Greg Noll

Nice. Da Bull has had some classic quotes over the years - one of my favs

"To me the Islands are like an eternally beautiful woman. I'm growing older but she's still this neat little gal I can remember making love to when I was young. She never changes, but I do."
-- Greg Noll

No comment on the bull, makes nice skateboards too but I read this a while ago, not really in the spirit of the forum but interesting anyway.


Home / Blogs / Big Heavy Stuff / The Photo That Doesn't Exist – By Kirk Owers
The Photo That Doesn't Exist – By Kirk Owers
By Kirk Owers | 09 February 2011

Not even the balcony looked safe on the big day in December 1969. PIc: Albe Falzon

Records were broken and legends forged at Makaha on December four, 1969. It is a more storied day than perhaps any other in big wave surf history. The “greatest swell of the 20th century” uprooted trees, trashed houses and hurled boats onto the Kam Highway. It annihilated the North Shore but lit up Makaha where Greg Noll bullrushed the wave of the day. The feat was later declared the biggest wave ever ridden, an unofficial record it maintained for over 20 years. No-one knows exactly how big the mythical wave was because, as was reiterated recently in the documentary Riding Giants, “not a single shot or frame of footage exists.” Noll's great Makaha wave is one of the most celebrated waves in American surf history, the interest in it heightened because it was never captured on film.

Only thing is there were cameras at Makaha in 1969. Tracks cofounder and surf filmmaker, Alby Falzon had several.  Falzon hawk-eyed the action all day from an apartment overlooking the point. He watched the swell build, the first guys paddle out and the last guys get washed in. When he wasn't looking directly at the ocean, he was squinting through his 500mm lens or making adjustments to his 16mm film rig. Falzon shot rolls of film that day including, he maintains, a three shot sequence of Noll's famous wave. That's an interesting story all by itself but what's uncomfortably fascinating when you look a real life representation of the wave that has been comprehensively eulogised for 41 years now, you are forced to look again. Something is not right. It doesn't look that big.

Chance, fate or the gods were at work to accommodate Albert Falzon so cosily at the crossroads of surf history. Earlier in '69 he was filming for Bob Evans in South Africa and had become friends with a young Shaun Tomson. Shaun's parents invited the Australian filmmaker to stay with them in Hawaii the following winter in an apartment so close to Makaha you could peg a rock from the balcony and hit the waves. Albe was happily ensconced at the digs (along with Australian surfer David Treloar), when the biggest swell in recorded history turned up. Suddenly, right outside his window, the best big wave surfers in the world were gathering for a session that would be talked about for decades.
"GREG 'DA BULL' NOLL'S REPUTATION AS A BIG WAVE SURFER IS UNASSAILABLE..." “The swell had peaked overnight on the North Shore but it wasn't getting into Makaha in the morning,” Albe recalls. “We drove to the North Shore but there were roadblocks and police turning people around. It was mayhem, **** everywhere. The North Shore was completely wiped out. We drove past all the cars to the front of the roadblock and told the police we were an Australian news crew. They let us past and we drove down and saw the destruction and we saw Waimea Bay – a total washing machine.”
“When we got back to Makaha there were lines starting to break out the back,” Albe continues. “It was only double overhead in the morning but it was building all the time. I set up my cameras on the balcony and alternated between the two throughout the day. The sets were coming through every 13 minutes. I remember that because Ernie [Thompson] was timing them. There were eight or nine waves in a set. And they just kept getting bigger and bigger as the morning went on.”
According to Falzon a dozen or more guys surfed that day including many of the established big wave surfers of the day. Most of the retrospective attention, however, is given to Noll's famous big wave. The Encyclopaedia of Surfing describes it as a 35-footer and the largest wave ever ridden until then and for at least the next twenty years (ie until the tow era). In the documentary Riding Giants an illustrated depiction of the mythical wave is closer to 60 foot.
In Noll's biography Da Bull, life over the edge, its co-author Andrea Gabbard sums up the wave's standing in (American) surf lore. “Those who were there that day at Makaha claim that Noll took off on the largest wave anyone has ever ridden. As it turned out the police roadblocks, the distance of the swell from shore and the presumed scarcity of rideable surf prevented this historic day from being preserved on film. Maybe it's better that way, to leave it instead to surf legend, to be passed on from one generation to the next. One thing is certain: the size of the wave will not grow in the telling. It's already too big. And that's no bull.”
It's a sentiment that has been enthusiastically shared in numerous articles, books and films about the early days of big wave surfing. Which kind of makes Albe Falzon the fly in the ointment of surf history. Because he remembers the day differently. And he has the photos...

For the complete verasion of Kirk Owers compellling story Go To Page 90 of your March 2011 copy of 'The Surfers Bible' Tracks Magazine.

Photo of the skaties, not actually the one I was looking for, I think he hand makes some and an old pipe board
And a this is a link to his vintage board collection
http://www.vintagegregnollsurf.com/nollsurfboards.html
And this his wood boards

nollsurfboards.com/wood.html


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That Alby Falzon interview just reminded me of an article I read at the start of this year in Pacific Longboarder magazine. It was about an Aussie fella named Dave Jackman, who was out that day along with Noll. Apparently Jackman was out way before him (Noll) and too took on one of those 25 footers..only to be slagged off by Noll in later interviews. Interesting read. Jackman has been residing in Muriwai NZ since the mid 60's.

Nice pictures asea,I have the book its a real coffee table book.