SURFERMAG.COM CURRENT ISSUE vol. 44 #3

1982 In November Hurricane Iwa roars over the Hawaiian Islands in the middle of the annual winter surf season, devastating portions of Oahu with 100+knot winds and high storm surges. The North Shore is especially hard hit, left without power and water for nine days. The scenes of disaster are shocking, trees and telephone poles toppled, roads flooded and the ever-dapper Shaun Tomson seen with a beard for the first time in his life (he should've listened to his visiting mother, who hoarded cases of Perrier from a nearby liquor store at the first sign of storm clouds.) Surfers, nothing if not adaptable, adjust quickly, lining up at Foodland when it opens its useless freezer section and distributes free Haagen Daz rather than let it melt, and descending en masse on the nearby Kuiliima Hotel to bath in its resort pool. Though Iwa does over $250,000,000 in damages to the Islands, there is only a single fatality, caused, ironically enough, when a huge wave slams into a Navy destroyer, the U.S.S. Goldsborough, while on its way out of Pearl Harbor to safety, hurling a sailor to the deck and breaking his neck.

1990 Pipeline ace and rising Billabong promo-star Ronnie Burns is found dead in the hills behind Velzyland, laying next to his motocross bike. The surf scene is stunned at the loss of this affable, talented goofyfoot, and rumors fly. An autopsy later reveals, however, that Burns in fact died from pulmonary condition complicated by asthma.

1997 Hired as a stunt double on the production of Sony's In God's Hands, North Shore legend-in-the-making Todd Chesser dons a skull-cap and doubles for writer/producer/actor Matt George in serious Off-the-Wall, one of Chesser's favorite breaks. During a big swell later in the production schedule, however, with the film crew moving to Jaws on Maui for its climatic final segment, Chesser opts to call in sick, choosing instead to paddle out to Alligator Rock, an offshore reef west of Waimea Bay. Surfing with only a few friends, including Cody Graham, the popular, fearless young hellman actually laughs when they are caught inside by a freakishly huge set, but then is held down for two waves, and loses consciousness. By the time his shaken friends reach his body, it is too late. Chesser's death sends shock waves through the tight-knit New School, as well as the broader surf world in general, not only because the loss of such a charismatic character, but at the realization that, unlike Mark Foo's death at Maverick's (in which it was ascertained that Foo was held down by a tangled leash) it's quite possible to be held down by a big wave long enough to drown.

1960-02 While its history seems dominated by the exploits of West Coast transplants, and are other regions of Oahu with larger populations of Hawaiian ancestry (Waianae, on the Westside has the greatest percentage) a number of notable Hawaiian surfers have followed in Kahikilani's footsteps, modern bird maidens notwithstanding. They include: Kealoha Kaio, Eddie Aikau, Clyde Aikau, Ben Aipa, Tiger Espere, Barry Kanaiaupuni, Tom Stone, Tom Padaca, Reno Abellira, Larry Bertlemann, Michael Ho, Dane Kealoha, Louie Ferriera, Buttons Kaluhiokalani, Max Mederios, Derek Ho, Johnny Boy Gomes, Sunny Garcia, Myles Padaca. Melia, Mikala and Daniel Jones and Mason Ho.

1961 Former Mainland hot-rodder and model-plane designer Dick Brewer opens the North Shore's first surf shop. Located in Haleiwa and given the somewhat grandiose name Surfboards Hawaii, Brewer's shaping room becomes an epicenter for big wave gun production, including the construction of the prototypical Buzzy Trent Model, eleven feet of pure trim.