Club Waikiki – Peru
Although Peruvians have long held that they, not the Hawaiians, were the first to ride waves; there is little disagreement that Peru’s path to historical status (staging one of the original world championship events) began squarely in the Hawaiian Islands, specifically Waikiki, under the feet of a wealthy heir to a sugarcane fortune.
Enter: Peruvian Carlos Dogny, who fled the chilly South American winters to play polo in Hawaii’s verdant climate. Dogny, an avid sportsman and globetrotting socialite, spent the early 1940’s learning to surf with Duke Kahanamoku on giant wooden boards measuring some 15 to 18 feet and weighing 100 pounds. As World War II expanded, Dogny high-tailed it back to his home country, lugging one of his Hawaiian surfboards to ride in his home waters.
Choosing the waves just outside Lima at Miraflores as a suitable locale to further his surfing skills, Dogny rode swells daily to the delight of swimmers and sunbathers, some of whom began constructing their own boards. To provide a location for local (mostly wealthy) surfers to stash their boards between surfs, Dogny founded Club Waikiki in 1942 which began auspiciously enough as simply a storehouse for surfboards.
But with its beachfront real estate in the wealthy Lima suburb, Club Waikiki was poised to initially become the core of Peru’s surf culture and later its undisputed haughty-chic epicenter of exalted business and political dealings, even hosting meetings between the Peruvian president and foreign dignitaries. Complete with tennis courts, swimming pools, and “board boys” who waxed and retrieved stray surfboards, Dogny’s baby had grown into much more than a surfing social club.
The white-glove beachfront resort put on the Peru International Surfing Championships from 1956 until 1972 and more importantly, the 1965 event which doubled as the World Surfing Championships. According to then International Surfing Federation president, Eduardo Arena, this was the first “true” world title contest. He bases his claims on the fact the 1965 event was the first to fully sponsor travel and accommodation for surfers from around the globe, thus insuring a truly international line up. However, when the ISF took over as host and overseer of the event in 1973, the Peru International essentially lost its prestigious allure and faded out.
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