Surf historian on the death of a Hawaiian who "knew
all the secrets."
On Monday, the great Hawaiian surfer,
shaper, pioneer of board design and big-wave surfing,
George Downing, died at home in East Oahu. Read his obit
here.
I knew a little about George. He was the contest director for
The Eddie. Could handle a planer and had the surfboard biz
Downing Hawaii. Was one of the first guys
to push ’emselves in big Hawaiian waves. One kid won the Eddie,
another made it to the finals of the Pipe Masters.
For a little perspective, I got Matt Warshaw, surf historian,
met Downing a few times, onto the keys.
BeachGrit: Son of a bitch, that fifties big-wave era is
almost gone. George Downing. Yeah, he was old, but he’s taking a
piece of the sport with him. Pioneered some of the heavier spots on
the North Shore, was heavily into surfboard designand so on,
yes?
Warshaw: If you ask Billy Kemper and Shane Dorian who their main
big-wave surfing influence was, then ask THOSE guys who their main
influence was, and so on and so on, at the end of the line you end
up with Buzzy Trent and George Downing. They started big-wave
surfing, along with Wally Froiseth. And Buzzy absolutely bowed down
to George. George was the master. He was the first to go all-in.
Downing put a fin on the hot curl board and invented the big-wave
gun. He was the first surfer of note to geek out on weather maps
and swell forecasting. He invented the pin-drop bailout. And he had
a beautiful, smooth, high-line style. Downing was quiet, smart,
ambitious, creative, and kindly, but in a powerful mafioso-don way.
He had a lot of juice.
Born and raised in Hawaii?
Yes. I’m not sure what happened when he was a kid, but I believe
George was pretty much raised by his uncle, Wally Froiseth.
If you ask Billy Kemper and Shane Dorian who their main big-wave
surfing influence was, then ask THOSE guys who their main influence
was, and so on and so on, at the end of the line you end up with
Buzzy Trent and George Downing. They started big-wave surfing,
along with Wally Froiseth. And Buzzy absolutely bowed down to
George. George was the master.
Y’ever get to talk to him?
A few times. He was great friends with Steve and Debbee Pezman,
and when I lived in San Clemente I’d drop by their house often, and
when Downing was in California he’d stay in the guest room. I was
nervous around him, but he was always friendly. Watchful guy, kind
of reserved, dry sense of humor. We faxed back and forth a couple
times when I was doing Encyclopedia of
Surfing. He’d never done a profile piece in a
surf magazine. There was no information out there about him, or
very little. It took some convincing from Pezman to get him to play
along with EOS, and he make me sign a agreement that the biographic
information he gave me would only be used in that book. But once we
got that out of the way, he was right into it. Answered all the
questions, came through in a big way.
How did he end up being called The Guru?
Downing just knew more about surfing than anybody, or surfing in
Hawaii at least, and if you knew how to approach him he was really
open about sharing his knowledge.
Tell me about his relationship with Waimea Bay. Pioneer,
first. And, later, Eddie contest director.
No, I don’t think George liked surfing Waimea. Or rather, he
didn’t like it near as much as Makaha, which was his heart and
soul. Downing was a finesse surfer, he was slender and kind of
slippery with his line. Waimea was better suited for Greg Noll;
big, thick, grunty guys. Waimea, you want to be a sledgehammer.
Makaha, at size, you want to be an arrow, like George. For the Quik
contest, though, Waimea was the right call. Waimea was Eddie’s
wave, and it breaks more often, and the spectating is better there
than Makaha. George wasn’t all that stoked to surf it, but he knew
Waimea was what Quik needed for the event.
You can even credit him with the removable fin.
True?
True. The other bit was, he had these templates from the 1950s
that were magic, and when Barton Lynch won the world title he was
riding a board George made him, from those same templates.
He asked Nat Young not to include him in his History of
Surfing. What happened there? Was he a salty bastard?
In the early editions of Nat’s “History of Surfing,” Nat had
this brief Afterward saying that Downing asked to be left out of
the book. Nat complied — which is like doing a book on NBA
centers and leaving out Bill Russell. Was Downing a salty bastard?
He had a temper, and didn’t suffer fools. I’m guessing in his
younger days he was a scrapper, and a good one, but none of that as
far as I know carried into adulthood. George had an almost visible
aura of power, though. When Vince Collier died,
people were calling him the Godfather. But George was
the godfather. Wise, helpful, generous; a guy who’d seen it all,
done it all, knew all the secrets, could get things done. There
isn’t a replacement for George Downing.
George Downing, 1930 –
2018 from ENCYCLOPEDIA of
SURFING on Vimeo.
