surfresearch.com.au   surfing images : 1788 to 1870

John Webber  : First drawing of a surfboard, circa 1778. Detail from ... "A View of KaraKakooa, in Owyhee."  Cropped from Finney and Houston (1996) Page 12 First image of surf board.

Cropped from Finney and Houston (1996) Page 12
Various resized and/or cropped versions are also printed in

Finney and Houston (1966) Plate 1.	Lueras (1984) Pages 44 - 45 and 47
Margan and Finney (1971) Pages 20 - 21.	Kampion (1997) Page 32.
Nat's History (1983) Page 33.	DelaVega (ed, 2004) Page 15.

Charles Gold: Madrassan men surfing,1800 (detail). Colour aquatint on paper Australian National Maritime Museum. Collection Purchased with USA Bicentennial Gift funds

To the left, it shows one man riding a three-log catamaran shore ward on a considerable  wave.
He rides upright, with his feet parallel, and holding a paddle, while at the illustration's centre, two men are seen on a similar craft in the second line of breakers.
A masula, also known as masoola or masulah, a local surf boat with a crew of six, is heading through the outside breakers, transporting freight for the ships of the East India Company, awaiting off-shore at the Madras Roads.

At the turn of the 20th century, the catamaran surfing technique was replicated with the development of stand-up paddleboards (SUPs).

For a detailed analysis see Source Documents:
1800 Charles Gold : Catamaran Surfing, Madras.

Jacques Arago or Alphonse Pellion ? :  "The Houses of Kraimokou, circa 1819." Finney and Houston (1996) Page 37..  First image of an Olo board.

A wonderfully detailed  ilustration of Hawaiian dwellings, with the chief in ceremonial dress and his wife beating tapa cloth. Like all the other early images, she is bare breasted.
The large Olo board takes a central position in the drawing and presumably a similar culutural position.

The buildings closely resemble a house initally drawn by John Webber in 1779 titled "An Offering before Capt Cook in the Sandwich Ilses".
An engraving, based on the drawing by S. Middleman and J. Hall,  was included in Cook's published journals in 1884.
Beaglehole (1974) Plate 41, between pages 672 and 673.

'' The artwork from Freycinet's circumnavigation on the Uranie includes original drawings taken 'd'aprés nature' by Arago, Taunay and Pellion on the voyage.''
http://www.liswa.wa.gov.au/freycinet/pages/campperon.html

"The collection of drawings which Captain Freycinet has brought home from his voyage round the world . . . affords the strongest proof of the unwearied zeal and remarkable intelligence of M. Arago, the draftsman to the expedition" - from the introduction to Arago ?  by Forbes.
(p. xxvi). Borba de Moraes I, p. 44. Brunet I, 372. Ferguson 885. Forbes I, 562. NMMC I, 154. Sabin 1865. BT000064.

Items featured in the Freycinet Collection
http://www.liswa.wa.gov.au/freycinet/pages/items.html

Vice-admiral Alphonse Odet-Pellion
http://www.netmarine.net/tradi/celebres/odetpellion/index.htm
French, available in translation by google.com

First printed in
Freycinet, L : Voyage autour du mode ... 1817 - 1820.  (Voyage around the world ... 1817 - 1820.)
Chez Pillet aine, Paris.  1825,
Volume 2, Part 2, Book 4, Chapter XXVII, Pages 517 to 622 (?).
Dela Vega (ed, 2004) page 20.

Also
Arago, J : Narrative of a Voyage round the World, in the Uranie and Physicienne Corvettes,
Commanded by Captain Freycinet, During the Years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820.
Treuttel and Wurtz, Treuttel, Jun. and Richter. London. 1823.
. . . With Twenty-Six Engravings . . . . :
Folding frontispiece map and twenty-five lithographed plates after Arago.

Also
Arago, J : Recollections of a Blind Man
Cited by Finney and Houston (1996) Page 38.

For an early copy of the image (credited Alphonse Pellion), see
http://www.hawaii.edu/lruby/hon291/hon291.htm

Scanned from Finney and Houston (1996) Page 37.
Various resized and/or cropped versions are also printed in

Finney and Houston (1966) Plate 12.	Finney and Houston (1996) Page 37.
Margan and Finney (1971) Page 19	Dela Vega (ed, 2004) page 20.
Nat's History (1983) Page 33 (badly cropped)	Lueras (1984) Page 35. Colourised, see below.

Kampion : Stoked (1997) Page 31 :  "Kraimoku Homestead" by Villroy. Bishop Museum.

Jacques Arago or Alphonse Pellion ? :  "The Houses of Kraimokou, circa 1819." Lueras (1984) Page 35. Colourised version from the  Mr. and Mrs. Severson Collection.  First image of an Olo board.  The sheen on the left hand side is a scanner imperfection.

Jacques Arago  :  "Wahine, Hawaii, circa 1819." Finney and Houston (1996) Page 38.   Decorative, rather than informative.

The fascination with the naked female breast can be, perhaps, assessed by a desciption of a young aboriginal woman by Watkin Tench, a British Army officer posted to the initial occupation of Australia at Sydney Cove in 1788 ...                        "She excelled in beauty all their females I ever saw.

Scanned from Finney and Houston (1996) Page 38.
Various resized and/or cropped versions are also printed in
Finney and Houston (1966) Page 43, Figure 5.
Margan and Finney (1971) Page 19.

Rev. Isaac Taylor : Surf Swimmers   (Sandwich Islands)  Illustration from  Taylor, Rev. Isaac: The Ship.   John Harris, London, 1830.

The Ship was one of The Little Library series, written for juvenlie readers, comprising "eighteen small volumes uniformly printed, a familiar
Introduction to various branches of useful knowledge."
It was published in a number of editions in the 1830s, and subsequently reprinted several times before 1854.
In the text, the father, Mr. Nauticus (addressed as "Papa"), has an extended conversation about the origin and history of ships with his young
sons; Charles, Richard, and William.

As well as the surf riding content, there is discussion of the canoes of the Marquesa and Society, and Friendly Islands, accompanied with an
engraving of a double canoe, probably etched by Taylor, and based on an earlier work.
The inclusion of this material probably indicates that  it was sourced from one, or several, of the many works detailing Pacific exploration by
British mariners, most notably James Cook.

The illustration Surf-Swimming (dated August 1830) is highly unusual in that the perspective is from the water, with the curl of the wave in profile
and the shoreline in the background, somewhat reminiscent of Hokusai's  famous woodblock print, Under the wave off Kanagawa  c.1830.
Importantly, the board is placed on the wave face, unlike many subsequent illustrations that show the rider on the back of the wave.
It precedes, by the slightest of margins, the widely reproduced Sandwich Island Surf-riders, attributed to F. Howard and first published in Rev.
William Ellis' Polynesian Researches in 1831, see below.

For the full relevant extracts, see Source Documents:
1830 Issac Taylor : Surf Riding in Hawaii. 

F. Howard : "Sandwich Island Surf-riders, circa 1830." Finney and Houston (1996) Frontpiece. The first reported Western image of surf-riding, it correctly identifies stance.

The "Sandwich Islands" was the name originally given to the Hawaiian Islands by Cook for a friend and patron, John Montague, the fourth Earl of Sandwich (as in the "invention" of a piece of meat between two slices of bread). Montague was the the current first Lord of the Admiralty.The description was used up to the late19th century.

Scanned from Finney and Houston (1996) Frontpiece.
Various resized and/or cropped versions are also printed in
Finney and Houston (1966) Frontpiece. A particually poor reproduction, unlike the other images in this book.
George (1990) Page 21.
Dela Vega (ed, 2004) Pages 18 -19.

Francis Olmsted  :  "Sandwich Islanders Playing in the Surf,  circa 1841."  .Lueras (1984) Page 39. First image by the same writer and artist.

Scanned from Lueras (1984) Page 39.
Various resized and/or cropped versions are also printed in
Nat's History (1983) Page 33
Dela Vega (ed, 2004) page 24.

Anonymous, in  Cheever (1851): Hawaiian Sport of Surf Playing, circa 1851.    DelaVega (ed, 2004) page 14. First Magazine article with surfing and art.

There are two standing 'riders' further from the beach, both with their hands held directly above their heads.
There is one similarly positioned rider in the same stance in
F. Howard's  "Sandwich Island Surf-riders, circa 1830."

Possibly "WROBBER??" (drawing/ woodblock/etching?)
"First Magazine article with surfing and art." - Dela Vega (ed, 2004) page 14.

First printing ...
Cheever, Rev. Henry T. : Life in the Sandwich Islands, or the Heart of the Pacific, as it was and as it is.
A.S. Barnes and Co. NY,
Richard Bentley, London, 1851
H.W.Derby, Cincinnati. 1851. Pages 66 to 69.

Image and surf-riding text was reprinted (concurrently, as a promotion for the book?) in ...
Cheever, Rev. Henry T. : "The Sandwich Islands Today"
The International Monthly Magazine of Literature, Science and Art.
Volume IV, Number III, October 1851, pages 298 - 299.
Stringer and Townsend, New York,
"This publication was short lived and was merged into Harper's Monthly in 1852."
abebooks.com
Scanned image from
DelaVega(ed, 2004) page 14.
Various resized and/or cropped versions are also printed in
Finney (1959) Plate 1, between pages 330 - .331.
Hawaiian surfing scene, from Cheever 1851:68.
The artist although ditinctly portraying the prone, kneeling and standing positions, has incorrectly pictured the surfers riding behind the wave.
A surfer always slides on the forward slope of the wave.
Finney and Houston (1966) Plate 9.
Finney and Houston (1996) Page 26.
George (1990) Page 23
Carroll (ed.1991) Page 16..

Anonymous :  Surf swimming at Hawaii,  Sandwich Islands, circa 1866. DelaVega (ed, 2004)  Page 5.

First printed in
"Surf swimming at Hawaii, Sandwich Islands."
Leslie's Illustrated Weely,
New York Arkell Weekly Co.
7 April 1866. Page 37.
Includes a reprint of the previously published account by Rev. William Ellis, 1830.

Scanned image from
DelaVega (ed, 2004)  Page 5.

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