The ISF and the 1965 World Surfing Championships
With memories of the 1964 Manly World Surfing Championships still fresh from the previous year, contest director and founder of the new International Surfing Federation (ISF), Eduardo Arena, was working to organize an event that garnered professionalism and prestige for the both the sport of surfing and for his home country of Peru. This would be the first event under the auspices of Arena’s ISF, with the lofty goal of herding the multitude of contest organizations and formats around the globe under the governance of standardized rules and judging criteria.
Set for February 20-21, 1965, the Peru World Surfing Championships would (according to both competitors and spectators) raise the bar for surfing as a sport and help legitimize it globally. A combination of focused media coverage, ISF oversight, and a truly international roster of surfers helped the Peru World Surfing Championships most closely resemble today’s professional surfing contests. Where and when modern professional surfing began, that’s open for debate, but the 1965 Peru contest was a huge swell in the ocean of surfing history.
Upon arrival, the 54 entrants decked out in blazers and ties and cocktail dresses were greeted with a lavish opening ceremony organized by Peru’s President. The contest included surfers from Peru, Hawaii, Australia, California, South Africa, Ecuador, and France; but the vast majority hailed from California. Another modern characteristic of the contest was the involvement of sponsors such as Catalina Swimwear which covered trip expenses for the Californians. Surfing was fast becoming a cultural phenomenon, and big business was hip to the jive. Local sponsors also saw opportunity in the spectacle and bank president and surfer Pancho Wiese and Carlos Dogni, one of Peru’s first surfers, both offered their support.
The contest included both men and women’s events with everything from hot-dogging to tandem surfing. But this wasn’t California or Australia where surfing was a well established cultural force. Surfing in Peru glowed with a distinctively different tone. Competitive surfing was nothing new to Peru, but most of its surfers were the scion of wealthy families with plenty of time to surf and enjoy life’s other pleasures. This was in deep contrast to the surfer-rat stereotype that permeated the media of the time. Years later, competitors related stories of being coaxed (albeit easily) by the Peruvians into late night drinking extravaganzas, bull fighting, dinners with the Peruvian upper crust, and even visits to high end brothels.
Club Waikiki, an exclusive Peruvian beach club complete with a swanky hotel bar and beach front amenities, hosted the surfers for social events. Fred Hemmings would later write about his experiences at the 1965 contest. He told of servants who waxed and carried competitors’ boards and of lavish accommodations. The Peruvians, wrote Hemmings, “were great hosts, and they really took the whole thing so seriously, we had no choice but to go along with it.” Contestants stayed in a hotel closer to town and were picked up and taken to the beach each morning or to parties where pitchers of pisco sours flowed.
The men’s event was held at Punta Rocas, a newly discovered reef break about 30 miles outside Lima which peeled off a desolate, rocky point. With a range of anywhere from 5 to 15 feet, Punta Rocas boasts both rights and lefts peaking about a quarter of a mile from the beach. The lumpy, shifty, gray waves the day of the contest posed a challenge for visiting surfers. Even though most had extensive big wave experience, the waves proved deceptively difficult and unpredictable, not obvious and aggressive like waves in Hawaii. But the surf, estimated anywhere from 6-12 feet for the contest, was powerful, so much so that several competitors were unable to make it past the shore break. The reef was covered in sharp barnacles, and some surfers reportedly sported tennis shoes out in the water. Regardless of the harsh conditions, surfers rose to the occasion and treated the 2,000 spectators who braved the cloudy skies and thick fog to some spectacular surfing.
When the contest commenced, the world’s best surfers assembled on the beach and, based on all accounts, ripped relentlessly. Imagine the stacked heats full of names that are today etched in surfing history. Buffalo Keaulana, Mickey Munoz, and Joey Cabell graced the long walls at Punta Rocas, but the 90 minute final of the men’s big wave event featured 17 year old Nat Young, Fred Hemmings, Paul Strauch, George Downing, 1964 World Champion Midget Farrelly, Mike Doyle, and Peruvian Felipe Pomar.
At the final horn, Felipe Pomar, fresh from an 18 month stay in Hawaii, became Latin America’s first surfing world champion with his unorthodox yet functional style. Described as an aristocratic and debonair gentleman, Pomar’s local knowledge made him a favorite heading into the contest, but not all surfers agreed with the judge’s decision. Midget Farrelly was quoted as saying, “Felipe did a better job at riding the way the judges wanted.”
In the women’s event, Capistrano’s own Joyce Hoffman shredded to the final and the win, but her day in the sun was all but ignored by the surf media. She, along with fellow Californians Nancy Nelson and Candy Calhoun ruled the final held at Mira Flores, Peru. In other events, California won the relay paddle race. Nat Young took the four-mile paddle event, while Felipe Pomar added another win with a first in the 2,000 meter paddle race. Finally, Mike Doyle and Linda Merril were tops at the tandem event.
The bi-annual World Surfing Championships were now under the gaze of an officiating organization that presided over an elite (and global) group of surfers, highlighting the diversity of surfing’s athleticism. Midget Farrelly’s win at Manly in 1964 required sharp turns and speed runs in the playful surf, while Peru saw big wave knowledge prevail. Although some saw the 1965 contest as nothing more than an unpredictable moment in time subject to the conditions of the day (as opposed to a more thorough test of a surfer’s mettle like today’s year long professional tour), the framework was firmly in place. And competitive surfing history was altered forever.
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