Kimo McVay, Buzzy Trent, Buffalo Keaulana, Fred Hemmings - taken on the beach next to The Makaha International Surfing championships official stage.
ClassificationsPhotographs
Object numberP.7025
DescriptionFrom: Fred Hemmings >Date: March 14, 2018 at 3:17:46 PM HST
Subject: 53 years Have to show this to you again....mid sixties.....remember the Madras shirt fad? that is when the picture was taken. It was taken on the beach next to The Makaha International Surfing championships official stage. The Makaha contest was the de facto world championships and attracted surfers from Peru, Australia even France and of course greats like Mike Doyle , Corky Carroll and Linda Benson competed representing California. The Velarde brothers from Peru, and even pioneer surfers from Japan. The Makaha contest was a carnival of competition. with senior men, women and junior men events in addition it featured tandem surfing. For a couple of years they even had body surfing competition. The magic of the waves of Makaha is that you could compete one day in 4-6 foot fun waves and the next day it could be 20 feet when it would be prudent to be very careful on which wave you decided to stroke into . Once in a 20 plus wave off the point you were either bound for glory or a brutal wipe out and long swim. This was when international surfing was in it's infancy. The late great Midget Farrelly of Australia won Makaha..
The gentleman with the long pants and flash Gordon sunglasses is Kimo McVay. He was the promoter extraordinaire who "discovered" Don Ho in a lounge bar in Kaneohe named "Honeys". Kimo brought Don Ho to Dukes in Waikiki and the rest is history. Kimo was a great man. He put together the Duke surf team. The next rock of a man is Buzzy Trent. Buzzy was born a century to late. He should have been in the Rocky Mountains in the 1860s wrestling bears and taming the wild. He was a mountain man that fearlessly rode very big waves. Please notice that Buzzy is wearing construction boots. The handsome Hawaiian gentleman is the esteemed Buffalo Keaulana. Buffalo owned Makaha and is revered to this day as a Makaha Alii. He is my dear friend as is his beautiful Portuguese wife Momi. Had to throw that in....... the Portuguese part.
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Mid-1950s