"Dane was on the cutting edge of progression,
inventing the backside pig dog technique at Pipe. A truly gifted
tuberider."
A few days ago, obits started appearing for the great
Hawaiian surfer Dane Kealoha, who would’ve been the state’s first
world champ in 1983 if not for the bloodymindedness of the
then ASP.
While unsubstantiated rumours are our bread and butter, this one
was a little more serious, so I rang around his pals and found out
that Kealoha, while still alive, was desperately battling a
late-stage cancer.
Sadly, Dane Kealoha passed
away earlier today.
The shaper and former top competitor Maurice Cole as well as the
1977 world champ Shaun Tomson had written movingly of a pal they’d
known for half-a-century.
“Sitting in the airport on my way to France for a month,” wrote
Cole. “I just found out that brother Dane is not travelling very
well at the moment so putting it out there he needs lots of prayer
! Been working like crazy the last few weeks , that’s why I’ve been
a bit quiet all orders done will be back in five weeks from month
before I go to J Bay. The photo was taken of Dane and I in the 80s
at Burleigh , pretty wild day’s but we surfed even wilder.”
“When I first met Dane back in 1976, he immediately became one
of my favorite surfers – absolute raw power and foot to the floor
attitude. No close together ballerina feet softness, but a powerful
and beautiful classically pure Hawaiian style, charting back to the
great Eddie Aikau,” wrote Tomson.
“Dane was on the cutting edge of progression – inventing the
backside pig dog technique at Pipe and winning the Masters in 1983,
and carving up Backdoor and Sunset with creativity and
ferocity.
“He was a truly gifted tube-rider, attacking the spinning
tunnels with machismo, commitment and an attacking rhythm like a
Hawaiian warrior going into battle.
“At the dawn of pro surfing and the start of the twin fin era at
the Stubbies event in Australia, I watched Dane catch a wave at
high tide 2 foot Burleigh Heads. There was barely enough clearance
between his twin fins and the rocks as he leapt to his feet and
started to pump down the line – faster and faster like there was a
turbo beneath his feet – I had never seen anyone generate that type
of speed on such a small wave – in fact, on any wave.
“I had won the World Title a few months before on my single fin
and looked down at it – I knew it was instantly obsolete in small
waves.
Dane’s run-in with the ASP in ’83 ended a career spanning 1978
through 1982 where he finished, ninth, fourth, second, third and
sixth.
In 1983, y’see, the ASP removed their sanctioning of the three
Hawaiian events and banned ASP surfers from competing.
Dane said fuck it, won two of the three events, including the
Pipe Masters and the Duke at Sunset, and was subsequently fined a
thousand bucks, which he refused to pay.
Stripped of his tour points, Dane, then only twenty five, quit
pro surfing and all full-time competition.
