David Nuuhiwa

David Nuuhiwa is a Hawaiian-born surfer who is famous for both his smooth style and incred­i­ble noserid­ing abil­i­ties. A com­pet­i­tive surfer, Nuuhiwa was regarded as the finest surfer of the ‘60s and who eas­ily made the tran­si­tion to short­boards in the ‘70s. We caught up with David to talk about surf­ing, style, and Hendrix.

What was it like grow­ing up in the islands?
Back in that time, it was unreal. There were no big hotels and Waikiki used to be a place of just tiny cot­tages up and down Kuhio Avenue. There was a hand­ful of us in the water back then. Surf­ing wasn’t very pop­u­lar among us kids at the time, but we always looked up to the Waikiki Beach Boys. They were all really good surfers. Sadly, a lot of them are gone now.

Do you remem­ber the first time you were stand­ing on a board?
Oh, yeah! It wasn’t really a surf­board; it was actu­ally a skim­board. We used to do it right there at the wall in front of Waikiki over there by Queens. I would do the paipo board thing right after school. I would go down there and catch waves along the wall and ride in on my belly. Then we started to stand up on those things until we moved on to surf­boards. My first surf­board was a balsa board. Man, it was so heavy we had to drag it down to the water.

What brought you to the main­land?
My fam­ily moved to North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, not too far from San Fran­cisco. After liv­ing in Hawaii for nearly 12 years of my life, here I was, an inno­cent lit­tle kid wear­ing shorts, an aloha shirt, and a lei in the dead of win­ter! (Laughs) Later, I wanted to go surf­ing and I didn’t even own a wet­suit. I couldn’t believe the dif­fer­ence in the water. It was shock­ing! I was in the water for about four or five waves and I was done.

You lived in the South Bay?
Even­tu­ally, I ended up liv­ing in Her­mosa Beach. I used to hang out with Don­ald Takayama, Dewey Weber, Grant Reynolds, and Iggy. They were all super­stars back then. I even­tu­ally got used to the cold water, and even the girls with their bee­hive hair­dos and tons of make up. (Laughs)

Tell us about the famous David Nuuhiwa Noserider board.
I remem­ber Don­ald in Hawaii when I was grow­ing up. He was the hot kid back then. Back in Her­mosa, Don­ald had men­tioned to Bing Copeland that we should make a noserider board for my style of rid­ing. We tested a lot of boards and we finally hit on this design. It’s funny, just about every long­board made today car­ries a sim­i­lar plan shape, con­cave and rocker as my orig­i­nal Noserider.

You are known to have had noserides up to 10 sec­onds or more at a time. What’s your secret?
Back then, the waves were so small there was noth­ing else to do but ride the nose. Every con­test I was in, the waves were at the biggest… maybe shoul­der high. Noserid­ing was sim­ply the way to win. The boards were becom­ing lighter because they were made of foam and so you could move the board around bet­ter. But there was really no secret to it at all. I would just get out there and do it. I just lucked out and hap­pened to be the guy.

Tell us about the con­tro­versy between you and Nat Young in ’66.
That inci­dent was really blown up by the surf media. They kind of made a war out of it. They were say­ing things like, “The US is tak­ing on the Aussies!” Then the Aussies got kinda cocky and were say­ing this and that. I didn’t say an f-ing word. All I wanted to do was surf.

You tran­si­tioned eas­ily to the short­board?
When I was a boy, I grew up rid­ing short­boards with Keone Down­ing (son of George Down­ing). He had a board that was 5’6.” So we were already rid­ing these lit­tle boards made out of balsa. We grew up with this stuff so it was really no prob­lem. I left the long­board and eas­ily tran­si­tioned to short­boards. In some ways it was like being a kid again.

And then there was the inci­dent at the San Diego con­test in 1972…
The San Diego boys were upset with me because I was rid­ing a fish design. They wanted to claim that design. But the truth is that I was shap­ing and rid­ing my own fish designs with Dyno over in Hunt­ing­ton. If you go back to the muse­ums, you can see there was always a twin fin board, so no one really owned that design.

I wasn’t pay­ing atten­tion to my car at the time and some­one took off with my board. But what they didn’t know was that I had three or four of them in my hotel room. They made their state­ment, but it didn’t slow us up in the con­test. Jimmy Blears and I broke out our lit­tle fish boards, and we rode the small waves like we were on skate­boards. We blew past every­one while they were look­ing the other way.

You were known as quite the rock star. Tell us a lit­tle about that time period.
That was around the Draft, Viet­nam, and the Move­ment. Most guys, like Corky Car­roll, were lis­ten­ing to The Beach Boys and, in con­trast, I was lis­ten­ing to Bob Dylan. We all let out hair down.

I did a movie with Jimi Hen­drix in Maui called Rain­bow Bridge. I was just stoked to be at the right place at the right time. It was fan­tas­tic. Hen­drix was a big deal back then. He was play­ing the music while I was surf­ing. It was unreal. Hen­drix was a rad­i­cal dresser and wore a lot of weird stuff. I guess I ended up buy­ing clothes that were weird too.

How impor­tant is style to you?
A lot. It’s called “flow”. You’ve got to get into a good rhythm and once you get there you can pretty much ride the wave any way you want. It depends on the wave. If you are feel­ing good on the first two waves, you sim­ply relax and every­thing will turn out well. It’s really simple.

How do you feel about the resur­gence in long­board­ing?
Takayama and I tried to pull it back in, and we gave it a big push dur­ing a period when nobody wanted to ride a long­board. It was good for every­one as we got a lot of older guys off the couch. A lot of the old guys got back into it because it was eas­ier to pad­dle the longer boards. On one hand, you have the long­board­ers and, on the other, you have the short­board­ers (like Kelly, etc). Unfor­tu­nately, today all the atten­tion comes from the com­pa­nies and pro­mot­ers that run the con­tests and they could care less about longboarders.

What is your all-time favorite surf spot?
It would have to be Tavarua. I really love that wave. It’s just a nice, long left.

What’s your favorite meal?
I still love the Hawai­ian plate lunches. (Laughs) It would have a lit­tle bit of fish or teriyaki steak with a scoop of rice and salad. It was pretty much our sta­ple over there.

What kind of music do you lis­ten to?
I still lis­ten to the old stuff—Led Zep­pelin, The Stones and Hen­drix. Those are really my favorites. I’m still a rocker.

What is the great­est thing you’ve learned in your life?
To catch myself before I hit the wall. (Laughs) I’m the kind of guy who likes to run to the extreme. For me, it’s about learn­ing how to go there and then pull out.

What board are you rid­ing these days?
Right now, I am on a 10’ noserider. Because of work, it’s really hard for me to get in the water and, when I do, I want to be able to pad­dle and catch waves. They’re just so much eas­ier to ride.

What’s next for David Nuuhiwa?
We’re redo­ing the com­pany and bring­ing in a new excit­ing fish shape with my orig­i­nal art, shaped by Al Dove. Together with my friends we’re work­ing on a new line of cloth­ing. And we’ll keep mak­ing the noserid­ers too.

For more infor­ma­tion about David Nuuhiwa and his surf­boards click here. 1960’s-era pho­tographs pro­vided by Steve Wilk­ings. 1970’s-era pho­tos by Jeff Divine. All images are under copy­right and may not be used with­out per­mis­sion.