, just about everything own can fit inside a suitcase.

Is that the way you like it, or the way it is?

Hard to say. I’ve owned four or five cars, six cars maybe, and they really upset me. I worry about ’em. Like sometimes I’d park my car and go surfing and I'd just be looking at my car all the time, hoping my racks were still there. So now I don’t have to worry about a house, a car. I can concentrate more on surfing.

I don’t know. I’d like to check the world out a few times first.

What are your goals now in surfing; what are you working for?

I’d like to be able to go any direction on a wave, at any time. Surfing is almost a way to fly. It’s one of the freest things I’ve ever come across. But what I’m working for is complete control, all the time. I sort of feel like I’m pretty close to that, but now I have to expand on what I want to do. I’d like to do a complete donut on a wave. I think someday it’s gonna be possible. Surfing’s come a long way over the past ten or twelve years.

To actually have an individual style takes a long time. You can take bits and pieces from different surfers and put them together, but to actually have what’s recognized as your own style, that takes a while.

What surfers have impressed you most; who have you drawn from?

In the earlier years, Paul Strauch was ahead of everybody by at least five years. I used to sit on the beach and watch him for hours. He had a certain looseness, a flowingness—very unique. Especially on such big equipment, like on ten-foot 30-pound boards. Paul was constantly accelerating, and he added a lot of body english, way out over his board. That’s what I’m sort of trying for now. I’ve learned quite a bit from Barry Kanaiaupuni, too. Barry showed me lowness, a low center of gravity to get the most punch or force out of a bottom turn.

From Jock I’ve learned about timing. His timing is so precise. Barry and Jock are almost opposites in that sense. Jock looks awkward at times, but his timing and preciseness make up for it and Barry’s timing can be off, but his power and control make up for it. It’s like you can reach a point through either one of their techniques where you go beyond—like Jock sometimes, just the way he walks on land is kinda weird, but he’s got it so down, so precise, and his timing’s so accurate that he pulls it off. If you combine Barry and Jock, then you just have the super surfer. That’s what I’m trying to learn. You could reduce it all down to four things: rhythm, power, timing and control. I think a prime example of that would be David Nuuhiwa. He’s precise. He’s got the rhythm. If you could combine Barry, Jock and David you’d just have the ultimate flash.

[Photo credits: Drew Kampion, Jeff Divine, Ron Stoner]

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