Featured images: Honolulu Star Advertiser + Clarence Maki
Next to Duke Kahanamoku, no name is as synonymous with the Waikiki Beach Boy mystique as Albert “Rabbit” Kekai. Born in 1920, Rabbit earned the moniker for his small stature paired with unconstrained energy and athleticism. He began surfing as a keiki at “Publics” near his Diamond Head home before graduating to more challenging waves at Castles and Queens. Under the tutelage of Duke Kahanamoku and his five brothers, Tom Blake, and other members of the Hui Nalu, Kekai developed into one of the most prolific surfers of a prolific time.
This magical era really begin in pre-war 1930s. Sure, the Great Depression was running rampant across the contiguous United States and even in the annexed islands, but it was not felt with the same ferocity in Waikiki. The mainland’s top 1% stayed rich, and arrived by steamship to eat, drink, frolic, and play in the waves that fronted the area’s two hotels; the Moana Surfrider and the Royal Hawaiian. The Waikiki Beach Boys lay in wait, ready to share their knowledge of the sea for a fee and flirtations (sometimes more) from fair-skinned socialites.
Entering his early teenage years, Kekai exhibited an advanced understanding of outrigger canoe paddling and surfing. He was also a conduit of aloha, completing a package that made him popular with the south shore’s endless assembly line of vacationers. He worked the hotels’ beachfront concessions, ushered tourists out on canoes, and pushed them upon planks into waves for their very first time. And for 25-cents he rented out his personal boards to those who were confident enough to ride on their own. Rabbit also became a lifeguard, a skill which got him drafted into the U.S. elite special forces’ Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) unit after the December 7, 1941, bombing of Pearl Harbor. Upon his post WWII return to Hawaii, Rabbit carried the Waikiki Beach Boy legacy into the mid-to-late 20th century. More importantly, he served as the keeper of the Kahanamoku spirit after Duke’s passing in 1968. In his own rearward years, Kekai would become the preeminent oral historian of Hawaiian surfing until the final Hā left his body on May 13, 2016. There was nary a moment in his 95 years that didn’t leave a mark. And while there’s no overstating his dominion over surfing in the Hawaiian Islands, this article intends to explore where Kekai potentially exerted his greatest influence – the burgeoning 1950s SoCal surf scene in Malibu.
Overview of How Hawaiian Rabbit Kekai Reshaped Surfing in Malibu
Rabbit’s Revolution
Rabbit Kekai progressed as a surfer alongside the most important developments in surfboard building of the early-to-mid 1900s. He witnessed the transition of koa slabs to John Kelly’s redwood hot curl, and as a board builder himself, Kekai carved his very first redwood board with a vee-bottom and semi-pointed nose which spearheaded a change in the way Hawaiians surfed. Instead of heading straight in a stoic pose, Rabbit and the Waikiki Beach boys linked turns, rode the nose, and birthed the hotdogging style of wave riding. A surfing revolution was underway, and at the same time an unforeseen link in the evolutionary chain of was en route to Kekai’s southern shores of Oahu.
Four Malibu Surfers Hop a Ship to Honolulu
In 1947, four pioneering Malibu surfers hopped a Matson line ship from California to the Port of Honolulu. Upon the prodding of Tommy Zahn (who arrived first), pals Joe Quigg, Matt Kivlin, and Dave Rochlan followed and brought with them surfboards that were different from what Hawaiians were riding. Their innovative craft were constructed by lightweight balsa and incorporated fins which also made their first appearance during this time thanks to Southern California compatriot and aircraft engineer, Bob Simmons.
Given that Kekai held court as the reigning king of Waikiki at this time, he was Quigg, Kivlin, Rochlan, and Zahn’s concierge to the island’s south shore breaks. Curious about the craft they brought with them, Rabbit along with a select group of fellow Hawaiians embarked upon a series of test drives. With balsa and fins underfoot, Waikiki’s beach boys were able to evolve hotcurl maneuvers into more dynamic stunts. Kekai’s mastery of wave riding was the most unprecedented, and of the Malibu troupe, Joe Quigg in particular recognized that he was witnessing something special. Moreover, he understood that there were lessons to return home with on the S.S. Lurline back to California.
The Quigg Journal
“This chance meeting in Waikiki, led to the birth of modern surf style. Quigg and company took Rabbit’s aggression and open faced mobility back to Malibu and San Onofre, where young surfers like Miki Dora and Phil Edwards learned to blend California point-style with the whip-turns and nose-riding of Kekai. Rabbit’s influence was now being felt in the cool waters of the West Coast’s point breaks.” (Surfer’s Journal Biographies : Rabbit Kekai)
The Malibu crew’s observations of Rabbit Kekai weren’t cursory. A scientific method was employed, one that was calculated, deliberate, and documented by pencil on paper by Joe Quigg.
Between his own sessions, Quigg would monitor Kekai at Queens and beyond from the shore, taking detailed notes and sketching images of Rabbit as he did things on both his finless redwood and their finned balsa boards that no one deemed possible. Rabbit wasn’t just hotdogging, he relished in the big summer swells that brought the deep-water break, Kuna’s, to life. With juxtaposing grace he freight-trained his way through barrel after barrel while perched at the frontend of a 7-foot craft. The Encyclopedia of Surfing reports that California wetsuit innovator Bev Morgan, claimed Manhattan Beach board builder Dale Velzy as the inventor of noseriding in 1951, but both oral history and Quigg’s sketches show that Rabbit was riding the nose and hanging-five consistently before the terms became ubiquitous in the culture.
Despite being enabled to surf the way his mind, body, and soul always wanted to upon balsa, the outspoken Kekai did have his criticisms:
“Rabbit was asked if the Hawaiians quit using the Hot Curls in favor of the Simmons boards. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘We still used our own boards, but we tried those potato chip boards, and. my opinion was, they were mushers. Yeah. That’s what the Simmons were. They had concaves or were wide and flat in the back, with big bellies and kick in the nose. We tried ‘em, but they were mushers, good for doing slow turns and maneuvers. But no speed.” (Rabbit Kekai Talking Story” in The Surfer’s Journal, Volume 3 NO. 4)
Going Back to Cali
The Malibu surf safari to Waikiki retreated in 1948 in time to impart their new knowledge to the upcoming lot in LA County from 1949 into the early 1950s. Quigg and co. shared the sketches and notes of Kekai’s antics and combined them with advancements in board design. They (namely Quigg and Kivlin) took Kekai’s feedback to heart and began playing with sleeker and more pulled-in variations that incorporated elements of the hotcurl. Oral histories suggest that this all occurred while Hawaiian’s Wally Froiseth, George Downing and Russ Takaki (also hotcurl innovators) had made their first appearance in Southern California, indicating that it was not by Kekai’s influence alone that reshaped Quigg and Kivlin (and Simmons) balsa. In either case, the end result was clear. Quigg’s sketches of Rabbit Kekai coupled with Hawaiian hotcurl persuasion forever changed how local surfers and shapers approached the saltwater playgrounds of Malibu and surrounding surf communities.
“What Simmons, Quigg, and Kivlin began in the 1940s was taken to the next level by the likes of Greg Noll, Dale Velzy, Hap Jacobs, Hobie Alter, and Dewey Weber. It was these surfers/shapers who combined with test pilots like Mickey Dora, Lance Carson, and Tom Morey to take the Hawai’ian concept of hotdogging and make it something California grown.” (Surfing USA, Ben Marcus)
A Brief Summary
Admittedly, there were a wide number of innovators in the mix when surfing was ping ponging between Oahu and SoCal in the late 1940s and through the 1950s. And while facts, narrative, and folklore have blurred together with the psychedelic 60s and succeeding passage of time, one name has held true through it all. Those who remain on the fence about whether or not Waikiki’s feisty Beach Boy is indeed the proverbial Godfather to Malibu are encouraged to inspect the collage below. It features a side by side comparison between predecessor Rabbit Kekai (left) and Malibu’s very own Miki Dora (right).
Enough said?
