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Goofyfooter from Cape Town, South Africa; three-time national champion and 1966 World Champions competitor; a national media favorite at a time when virtually no South African females had yet taken up the sport. "Margie's high profile," surf historian Miles Masterson wrote, "was absolutely responsible for many young girls taking up the sport at the time."

Smith grew up in the Cape Town harbor town of Kalk Bay, the youngest member of a sports-loving family. She briefly played tennis for her high school team, but stopped after she began surfing in 1964, age 14, at nearby Surfer's Corner in Muizenberg, along with her older brother. By the following year Smith was entering and doing well in regional competition, and in July 1966 she traveled to Durban to try her luck in the debut South African Surfing Championships—which she won. Two months later, just after turning 17, Smith flew to San Diego, California, with the the eight-person South African Springbok team (Marlene Webb, another pioneering SA female surfer, was also a member) for the 1966 World Surfing Championships. "I didn't do too well," she told a reporter after returning home. "I came fourth in one heat, fourth in the second, and third in the third." Smith finished 10th out of 15 contestants. 

She later recalled the cultural differences that were still so prevalent in the 1960s, saying that surfers from other nations thought the South Africans "lived among lions and elephants." Meanwhile, Smith and her teammates were amazed at their accommodations. "In San Diego we stayed in a motel, and there was a TV in the room. There was no TV at all here [South Africa], so I sat glued to all the shows. I couldn't leave it alone"

Although Smith failed to advance in the '66 championships, back in South Africa, both before and after the event, she was lauded as a teenaged sporting sensation. Small but strong (5'4" 125 lbs), with blond hair cut in a stylish bob, Smith was regularly featured in newspaper and magazine articles, and held up as a model at a time when surfers were still often thought of as either layabouts or rebrobates. The October issue of 

 closed its feature on Smith by saying, "Proof of Margaret's strength of character is that regardless of the surfing slang used by many fellow surfers, she goes on talking in normal language understandable to non-surfers."

Smith won two more national titles, in 1967 and 1968. Both of those years she was also selected as the best South African female surfer by 

After graduating high school, Smith worked part-time at the Whitmore Surfboard factory in Cape Town. John Whitmore not only coached Smith and provided her with boards, he helped raise money to get her to San Diego. 

At 16, Smith formed an all-female surf club, the Seals, in part so that young newcomers would not have to be dependant on older boys to get them to and from the surf. She also went on to write a weekly surfing column for a local paper. 

Smith spent several years living in Australia, moved back to South Africa, and later opened a dog kennel in the Southern Cape. She died in 2021, age 71. 

Smith, Margie

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos