Duke Kahanamoku
1965, Waikiki
There are so many waves coming in all the time, you don’t have to worry about that. Just take your time—wave come.
“The Duke,” uncredited but likely written by John Severson, ran in the March 1965 issue of SURFER. This version has been slightly shortened and edited.
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Duke, you were surfing before the turn of the century. Can you tell us a little bit about your early days?
I remember I was about eight years old, I guess when I started surfing here at Waikiki Beach. That was a long time ago. We had nobody to teach us how to ride these waves or swim. We even had to learn ourselves—especially the sur...