"Interview: Owl Chapman," by Drew Kampion, ran in the October 1971 issue of SURFER Magazine. Chapman was 21. This version has been slightly edited and shortened.

What's it like riding big waves in the Islands?

It’s a totally different realm of surfing. It’s total desire. You’ve got to want to take off on the wave. When you see it coming, you’ve gotta say to yourself: “Wow, man, this is it! I’m gonna do it!” Its sort of like the male ego makes you do it. You’ve gotta prove yourself to the world. Like when you’re a kid and you watch guys in the movies riding Waimea and you say, “I’m gonna ride that place someday.” I said that when I was a kid. So you have to prove it to yourself and to the world. Riding big waves is a fame trip now. People from all over the world come here to ride big waves; their male ego makes them do it. So they can ride a wave and go home and say they’ve done it. When I came here, that’s where I was at.

I don’t have to prove nothing. I’ve put my four years in out there. I’ve watched Joey Cabell, Jock Sutherland, Jackie Baxter, Barry Kanaiaupuni, Tiger Espere. I’ve watched everybody, the heaviest riders at Sunset Beach. They taught me, that’s all I can say. That’s the school of surfing I come from.

They taught me how to live! They were the highest, healthiest people on the Earth, and I was a stoned kook. They were already on an aware trip. They were involved surfers before I even knew what involved was! Those guys really influenced me. I lived with them. I lived with David Nuuhiwa for two-and-a-half years. I lived with Jock Sutherland for six months. I saw these guys and I saw that they had their trips laid out. And I didn’t even have a trip! They taught me respect. Give a smile, get a smile. Steal, get stolen from. They taught me that. They were my gurus, my enlighteners. So I took all those guys' different trips and put myself together.

How did you manage to break into the scene at Sunset Beach when so many big-name surfers had the place sewed up?

I had to ride behind a lot of them. I had to give them waves. Remember: give a smile, get a smile. I had to be nice, I had to be a good dude, I had to be what a surfer should be. But most of all, I had to put out as much effort as anyone out there, if not more. I was the guy who was never supposed to do it. As a kid, nobody ever thought that I’d be able to ride the place. I always knew that I could, but it took a while 'cause nobody lent me their board.

Society was against me in all ways, so I dropped out. I came here with no money. I was on a survival trip. I went through all the trips: no place to live, no food, and no surfboard. I had a hard time getting it together just to live before I could even think about getting it together in the water. I wasn’t one of those rich kids who can come here and get right into it. I had to survive.

Dick Brewer says you ride Sunset the best. Tell me about Sunset Beach.

Sunset Beach is heaven on Earth. ’Bout 12 hours of the day, I’m in love. I’m in love with that place down there. Sunset Beach is a reef break. It’ll take a west swell, a north swell, or a northwest. It’s mainly a winter spot, working from September to May. During those months it’s the most consistent break I’ve ever surfed. I've just got a fascination with that place that goes beyond the wave itself. Something draws me to it. Sunset Beach is the ultimate happiness when you make it.

It’ll kill you. There are rips at Sunset that are so bad that on some days nobody should be out. You have to be a five-year waterman with experience to handle it. Otherwise, you shouldn’t be there.

A lot of people say Sunset is best on a west, but I’m callin' that a northwest is better. You get a north run with a west inside that’ll give you the best S-turn cutback of your life. On a northwest, it forms a big horseshoe in the middle of the bay, and that west at the end will pitch on you, coming back at you. At 15- to 18-feet, this is the ultimate! Sunset Beach is on its own trip. It’s Sunset and you are you, and you can’t lay your trip on it. It’s got so much energy flowing one way that if you ain’t flowin' that way, you’re doing it all wrong. No hotdog boards, no twin-fins. Sunset is all power and soul.

What about three fins? A large central fin with little fins on the rails?

Three fins are happening at Sunset Beach; small fins for sensitivity and direction. To make the wide tails not spin out. Just to taste more feeling.

How important is equipment at a place like Sunset?

Equipment is the whole trip. You make it or break it with your equipment. It’s your self-confidence, knowing that a board can do it and knowing that you 

 do it. If you know your board won’t do it, you won’t do it.

What kind of boards do you ride and for what surf?

I have 10 boards; with them, I can ride two feet to 25 feet. Everything from a 6'2" to a 9'3". Seven of ’em are Brewers.

I can surf contests if I want to. In fact, I want to surf contests now! The only thing hanging me up from getting into contests is the people running them. I entered two Haleiwa contests in the Pro division, the money division, and I couldn’t surf. I couldn’t surf because George Downing said I wasn’t in the Pro division, and I was. I surfed Pro in the Smirnoff. But Downing controls who surfs Pro, and he put me in with the amateurs. I didn’t surf in the amateurs because I felt it wouldn’t have been fair to the other guys in there. I didn’t get either of my $6 entry fees back either.

In the Smirnoff, they sent me out in the first heat with the sun so bright the judges couldn’t see nothin'. I went out and caught six waves and didn’t fall. I did ’em all right, just the way their rules were. They gave me fourth. I knew the guys out there weren’t better than me. I’m not saying I was better than them, but it could’ve been one of them fourth if the shitty trip that was happening was put on them, not me.

What about the Duke? You didn't get an invite to that one.

There's no other contest I’d rather be in. To me the real winners at the Duke this year were Reno Abellira and Nat Young. They were the two most in-tune surfers in the water. Nat Young got the only 20-point wave, and I saw it. But they didn’t give him 20 points. Not one of the judges did! Reno was the ultimate flash. He didn’t get that many good waves, but when he did, he was the ultimate flash! [Note: in an eight-man final, Jeff Hakman won the 1970 Duke contest, followed, in order, by Peter Drouyn, Ryan Dotson, Paul Strauch, Reno Abellira, Nat Young, and Barry Kanaiaupuni.]

Why didn’t Nat get 20 points, and why weren’t Jackie Baxter, Sammy Hawk, Herbie Fletcher, Mike Hynson, David Nuuhiwa, yourself, and several others invited to the Duke this year?

Because the people running the Duke, the guys who pick the surfers, aren’t even around Sunset Beach. The old big-wave riders don’t want to move over for the new big-wave riders!

Which big-wave riders from the old school aren’t doing it anymore?

How could the Duke be made into a truly good Sunset Beach contest?

Invite 40 of the best surfers in the world. Invite 30 to be in the contest, five to be alternates if some of the 30 didn’t show, and five to be judges. The alternates could fill vacancies either in the water or on the judges' stand. It's gotta be 15-feet, out of the northwest. Then the real winners will be picked.

Who would have the best chance at that contest? Who rides Sunset the best?

Jackie Baxter, Sammy Hawk, BK, Billy Hamilton, Nat Young, Tiger . . . anyone could win it. Whoever was on would win.

These kids get hung up on what I was once hung up on. Contests are a power trip. You end up surfing the way they want you to surf. Contests put an outlook on surfing so that when a young kid who’s a virgin, doesn’t know nothing, comes down to the beach and sees a contest and everyone’s running around like that’s what’s happening, man, that kid is gonna think that is what’s happening. But it isn’t. You're missing the best part of surfing. Surfing is supposed to be enjoyed. It’s a pleasure trip. It’s supposed to be a joy! If this kid goes around trying to beat everybody, it’ll cause a lot of weird trips in the water; you end up with all these kids trying to shut each other down. It's everybody against everybody and not everybody together.

David Nuuhiwa, for one reason—his footwork. I’ve seen him surf little waves like nobody surfs ’em. And I’ve seen him surf Sunset Beach at 15-feet feet and rip! Everybody thinks David can’t ride big waves cause he’s not over here all the time. But I’ve seen him ride big waves, and he’s as good as Tom Stone, Jock or Lopez backside, if not better. But he ain’t here.

I’ve watched those lefts for so long at Pipeline, Rocky Point, Ala Moana, and wondered why David Nuuhiwa wasn’t here to show us how to ride them. But David Nuuhiwa will be here again. In our older years, Nuuhiwa will be the one that’s still hot. David doesn’t have to prove nothin'. Every day he ever surfed, he was the best guy. I could tell you stories about when they were doing 

. He left Nat in the dust at Lahaina Harbor.

Why do you think David’s better than Nat?

I’m not down on Nat or nothin'. Nat’s got power on David, but he hasn’t got as much power on David as David has footwork on Nat.

What people do you think have done more for surfing?

Joe Quigg turned us onto balsa wood, and Grubby Clark gave us foam. Mickey Dora and Dewey Weber owned the surfing world 'till Phil Edwards came and shot ’em down. Then David had half of California following him. Then there was the whole Australian "involvement" fad. But I’m involved; soul freaks are most definitely involved. Everybody’s involvement is different, that's all. If you're hung-up, your surfing will be hung-up. And if you're free, your surfing will be free. It takes a worried man to sing a worried song.

Tell me more about what you think of the Aussies.

For a while, everybody went Australian. California even went Australian. Everyone went Australian except a few people who were so-called "involved" before the word was even stuck in a magazine. These guys didn’t have a camera with them every time they went surfing. These are the dudes who have taken surfing from where the Australians left off, people like Cabell, Brewer, Reno, Diffenderfer, Hynson, Herbie Fletcher, Gary Chapman, Jackie Baxter, Barry Kanaiaupuni, and David Nuuhiwa.

Who do you personally think has done the most?

The one who’s done the most is Dick Brewer. He’s the smartest of everybody. Brewer built my brother Gary the first mini-gun. It was September of 1967. Brewer's the guy that can still ride a 6' 2" when everybody else from his generation is over the hill. I like him because he's still got kick! He's given his life to surfing. I can dig him! He’s done more for surfing than any designer or surfer. Brewer has taken me to the outer limits of speed and freedom, and that’s more than anybody has done for me! He’s made me the best boards I’ve ever ridden, and he's one of my best friends. He’s taught me how to live and how to tune in.

Into everything. I didn’t used to be open-minded . . . I could rattle all day long about Brewer. He’s a good partner of mine. I wouldn’t ride anybody else's boards, not even if you gave ’em to me free!

Yeah, I do. I do have enemies in surfing. They know who they are. But I’m not their enemy. Sure, man. Everybody's against me. I’m out in the water. When you get your mug in the magazine, everybody’s out to beat you.

What are the worst things happening in surfing today?

The rape of our beaches, advertising gimmicks, games, and two fins.

What are the best things happening in surfing today?

[Photos: Drew Kampion, Jeff Divine, Art Brewer]

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos