In 1964, Wetteland, Stander and Harry Bold built the first Safari surfboards in Durban. News came from overseas that South Africa’s champion was invited to the first World Surfing Championships at Manly Beach in Australia. But no such event had ever been held in South Africa. Deciding a champion was difficult, but Wetteland got the nod, becoming the first South African to compete overseas. Australian Midget Farrelly won the event.
Filmmaker Bruce Brown arrived in South Africa while filming Endless Summer. Metz had told him about Whitmore, and Brown got in touch. Whitmore showed them around and set them up with big game hunter Terence Bullen, who took them to Cape St Francis, where they scored classic two-foot surf they described as ‘the most perfect wave in the world’. The film was a hit. Soon, every surfer wanted to visit South Africa.
Whitmore brought out Brown’s movie Waterlogged. After selling out shows every day for nine weeks at the Labia Theatre in Cape Town, he took it to Port Elizabeth and East London. Harry Bold put it on in Durban, also to sell-out shows. It was an era that captured the quintessential surfing ethos: a soulful mixture of mythology, brotherhood and travel. After Hollywood’s Gidget movies and the first Beach Boys album – depicting a surfer riding Hawaii’s Sunset Beach – everybody wanted to surf.
The South African Surfriders Association was formed in 1965. Whitmore was chairman. Thomopolous, Van den Heuvel and Wetteland represented the country at the world champs in Peru. Harry Bold became editor of the first surfing magazine, South African Surfer, which appeared in 1965. The magazine folded three years later, but it played a critical role in documenting the early days of modern surfing. Some of the older guys, like Derick Jardine and Bold, are the proud owners of every issue – a valuable collection of memories.
The first official South African Surfing Championships were held in Durban in 1966. The event was moved from tiny Wedge to Ansteys, which promptly jacked to a solid 12 feet. A triple overhead wave, ridden by a guy who was free-surfing as a non-contestant, Neville Callenbourne, was immortalised in a photograph by John Thornton, published in South African Surfer.
The first official Springbok team was selected from this event, and competed in San Diego, California. Australian Nat Young won the world title. The team brought back the latest board designs, skills and fashions. They also brought back Van den Heuvel, found wandering around Huntington Beach in a drug haze. He became an instant folk hero as surfers ‘tuned in’ to rock and roll, ‘turned on’ to mind-altering substances and ‘dropped out’, mostly in Jeffreys Bay, in true 1960s style.
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