Mike Brock chats with Paul Strauch, Jr.

Mike Brocks: When did you start surfing?

Paul Strauch: My father started me surfing at Waikiki when I was four years old. He grew up two blocks off Kuhio Beach and spent most of his youth surfing and fishing along the coastline from Diamond Head to the Ala Wai Harbor. He knew all the surfing reefs in the area and all the Waikiki beach boys. It was a childhood fantasy for me… Being pushed into that first wave on his redwood plank, quietly skimming through the water and watching all the fish and beautiful coral reef pass by underneath the board was magical. I'll never forget my first wave at Baby Queens. It was so exciting I thought my heart would burst right through my chest... And it's been that way for me ever since then!

M.B.: What was it that got you into the water?

P.S.: As a child my lungs were underdeveloped and I had trouble breathing. My parents took me to the ocean to increase my physical strength and endurance. They felt the ocean activity would increase my appetite and build me up. I started out with a small paipo board in the shore break and slowly progressed to a surf mat, redwood plank, hollow board and finally at 12 years old I got a balsa board with a swallow tail.

My Dad contracted Tom Blake to shape two balsa boards in our garage, a 10'6" square-tail for himself and an 8'6" swallow-tail for me. Tom helped us pick out the balsa from the local lumberyard. He diagonally cut the first 3-1/2 feet of each separate length and then took the cut pieces and glued them to the top of each length to fashion the scoop or nose rocker. Then all the pieces were glued together lengthwise, the outline cut, the board shaped with a drawknife, planer, sandpaper, and then fiberglassed all by hand without the use of any power tools. And, he did everything in our own garage! Tom had even made a fin mold, which he used to make fiberglass fins. They looked like the vertical tail from a B-52 bomber. He added pigment to the resin so our fins were bright red.

I remember carefully watching him through each step of the entire process. He was quiet, reserved and very humble... Extremely meticulous and patient, and health conscious. I remember he only ate raw vegetables, fresh fruit, whole grain cereal and fresh fruit.

It took him three weeks to finish both surfboards. We took them to Waikiki and baptized them with a Hawaiian ritual before entering the ocean. My 8'6" Tom Blake balsa was so light and maneuverable by comparison to my 8' finless hollow board. Now I could really put my weight on each rail and reverse my direction with ease. It was like night and day. What a remarkable difference from the redwood and hollow boards I had been riding up to that point.

Who were your early influences and mentors?

My father, Tom Blake and George Downing were guiding lights in my surfing. Their knowledge of the ocean, currents, winds, wave intervals, reefs, bottom topography, hydrodynamics, surfboard design and fundamental elements in the sport were unparalleled to me. I learned so much from each one and thank them for their patience and many gifts to me. There were others at Waikiki whose style and talent I admired because they really stood out from the rest in the crowd. These surfers exuded so much confidence and poise, they were like super heroes to me… Richard Kauo, Blackie Makalena, Blackout, Squirlie Carvalho, Rabbit Kekai, George Downing, Dingo, Dickie-Boy Abbey, Maurice Ikeda, Alan Gomes, Conrad Canha, to mention just a few. They were my heroes in the surf and they commanded respect.

There was always a hierarchy and you quickly learned to respect your mentors and elders in surfing. In Hawaii, you learned from your elders… Those who had more experience, better equipment, respect, style, patience, humility, and dignity. It was personal. No team thing, just you and your mentors. There was etiquette and courtesy. It required great personal effort and commitment to progress. You learned about the sea, and its many different moods. You discovered how to flow in harmony with the movement. Personal pride and accomplishment were yours. You shared the experience with others. You became the mentor. This is surfing in Hawaii.

What built your interest in big wave riding and was there any particular day or event you remember as being particularly significant to you?

I started going to Makaha when I was about 14 years old. I entered the Makaha International Surfing Championships in 1958 and placed second and won the division the following year. In 1958 I got my first foam board, a 9'8" yellow Hobie pintail, through George Downing. It was this board that made the second major impact on my surfing. It was much lighter than my Blake balsa and extremely responsive. It paddled faster, turned on a dime and would scoot forward under sections of the wave when you shifted your body weight forward and back and from rail to rail. The Hobie worked great in surf up to about six feet. However, when the surf rose over six to eight feet, the width in the tail section caused the board to skip over the surface chop and you lost both speed and control.

At 15 my Dad and I went to meet with Bob Shepherd and Joe Daniels at the surfboard shop called Swim Boats in Kakaako, just south of downtown Honolulu. Bob was a fireman and master shaper, and Joe did all the glass work. Bob shaped a beautiful 10'4" balsa gun for me. I christened this board at Sunset Beach with George Downing. It was my first time there and George and I sat on the beach for over an hour as he showed me the lineup doe the west peak and the north point rides. He explained how all the water rushed straight in, over the reef to shore, and turned into a strong rip tide which ran parallel to the beach and then went back out the sandy channel. We timed the sets and wave intervals, watched people swim in for their boards and go right back out the channel riptide when they swam out of the incoming whitewater line. George really knew his stuff in big surf. He was the Man, the main Guru for big waves without any question!

Following our beachside observation, I paddled out with George and surfed all morning for over three hours without incident. I clearly remember the surf was in the 8 to 10 with occasional 12-foot sets rolling through, super clean with clear skies and a mild offshore blowing. My new Shepherd balsa gun was super fast and would come off the bottom with no drag and keep accelerating from the speed of drop and easily make the wave. It was exhilarating to go so fast. I watched everyone else and they all seemed to take off on an angle rather than drop straight down. Most of the time their take offs were so late that they would bounce down the face and couldn't hold the tail of their boards in the wave, loose control and spin out. If I timed it right, I could go drive my board almost straight down the face, shift my position and weight to the tail section of the board, bank hard off the bottom, take two steps forward with my weight on the inside rail, level the board while in a crouch and then rocket forward from all the follow through and speed. This take off sequence worked really well at Sunset. In fact, I found that I could get so much speed out of my board from a well-timed bottom turn that the board seemed to almost squirt out ahead. My Shepherd gun worked like a dream!

Later after lunch, Hobie Alter, who was out in the morning, offered me his 10'6" gun to try. I took it out and paddled into my first wave with all the confidence I gained in my morning run and just got clobbered. His board was longer, thicker and heavier and didn't turn like mine. I lost control right after I dropped in and was held down so long with no air left that I began to see stars. I thought it was all over. Somehow I managed to get back to the surface, and slowly worked my way to the beach. It was vivid wake up call for me, very humbling indeed. A wipeout I'll never forget.

After that first day at Sunset I used to day dream constantly about riding big surf using the same techniques and "hot-dogging" style as in smaller waves. But, I learned in order to do surf this way, you had to have the right equipment. Board design made all the difference in riding large surf. You needed experience and coordination, timing, good judgment, physical conditioning. But without the right equipment, a properly designed board, it was impossible. You were doomed!

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