Specials » The history of Surfing's begins in Europe
The history of Surfing's begins in Europe
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Just because some dubious German Surfing websites falsely assert that the first European Surfers came from on their territory, we have launched some research in order to correct this. The informations which we have acquired, came from the inestimable assistance some our friends such as Willy Uribe, the French Surfing Federation and the community of Surf4all.net, who supported us during this research and delivered this material to us, which is the source of this article.
We don't want o wake up certain local nationalism, or pitiful patriotism which only leads to fascism. This is simply an article, which we dedicate to the community of the European Surfers.
Everyone knows Surfing' Polynesian origins, but how Surfing came to Europe and and who were the first Surfer?
In France, around 1896, some Landais invented a bold water game. When the beautiful season arrived, the youngest résiniers (forest worker, who took the resin from the trees) who worked in the forests close to the Atlantic Ocean, liked to take sea bathings. It happened that large sailing boats that retured from the African coasts, lost a part of their wood charge in the bad weather which passed over edge, and which were rejected by the currents towards the coasts.
Young absolutely bold people understood to ride such trunks pushed in the waves, and that gave them beautiful feelings. Some of them had the idea to split these trunks per half in order to obtain a better buoyancy; and to thin them with a "coumgate" (small instrument like an adze being used to cut wood). Spectators, amused and intrigued, seeing these young people building these boards of wood, designated these swimming devices as "Coungates" and those who rode them as "Coungatataous".
It was Adrien Durupt, architect and engineer, who has worked with an certain Gustave Eiffel and traversed the world, within the framework of his work, was the first true european Surfer. He travelled a lot, also until to California in 1907, from where he brought back an Surfboard. He went regularly by sailing ship for surfing on the sand banks between Baguenaud and Evens (France), close to Baule. Much later, surfing was imported again in 1956 to the Basque coast by the cameraman, film producer and film director: Peter Viertel
Joël De Rosnay, Michel Barland, Jacques Rott, Jo Moraiz and Bruno Reinhardt contributed to the beginning of the years 1960 with the promotion of this sport in Biarritz on the beach of la côte des Basques.
In England, at Jersey, the Island Surf School was set up in 1923 by Nigel Oxenden, who learnt to surf in South Africa, Australia and Hawaii.
It was arguably Europe's oldest surf club and although it no longer exists, surfing has kept its base around the Watersplash in St Ouen's Bay where the club was originally started.
The early Jersey surfers were bodyboarders and some of the very first balsawood boards made in Jersey in the 1930s were created by Mr Oxenden. The boards had painted heraldic designs on them and were complete with rope leashes.
Jersey's Occupation during the war put an end to any surfing because the Germans mined the beaches. It was not until the arrival of a group of South African lifeguards in the 1950s that helped the sport to make its come back.
It was also around that time that long boards were introduced to the Island.