All quotes below are taken from "Pulling Seaward: Tommy Zahn," by Malcolm Gault-Williams and Gary Lynch, published in the Spring 2000 issue of Surfer's Journal. Some of Zahn's quotes were recorded during interviews, others culled from letters he wrote to Gault-Williams and Lynch, others come Zahn's own magazine articles. Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity. Zahn died in 1991, at age 67.


My earliest recollections are of sand and sea. I was startled to find that other kids’ houses weren’t on the sand. I taught myself to swim by the time I was seven. By the time I was eight and they’d built the harbor at Santa Monica, I’d already learned surfing. I used to swim out in the boating lanes and I’d yell at the boats going by until I found a guy who picked me up and took me sailing. By the time I was nine, I could sail by myself. My bathing suit didn’t get dry from the end of spring till the end of fall.


I bought my first boat, an 11' sloop, at 16. I delivered newspapers to buy it. I later sold that to buy a 22' sloop, which I kept until I went into the Navy during World War II. I have been on boats ever since.


I first saw him in 1946, at Malibu. We met in 1949 when he was a starter at a paddleboard race in Santa Monica, which I subsequently won. At Waikiki in 1951, Tom and I would occasionally and informally race sprints. He was long retired by then. I’m glad I never competed against him! We lived together for a time on his 40' sloop in Ala Wai Yacht Harbor, Honolulu. We surfed every day either at Waikiki or Makaha. I always thought he had the ideal paddling style and I imitated it as closely as possible.

The Blake lifestyle is quite another matter. That is a very idealistic, pure regimen and—he will admit—not for everyone. In many ways I have lived according to many of his precepts—I wish more of them. One aspect of his lifestyle, as he put it to me, was to “lower your overhead,” thereby giving yourself more time and more freedom—and freedom is a big part of what Blake was all about. His life was not cluttered up with all the garbage of the basic 9-to-5 trap. I’ve always envied him this. Although my lifestyle always has also been rather simple and uncluttered, it’s not easy!


My own career was merely in the shadow of Blake and Pete Peterson, who had the most profound influence on my young life. Pete was the most accomplished and versatile waterman—not of his generation, but of this century, or since these things are recorded. The only person of his caliber for all-around talent is Rabbit Kekai. Pete had finesse and talent of such enormous proportions that one needed years of experience, and some talent as well, to fully appreciate it. Anyway, it was my privilege to humbly follow him around as an aspiring neophyte. What I finally became was an amalgam of such diverse styles as Pete, Tom, George Downing, and Rabbit.


The war screwed us all up. Things were going really great guns [in surfing] at that time, and the tradition, the continuity, was broken. It took a long time for everything to get going again after the war.


When I first went over there in 1947, after the war, [a lot of] local surfers were still riding hollow boards. The guy who was really good was Scooter Boy Kaopuiki. This guy was good! And he surfed a board very much like Blake’s board. Scooter Boy could do things on that board! Joe Quigg, Matt Kivlin, Dave Rochlen and I used to just watch in amazement at the things he could do. He could take this 14-foot board, and change direction on that thing, from going hard right to hard left. Just ripping with this board, you know? He could do it. No fin, too.


It took 5 or 6 years before I was accepted in Hawaii. I was around so long, I want from “Coast haole,” to sort of a 

 [local born] haole. Before that, I was more or less forced into this same box that Blake was. In those days, you were pretty much over there by yourself. There weren’t too many guys who’d give you much time. I didn’t get much time from George Downing, Wally Froiseth, or any of those guys. Rabbit Kekai, on the other hand, was very friendly. Very outgoing guy, with a lot of class and imagination. But there was a bad bunch of guys down there at Waikiki. You know, when a 

 [foreigner] finds himself in the Islands, first it’s the big handshake and the “Good-time Charlie.” Then once they’re aware that you’re gonna hang around, you go through a whole new phase.

There were three guys who went over there and took a stand. Blake, Gene Smith, and myself. And they put all three of us through it. Smith took some terrible beatings. They really pounded him. Blake escaped it. I got in one pounding, out at Waikiki, but I survived it. If I’d run away, I would have had to leave the Islands. But I was young and foolish enough to stand there and take it. After that, I didn’t have any trouble. Life in the jungle, I guess.

So anyway, when it finally happened, when I was accepted over there, I said to myself, "Was it really worth it?"


The water is where I like to be. I understand all the forces. I know what I can do and what I can't do. Swimming, surfing, paddling, sailing, and a bit of rowing and outrigger canoeing—that was my thing. Everything else in life didn’t interest me much.

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