Duke Visits Australia 1914-15
Duke Visits Australia 1914-1915 Oil on Canvas, 30x36” Purchase from Huntington Beach Surf Museum here
Duke visits Australia 1914–1915, oil on canvas, 30x36”
This painting illustrates a moment during the Duke's visit to Australia. On Thursday, December 24th, 1914, he pulled 15-year-old Isabell Letham (featured on the far left and on the wave with Duke) out of the crowd to tandem surf in front of crowds who had never seen someone standing up on a surfboard, let alone two people riding the same board. This was the most significant day in the history of Australian surfing.
Duke Kahanamoku was invited out by Olympic medalist swimmer Cecil Healy (featured second from the left), a noble Australian who refused to compete unless the olympic committee allowed the Duke to compete. He wanted to compete against the best.
Duke was originally disqualified because the American officials were misinformed about his 100-meter freestyle semifinal race time, even though there was talk that Duke would win at the Olympics since he smashed the world record for 100-yard freestyle in 1911 at the Honolulu Harbor AAU race. Cecil filed a complaint and wouldn’t race if Duke wasn’t racing. The officials revoked the disqualification, and the Duke went on to win gold in 1912 (and four more gold medals later), and Cecil got silver. They became good friends, and Cecil invited Duke to do a swimming demonstration in his home country. As soon as he got off the boat, he was greeted by large crowds. One of the journalists asked if he had a surfboard.
The Australians wanted to see Hawaiian surfboard riders. He didn’t have a surfboard, so he made one out of a slab of sugar pine while he was there. Crowds gathered to see how a Hawaiian surfboard was made. He didn’t know that he was creating a surfboard template for generations of Australians.
When Duke arrived at Freshwater Beach on Christmas Eve, 1914, crowds of people were waiting for him on the beach. He had to push his way through the crowd. The waves were big, and the sea was rough. As he paddled out, they thought he was in trouble. He paddled out the back, picked off a large wave before it even broke, and rode the open face of the wave from the north end of the beach to the south end. The Australians had not seen anyone surf diagonally on an open wave before. He was a showman. He did some tricks, and he even did a headstand on the board.
After surfing for an hour, he returned to the beach to do a tandem surfing demonstration. He asked for a volunteer and picked 15-year-old Isabel Letham out of the crowd. They paddled out together, he pulled her up, and they tandem surfed. People couldn’t believe their eyes. It was truly a historical day in Australia.
Isabell recalled being “scared out of my wits” as Kahanamoku dragged her onto the board: “It was like looking over a cliff.” but she was hooked. She convinced her reluctant father to make her a surfboard like the one she’d ridden with the duke. He made her a board out of a 75-pound timber slab.
-Sydney Morning Herald