Catch the Wave

The ancient Polynesian sport of riding oblong wooden boards over cresting waves has intrigued humans for thousands of years.

Today, from the reefs of Australia to the frigid waters of Alaska -- even in Lake Michigan -- wherever there are waves, there are surfers.

Although surfing may seem a perfect fit in the modern, media-drenched world of extreme sports, it has a surprisingly long documented history. In his 1866 book Roughing It, Twain writes, "I tried surf-bathing once, subsequently, but made a failure of it."

Jack London fared better -- in his 1916 short story The Kanaka Surf, he captures the joy of surfing:

... to ride the backs of the waves, rise out of the foam to stand full length in the air above, and with heels winged with the swiftness of horses to fly shoreward, was what made sport for them and brought them out from Honolulu to Waikiki.

Surfing as we know it today originated in Hawaii, most likely around the 1500s; however, 18th-century contact with Europeans almost eradicated the sport.

Ben Marcus, in The History of Surfing from Captain Cook to the Present, notes that Calvinist missionaries tried to prevent native Hawaiians from continuing this "immoral" practice and that the sport came close to extinction in the early 1900s, but was revived in part and spread worldwide by Olympic gold-medalist swimmer and so-called Father of Surfing Duke Kahanamoku in the 1920s.

Marcus, like many surf historians, also notes that the 1959 movie Gidget sparked the '60s surf-based beach culture.

Up through the 1990s, surfing grew slowly -- but today, surfing, and surfwear in particular, is a multimillion-dollar industry and a presence in the stock market, through companies such as California-based Quiksilver (ZQK - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and Australian-owned Billabong (BLLAF - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr).

Pipeline to Success

Modern surfing has both a men's and women's worldwide pro circuit, and these athletes make their living from cash prizes and, more significantly, corporate sponsorships.

Look at any photo of professional surfers on their boards, and you're bound to spot Quiksilver's red and white logo -- these sponsored surfers are paid by surfwear companies when their logos show up in photographs. Most of the major surfwear corporations also sponsor teams of surfers who have the tedious job of traveling the world to surf premier breaks.

Yet while surfboards and surfwear are most often manufactured on a mass scale, the small, independent surf shop maintains its deep-seated hold on the industry.

Most shops are owned by local surfers, and while those on the U.S. East Coast many not have as rich a history as those in California and Hawaii, they are still a fun place to hang out. Mark Keup's shop , Nor'easter, in Scituate, Mass., even has couches to lounge on while one peruses his collection of surf videos.

Tired of the commute from the suburbs to his job in Boston, Keup opened Nor'easter in 1990. He had ridden waves for a Rhode Island surf shop team for years, so it was a natural move.

But during the first five years, Keup's business struggled. "It's a wonder we ate," he says, "We did a tenth of the business then that I do now."

Keup explains that the success of his shop "followed the classic model they tell you in business school: five years until you're established in the community." Keup also credits the hurricane season of 1995, which brought with it an onslaught of unusually intense summer waves to costal New England.

Sunset Suzy, proprietor of her own surf school on Oahu, on Hawaii's famed North Shore, also speaks of the tenacity of the small surf shop. "You'd think the bigger chains would take over, but they don't. People want to go to the surf shops in Haleiwa [a small town on Oahu's North Shore]. Where's there's a surf shop, people want to go."