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Aloha kãkou to Nancy Nelson “Thossa”
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Ihr neues Zuhause ist in Österreich, wo sie neben Christiane noch 2 Hundefreunde hat: eine Bouvierhündin und eine Picard-Oma. Den Flug hat “Thessa” auf jeden Fall bestens bewältigt.
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Nancy Nelson
Baby-faced goofyfoot surfer from San Clemente, California; winner of the Makaha International in 1962, 1963, and 1965, and runner-up in the 1965 World Surfing Championships.
Nelson was born (1947) and raised in San Clemente, and got her first surfboard at age 12. Three years later, while living in Honolulu for eight months with her family, she placed third in the Makaha contest; the following year, at age 16, she won at Makaha and placed second in the West Coast Championships; in 1963 she again won Makaha and finished third in the West Coast Championships. "I don't get nervous in competition, and I strive for perfection," she said after winning Makaha for the second time. "I am a moody surfer, though. When I'm happy I surf well, and when I'm unhappy, not too well."
Small, compact, and quick-footed, with excellent wave sense, Nelson was nonetheless overshadowed throughout the mid-'60s by two-time world champion and media darling Joyce Hoffman, who lived just a few miles to the north. After a slow year in 1964, Nelson returned the next year for a final victory at Makaha, then finished runner-up to Hoffman in both the United States Surfing Championships and the World Championships. Nelson placed 3rd in both the 1964 and 1965 SURFER Poll Awards, and in 1966 she was 3rd in the International Surfing Hall of Fame Awards, behind Hoffman and Joey Hamasaki.
In 1964, when SURFER asked, "Why do you like to compete in a man's sport?" Nelson showed a flash of proto-feminist indignation. "If girls like athletics like I do, I see no reason why they should have to just sit on the beach and look pretty. Besides, who said it was just a man's sport? I don't like all of the restrictions that men seem to think are necessary for women."
Nelson later ran a photography business in Hawaii. She also lived in Montana and Ireland. In 2013, she died of breast cancer.
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Aloha kãkou to Lynne Boyer “Mali”
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“Mali” ist bei Andrea in ihrem neuen Zuhause und bleibt ganz in der Nähe. Sie darf dann Andrea auf dem Pferd begleiten, irgendwann wenn sie gross ist :-)
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Lynne Boyer
Quiet but hypercompetitive surfer from Haleiwa, Hawaii; world champion in 1978 and 1979; a cool hand in the big Hawaiian surf, but lauded for her aggressive and tight-cornering approach in smaller waves. "You could say she was a more radical surfer than I was," rival and four-time world champion Margo Oberg of Hawaii recalled. "She was pretty, she had wild red hair, she painted her boards up . . . she sure looked radical."
Boyer was born (1956) in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the daughter of an army oncologist, raised in Maryland, and was 11 in 1968 when she moved with her family to Hawaii, where she began surfing. She placed third in the 1973 state championships, won in 1975, and turned pro the following year, just out of high school, flying to California to win the Hang Ten Pro Championships at Malibu, earning $1,500.
Boyer's rating slipped over the next three years, from fourth to fifth to eighth. In 1984 she won the World Cup at Haleiwa, but had otherwise all but vanished from the surf scene, revealing years later that she was addicted to cocaine and alcohol, and that her reticence as a pro had been determined in large part because she'd been a closeted lesbian. "It was lonely at the top," she told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1997. "You have all these secrets, and you can't let everyone know who you are because they might get an edge on you."
Boyer worked as a stock clerk in a Honolulu surf shop after quitting the pro tour; in 1985 she moved back to her parents' house while she got sober; through the '90s she worked as a housecleaner and did tropical-landscape oil paintings for the tourist- supported Haleiwa Art Gallery. She continued to surf, but as she said in 1997, "It took 13 years of being sober to make it fun again." A successful full-time artist, Boyer's paintings are now sold in galleries throughout Hawaii and through her personal website.
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Aloha kãkou to Jeff Hakman “Zorro”
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Zorro lebt neu im Kanton Schwyz und wird alleiniger Hundekönig sein neben diversen Katzenprinzessinnen. Er hat es verdient!
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Jeff Hakman
Smiling power surfer from Oahu, Hawaii; the sport's most successful pro during the early and mid-'70s, and cofounder of Quiksilver USA. Hakman was born (1948) in Redondo Beach, in southwest Los Angeles County, the son of an aeronautical engineer, and raised in nearby Palos Verdes. His early years in the sport were marked by a dazzling combination of talent and good fortune: his surfing father bought him a beautiful new 7' 11" balsa Velzy-Jacobs board when he was eight, taught him how to ride, and later insisted that Jeff cut school to join him for day trips up and down the coast.
In 1960, when Hakman was 12, the family moved to Oahu; he was soon getting free boards from master shaper Dick Brewer, and the following year, at age 13, he rode Waimea Bay for the first time and had a movie-stealing cameo in the John Severson surf movie Angry Sea. During his high school years, Hakman had Peter Cole for algebra and Fred Van Dyke for science, both were pioneering big-wave surfers on the North Shore and remained lineup fixtures at Sunset Beach and Waimea.
Hakman was the youngest (17) and smallest (5' 4", 125 pounds) invitee to the inaugural Duke Kahanamoku Invitational in 1965, held at Sunset; he won the event going away, beating veterans like Mike Doyle, Paul Strauch, Fred Hemmings, and Mickey Dora.
Over the next four years Hakman had no big contest wins, but his surfing continued to progress all through the late-'60s shortboard revolution, and by 1970 he'd developed the ultimate form-follows-function riding style: feet cemented to the deck of his board, knees open, weight low and shifted back slightly onto an overdeveloped rear thigh (he was nicknamed "Surf Muscle"), back and shoulders slightly hunched, chin tucked down toward his left shoulder. Hakman's outstretched hands waved a bit as he rode, and a smile often played over his features; few surfers have ever looked so joyous in the water.
Hakman had by that time developed a drug problem. He'd traveled to Australia with three ounces of cocaine glassed inside the hollowed-out fin of his contest board, with the idea that he'd barter coke for heroin once he arrived, heroin at the time being far less expensive in Australia than America. Hakman was in fact loaded when he won the 1976 Bells event. Nevertheless, he recognized a business opportunity in the form of a new, well-fitting Australian-made brand of trunks called Quiksilver, and before the contest was over he had secured the Quiksilver USA manufacturing license.
Hakman made a small fortune with Quiksilver, sold company shares to buy drugs, lost his money and the company license, and was reduced to working as a surf shop clerk. He was high during the birth of his son in 1982, and not long afterward contracted hepatitis from sharing a needle with another surfer. Quiksilver, surprisingly, gave him another chance as a founding partner in their new French-based European office in 1984, but Hakman was demoted to special projects manager after using company money to buy drugs. In 1990 he spent six weeks in a high-end rehab clinic outside of London, and as of 2012 remained drug-free. Long-term drug use seemed to have little or no effect on Hakman's health and fitness, and in his 50s and 60s he remained one of the most dynamic surfers of his age group.
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Aloha kãkou to Rell Sunn “Inoki”
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Aloha kãkou to Alec Cook “Ace Cool”
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Alec Cooke “Ace Cool”
Showboating big-wave surfer from Hawaii, also known as "Ace Cool"; best remembered for his heavily promoted venture into the big surf at Oahu's Kaena Point in 1984, and at Outside Pipeline the following year. "He told me he wanted to be known as the Evil Knievel of surfing," photographer Warren Bolster said of Cooke. "My admonishments to tone it down fell on deaf ears."
Cooke was born (1956) in Boston, Massachusetts, raised in Kauai and Oahu, started surfing at age six, and was a competitive bodysurfer from the mid-'70s forward. He earned a reputation in the early '80s as a raw but gutsy Waimea Bay surfer, and was interviewed, along with big-wave stalwarts Ken Bradshaw, James Jones, and Peter Cole, in Surfer magazine's 1983 feature "Whatever Happened to Big-Wave Riding?"”an article that helped bring giant surf back in fashion. Cooke had already shattered the taciturn big-wave-rider archetype with his self-awarded "Ace Cool" title, and the brawny blond regularfooter (6-foot, 190 pounds; able to bench 350 pounds) further estranged himself from his peers by saying "I don't want to be a member of the big-wave club, I want to be chairman of the board."
On January 5, 1985, Cooke was dropped by helicopter into the lineup at Outside Pipeline—one of the first surfers to take on what are known as Oahu's "outer reefs"—and rode three waves, including what Cooke later described as a 35-footer (other estimates put it at 25 feet). Video footage of Cooke's Outside Pipeline wave was shown on Hawaii's CBS-TV affiliate, and a photograph of the ride was made into one of Hawaii's best-selling postcards, titled "The Biggest Wave." "Ace Cool refuses to go away," he said in 1991. "I'm a legend and I'll continue to be a legend." But five years later his fame was such that Australia's Surfing Life magazine published a short article titled "Anyone Remember Ace Cool?"
On October 27, 2015, Cooke, 59, vanished while surfing Waimea Bay; his body was never recovered.
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Aloha kãkou to Duke Kahanamoku
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Duke Kahanamoku “the Duke”
The long-celebrated father of modern surfing, from Honolulu, Hawaii; an Olympic gold medal swimmer and Hawaii's beloved ambassador to the world through much of the first half of the 20th century. Kahanamoku was a skilled wave-rider, but his real gift to surfing was the way he presented the sport as something that could be practiced with grace, humor, and generosity. "You know," he said in 1965, "there are so many waves coming in all the time, you don't have to worry about that. Take your time—wave come. Let the other guys go; catch another one." The sport's greatest shortcoming may be that surfers have for the most part failed to live up to the Kahanamoku ideal.
Kahanamoku was born (1890) and raised in Honolulu, a full-blooded Hawaiian, and the first-born son of a delivery clerk. Five male siblings followed; all were first-rate surfers, swimmers, and paddlers. Surfing, along with other native Hawaiian forms of recreation, had all but vanished at the time of Kahanamoku's birth, partly because the indigenous population had been decimated by a century's worth of Western-borne disease, and partly due to the work-not-play influence of homesteading Calvinist missionaries. By the time Kahanamoku was in school, however, agricultural and tourist interests had replaced the missionaries in setting the political and cultural tone in Hawaii, and surfing began to flourish in Waikiki. It soon became the romantic symbol of America's newest vacation destination.
Kahanamoku, a high school dropout, was a natural at virtually all water-related activities”bodysurfing, board-surfing, diving, sailing, and outrigger canoe paddling€”but he first came to prominence as a short-distance swimmer. In the summer of 1911, at age 20, he broke the American 50-yard record by more than a second, and beat the 100-yard world record by more than four seconds. In the 1912 Olympics, held in Stockholm, Sweden, the 6'1" 190-pound
Duke used the already-famous "Kahanamoku Kick" to set another world record on his way to a gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle; he also won a silver medal in the 200-meter freestyle relay. In the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium (World War I forced the cancellation of the 1916 Games), Kahanamoku won gold medals in both the 100-meter freestyle and the 400-meter freestyle relay; in the 1924 Olympics in Paris, the 34-year-old won a silver medal in the 100-meter freestyle. He was called the "human fish" and the "Bronzed Duke," and at age 42 Kahanamoku swam sprints as fast as when he was 21. In 1925, he made what the Honolulu Star-Bulletin described as a "superhuman rescue act," pulling eight fishermen out of heavy seas at Newport Beach, California.
Kahanamoku was by then the world's best-known surfer. In 1910, when virtually all Waikiki surfers were riding near the beach on six- or seven-foot boards, he'd made himself a smooth-riding 10-footer that he could take further offshore to pick up bigger, longer waves. He rode for the most part in an elegant, straight-backed stance, but played to onlookers at times by standing on his head as he approached the beach.
In 1912, while returning from the Olympics, he brought surfing to the American East Coast, with exhibitions in New Jersey's Atlantic City; in late 1914 and early 1915, Kahanamoku introduced the Hawaiian form of surfing to Australia and New Zealand with demonstrations that attracted thousands; from 1915 to the early '30s, he helped popularize surfing in Southern California. It was Kahanamoku who inspired Wisconsin-born swimmer Tom Blake to move to California and learn how to surf; Blake later had a profound effect on the sport, inventing the surfboard fin, the hollow board, and surf photography.
Kahanamoku was celebrated for decades as a swimming and surfing hero (one female admirer described him as "the most magnificent human male God ever put on the earth"), and socialized with Charlie Chaplin, John Wayne, Babe Ruth, and other sports and entertainment giants. In 1957, Kahanamoku appeared on the popular NBC show This is Your Life.
Kahanamoku died of a heart attack in 1968 at age 77. He was married, but had no children.
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Aloha kãkou to Kelly Slater
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Kelly Slater
Supernaturally talented pro surfer from Cocoa Beach, Florida; a record-breaking eleven-time world champion (1992, 1994–98, 2005-2006, 2008, 2010-2011 ) who reinvented virtually every aspect of high-performance surfing. "His competitive statistics numb the brain," world champion Shaun Tomson said of Slater, "and yet his most significant contributions have come from outside the competitive arena. No sportsman in the world anywhere has for so many years been so far ahead of his peers."
Slater was born (1972) and raised in Cocoa Beach, the son of a bait-and-tackle shop owner father, and began surfing at age five. By 11 he was an unstoppable amateur competitor, and in 1984 he won the first of four consecutive United States Surfing Championships titles, two in the menehune division and two in the boys' division. At 14, mentored by aerialist pioneer and surfboard manufacturer Matt Kechele, Slater won not only the boys' division of the Eastern Surfing Festival at Florida's Canaveral Pier, but the pro division as wellâ”turning down the money to keep his amateur status.
Turning pro at 18, Slater won the $100,000 Body Glove Surf Bout contest at Trestles in 1990, and signed a six-figure contract with beachwear giant Quiksilver. "Believe the hype," surf journalist Ben Marcus wrote. "He is a certified phenomenon." Slatermania, as it was soon being called, was helped by the fact that the brown-haired, green-eyed Floridian was incredibly handsome. Surfer magazine compared him to a young Elvis Presley. Surf journalist Derek Rielly, playing on the newcomer's deification”but as astounded by his talent as anyone”wrote that seeing Slater surf for the first time was "like being led by the infant Jesus to the promised land."
His stance and balance were similar to those of three-time world champion Tom Curren of California. Slater would never match Curren for fluidity, but his legs had more spring, his body was more limber, his approach was more innovative, and he had matchless coordination and reflexes. Wiry but strong (5'9", 160 pounds), Slater could adjust his line from virtually anywhere on the wave; he was faster than any of his peers going into maneuvers, and the angle of his turns was more acute.
At 20, he was pro surfing's youngest-ever world champion. Meanwhile, his moves were being studied and dissected by tens of thousands of young surfers around the world, as he starred in Momentum (1992), Taylor Steele's debut video, as well as Kelly Slater in Black and White (1992), the first sponsor-funded video biography.
Just weeks after winning the championship, Slater announced that he had taken a supporting role on Baywatch, the banal but hugely successful lifeguard drama TV show starring the buxom Pamela Anderson. Slater left the show a little over a year later, having appeared in 10 episodes as Malibu High School surfer Jimmy Slade; he would be romantically linked to Anderson for the next seven years.
Slater briefly retired from full-time competition at the end of the 1998 season, having just won his sixth world championship, along with the 1995 and 1998 Triple Crown titles. Along with world tour friend Rob Machado and La Jolla surfer Peter King, Slater formed a band called the Surfers, with Slater playing guitar and singing lead. Their 1998 release Songs from the Pipe, produced by Grammy winner T-Bone Burnett, was released to indifferent reviews and low sales. Slater also revealed in 1998 that two years earlier he'd fathered a child out of wedlock.
The titles continued to pile up€”his 11th title in 2011 came at age 39—and he added a sixth Pipeline Masters trophy in 2008. Every possible pro surfing record, including most wins and most prize money, were now his. In 2012 Slater narrowly missed adding a 12th world title, losing a nail biter in the last event of the year to Joel Parkinson of Australia. 2013 was a repeat, with Mick Fanning this time winning the title, again at the last contest of the season—the Pipeline Masters—relegating Slater to runner-up, though Slater ultimately won the event, his seventh Pipe Masters win.
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Aloha kãkou to Jeannie Chesser
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Jeannie Chesser
Der weisse Schopf fällt auf, wenn man den Surfern in der Ala Moana Bowl, einem Surfspot Östlich von Waikiki Beach, zuschaut. Während braungebrannte Teenager und muskulöse Mid-Ager damit beschäftigt sind, auf ihrem Brett eine gute Figur abzugeben, schnappt sich eine zierliche Dame mit weisser Kurzhaarfrisur immer wieder die besten Wellen. Sie surft sehr gut und - für ihr Alter ungewöhnlich - immer noch mit einem kurzen Board.
Als Jeannie Chesser kurz nach 8 Uhr aus dem Wasser kommt, reicht es ihr - die besten Wellen surft sie schon zwei Stunden früher. Die 62-Jährige gehört zu den Ãltesten surfenden Frauen auf Hawaii und gewinnt noch mühelos Wettbewerbe. Doch für Jeannie ist Surfen nicht nur ein Sport, es hält sie am Leben. Wenn sie ihre Geschichte erzählt, beginnt man zu verstehen, warum.
Die Insel Oahu ist das Surfer-Mekka, selbst für die wellenverwöhnten Hawaiianer. An keine Küste prallen so grosse und aufregende Wellen wie an den North Shore, kein anderer Strand bietet so gute Möglichkeiten in den Sport einzusteigen wie Waikiki Beach. Doch auf der Jagd nach der perfekten Welle ist es voll geworden, das merkt auch Jeannie. Sie surft seit 20 Jahren in der Bowl und kann sich an Zeiten erinnern, in denen sie die Wellen für sich allein hatte. Dennoch denkt sie nicht ans Aufhören. "Ich möchte am liebsten auf meinem Brett sterben", sagt sie.
"Surfen machte mich süchtig"
Wenn Jeannie surft, sieht sie nur kristallklares Wasser, den Felsen Diamond Head und die umliegenden Sandstrände. Die nicht wirklich schöne Skyline Honolulus steht etwas versetzt. Ein ähnlicher Blick muss sich Duke Kahanamoku Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts geboten haben. Er gilt als der Begründer des modernen Wellenreitens und surfte ebenfalls in der Brandung vor Honolulu. Nachdem der Sport 1823 von den Missionaren als unsittlich verpönt und verboten wurde, entdeckte Kahanamoku das Surfen erneut. Heute steht seine in Bronze gegossene Figur mit hawaiianischen Blumenketten geschmückt am Waikiki Beach.
Den absoluten Surfboom erlebte Hawaii in den fünfziger Jahren. Knapp zehn Jahre später erreichte die Trendsportart das amerikanische Festland - und Jeannie war sofort Feuer und Flamme. Damals wohnte sie noch in Miami und begann mit 14 Jahren gemeinsam mit einer Freundin zu surfen - ursprünglich nur, um die schönen Surferjungs zu beeindrucken, erzählt sie und grinst. Doch ihre erste Liebe wurde nicht ein surfender Teenager, sondern das Meer.
"Das Wasser ist mein Element. Ich merkte schnell, dass Surfen für mich nicht nur ein Sport war, sondern mich süchtig machte", erklärt Jeannie. Nach dem Tod ihres Mannes zog die 22-Jährige daher mit ihrem kleinen Sohn Todd nach Hawaii, wo Leben und Surfen eins ist.
Hier auf dem polynesischen Insel-Archipel trifft man sich nach Feierabend in den Wellen, man plauscht über den Tag, die Pläne, das Leben. In den Morgenstunden werden einschlägige Internetseiten durchforstet, auf der Suche nach den besten Brechern in der Umgebung. Erlebt man einen Einheimischen ausnahmsweise hektisch, kann man sicher sein, dass es in der Nähe gute Wellen gibt. Es scheint, als würde sich der Alltag auf Hawaii nach dem Wellengang richten.
Tödlicher Ritt am North Shore
Nicht wenige Hawaiianer haben ihre Leidenschaft zum Beruf gemacht. Als professioneller Surfer lässt sich inzwischen Geld verdienen, und so manch einer wird von klein auf darauf getrimmt, Profi zu werden.
Bei Jeannies Sohn Todd war das anders. Seine Mutter sitzt in ihrem etwas spärlich beleuchteten Wohnzimmer, als sie von ihm erzählt. Die Wände sind tapeziert mit selbstgemalten Bildern, die Gemälde zeigen nur ein Motiv: perfekte Wellen. Von ihrer Kunst lebt Jeannie heute, auch Surfbretter bemalt sie. Die Regale sind voll mit Trophäen und vielen Fotos. Sie porträtieren die Surferin und ihren Sohn.
Todd surfte mit seiner Mutter schon als Kind, favorisierte dann aber eine Karriere als BMX-Fahrer. Später kehrte er zurück auf das Surfboard und wurde einer der besten Big-Wave-Surfer Hawaiis. Die grossen Wellen, sogenannte Big Waves, findet man nur am North Shore von Oahu. In den Wintermonaten preschen hier bis zu zwölf Meter hohe Brecher an Land.
Um den Ritt ihres Lebens zu erleben, lassen sich die wagemutigen Profis hier von Jetskis in die Fluten ziehen. Dann gibt es kein Zurück mehr - Naturgewalt und Mensch treffen aufeinander. Am kilometerlangen Sandstrand Sunset Beach wird jedes Jahr im November das Triple-Crown-Surfevent ausgetragen. Wenn die Wellen am höchsten sind, treten hier nur die Besten der Besten an, Todd war einer von ihnen. "Ich habe mich immer mit kleineren Wellen zufrieden gegeben, aber Todd war fasziniert von den Wellen am North Shore", sagt Jeannie. "Und er ist 1997 beim Surfen am North Shore gestorben", fügt sie hinzu.
Angekommen im eigenen Leben
Der Tod ihres einzigen Sohnes zeichnet Jeannie, dennoch stürzt sie sich jeden Morgen erneut in die Fluten. Es ist ihre Art, mit der Trauer umzugehen. Nirgendwo fühlt sich Jeannie mehr mit Todd verbunden als beim Surfen. Als sie selbst schwer an Krebs erkrankte, paddelte sie nur wenige Tage nach der lebensrettenden Operation wieder in der Ala Moana Bowl. "Ich konnte zwar noch nicht surfen, aber allein auf meinem Brett im Wasser sein zu können hat mich kuriert", sagt Jeannie.
Nur wenige Monate nachdem sie die Chemotherapie überstanden hatte, nahm Jeannie wieder erfolgreich an Wettbewerben teil. Ihren ersten hatte sie bereits 1965 in Florida gewonnen, 1992 wurde sie US-Champion.
Dass Surfen für Kraft und die Lebensqualität sorgt, bezweifelt auf Hawaii niemand. Kaum ein Auto passiert ohne ein oder mehrere Bretter auf dem Dach, selbst die Fahrräder haben auf Hawaii eine Vorrichtung eigens um Surfboards zu transportieren. Auf der Strasse grüsst man sich mit dem Hang-Loose-Zeichen, und die Szenerie ist generell entspannt. Wer auf Hawaii wohnt, scheint angekommen zu sein, angekommen auf einem wahrhaft schönen Fleck der Erde und angekommen im eigenen Leben.
So auch Jeannie. Obwohl das Schicksal sie manchmal hart beutelte, strahlt sie Zufriedenheit aus. Nur wenn das Wetter schlecht ist und sie nicht auf Wellen hoffen kann, wird Jeannie nach eigener Aussage unausstehlich. Das Surfen ist ihr Tor zum Glück.
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