Reading Time: 5 minutes
Yesterday, the surfing world bid farewell to one of its giants when Dane Kealoha passed away after a battle with cancer. Throughout the late 70s and 80s the Hawaiian surfer was a force of nature in surfing, his potent mix of raw power, innovation and physical charisma making him a fan favourite. In a professional career shrouded in controversy, many of his peers have gone on the record to say that Dane should have won a world title. “The greatest surfer never to win a world title was Dane Kealoha for sure,” Shaun Tomson told former Tracks editor, Paul Holmes. “There’s Dane and then there’s maybe Cheyne Horan and Gary Elkerton. But for sheer talent, it’d be Dane. He was younger, stronger, faster, and with his modern style of surfing he could have been winning through the late ‘80s. He had the physique, like Kelly Slater on steroids. And zero fear, also like Kelly.”
Dane broke new ground in and out of contests. “I remember paddling out on a small day at Haleiwa,” Ian Cairns told Paul Holmes. “And I saw him do this hack off the top near the Toilet Bowl, which everyone was doing in those days, but it was the first time I’d ever seen the tail of the board with the fins out of the water coming out the back of the wave. And I just thought ‘wow’, that’s so innovative I think someone just moved the bar. He was riding a little twin-fin like MR, and MR was doing big hacks off the top but MR didn’t blow fins out the back of the wave like that.”
Tracks just published a major feature on Dane Kealoha, by Paul Holmes, in the current issue. The story first appeared in The Surfer’s Journal. When we went to print there wasn’t even a whisper about Dane’s battle with cancer in the surf media. The story was never written as an obituary, but it certainly does a sterling job of celebrating Dane’s life and legacy. Read an excerpt below…
… Kealoha’s momentum continued into 1979 as events began in Australia, with a third-place finish at Bells. In the Coca-Cola Surfabout, he was back at Bells as part of ‘The Great Aussie Airlift,’ and again came third, moving him to number five in the ratings.
By this juncture, Burness was almost frantic to get Dane Kealoha back to South Africa for the ’79 events. Burness knew the Hawaiian surfer was still troubled by his previous experience, and, eventually, called Kealoha’s mother with a plan to make sure her son would be well taken care of.
“Peter Burness and Shaun’s dad, Ernie Tomson, were like father figures to those of us who surfed the Bay of Plenty in Durban,” says Saffa surfer Lista Sagnelli. “When international surfers came from Hawaii or Brazil, anybody who might have a problem, we went out of our way to make sure they had a good time and protect them from running into trouble.”
Sagnelli, his brother Chen, Shaun’s brother Paul Tomson, and Wayne Shaw were thus enlisted to be Kealoha’s minders. The proposed security blanket was persuasive, both to Kealoha’s mother and by extension to Kealoha himself, and he agreed to revisit South Africa, this time surfing as a pro.
His immediate impact was jaw-dropping, winning the Gunston 500, the cornerstone of South Africa’s pro circuit, and in so doing put an end to Shaun Tomson’s six-year string of victories. Overnight, Kealoha became a household name in Durban.
“When Dane won the Gunston, everybody was rooting for him,” says Sagnelli. “Even Shaun’s dad. We threw a party for him at a restaurant and disco. But first, we went to the owners and told them we were bringing a group of people, some of them darker than their usual clientele. The government’s position on international athletes at the time was they were free to do or go wherever, regardless of their color. But that didn’t stop some of these Afrikaner owners of bars or hotels from turning them away. It did happen…”
At the beach and in the water?
“At the Bay of Plenty,“ explains Sagnelli, “there was a sign that said, ‘Non-Whites Not Allowed,’ and there was a Coloured Beach and a beach for Blacks, which was the most treacherous beach around. But Dane never had a problem in the water, even at the Bay of Plenty, because the people who surfed knew who he was. When he paddled out, the crowd would just part for him, like he was royalty.”
“The younger generation wanted segregation over,” says Kealoha of that trip. “The Bay of Plenty was still for whites only, and I got harassed by the police until I showed them who I was and why I was there. I was probably the first ‘black’ person to hit that beach during apartheid. The road split the beach and there was a hill overlooking the break. The day of the final that hill was packed with black people because they’d heard what was going on and wanted to see. Later, when segregation was over, Lista would call me and tell me how things had changed and how all these black kids were learning to surf. So something good did come out of that.”
Sagnelli’s relationship with Kealoha also paid dividends when the South African visited Hawaii. “I got to surf places I probably wouldn’t have ordinarily. Velzyland, you just didn’t unless you arrived with someone like Dane. He told me, ‘You paddle out with me and sit by me,’ and one by one he introduced me to whoever was out. Still, sitting there with Mark Liddell, Bertlemann, Buttons… He’s the only reason I got to surf so many waves at Pipeline, because he’d paddle for a wave on my inside then pull up and let me go. I even got to surf Third Dip on the West Side. The locals all paddled in and let Dane and I surf for an hour on our own. He’s a very loyal person.”
