In his 1965 book Surf and Sea, pioneering big-wave rider John Kelly, writing in the third person, recalled how he invented and developed the hot curl surfboard. This excerpt has been slightly edited and shortened. In the opening sentence, Kelly cited 1934 as the year the hot curl was created; further research moved the date up to 1937, and that year is used below. Also of note: Kelly himself does not use the phrase "hot curl" to describe the new board, referring to it instead as the "narrow-tail" design.

Once on a sunny day in 1937, a big summer surf rolled in to the Hawaiian Islands from the south. Local waters were glassy smooth-riding conditions were perfect. At Brown’s Surf near the foot of Diamond Head, the swells were tipping over big, magnificent, and clean at about fifteen to eighteen feet. At this infrequently-surfed spot, when the waves are up to that height they seem to come up out of nowhere, stand on tiptoe and crash down like a wrestler in a body slam.

Two surfers had been out in the surf since early morning. Nine out of ten rides ended two or three seconds after takeoff with a mean wipeout and a long swim to the beach. The reason was that their flat-bottomed, square-tailed planks—conventional boards of their day—were slipping out of the glassy slopes of the steep waves and sliding tail.

Fran Heath and John Kelly came home around noon pretty sore and determined to do something drastic. With the big, curling waves still taunting them in the distance, they laid their boards out on the front porch. Taking an ax in hand, John took a slashing cut at the tail of his board. As deep as this ax goes, he muttered. I’ll cut off that much from each side of the tail—to narrow the planing surface. The ax penetrated about three or four inches of the soft redwood rail near the stern of the board. Then for the next hour, both boys hewed and planed the sides, fairing the bottom lines into the sleek new deck profile and sanding the new rails smooth. To the best of present knowledge, it was the first narrow-tail shape on a plank board.

Without waiting for the varnish to dry, the two boys trundled their new pin-tailed surfboard down to the rocky shoreline and paddled back out to Brown’s Surf, a glint of determination in their eyes. On that day, the glassy steep tubes of Brown’s Surf for the first time were subdued and made rideable. The boys had a memorable afternoon. The narrow tail of the new boards grooved into the waves and held firm on the steepest walls.

Within a short time, the narrow-tail design caught fire and Waikiki Beach was sporting boards of three distinct designs: the old square-tailed planks, the hollow "cigar boards," and the new narrow-tail boards—which, as was soon apparent to all, offered more speed and a higher-riding slide.

Following this breakthrough, a number of other developments took place in rapid succession. The new narrow-tail boards needed more buoyancy to compensate for the portion deleted from the old boards. They were lengthened, the belly was thickened, and the forward portion flattened for greater stability. The narrowed tail had decreased the board's athwartship balance. The lengthening and thickening increased the weight and cut down on maneuverability and this, in turn, led to a search for new materials and methods of construction to make the boards lighter and easier to handle.

Over time, several solutions were developed. The first was kiln dried redwood. In those days nearly every surfer made his own surfboard. When a new shipment of redwood arrived in Honolulu, surfers would soon be prowling around the lumberyards picking out the driest and most straight-grained redwood planks. They were usually 12' by 4', and four inches wide; it took four husky surfers to carry a single piece of wood out of the yard. Within the heart of each plank there lay an unsculptured surfboard awaiting the liberating force of drawknife and plane.

During this period in the evolution of surfboard design, no two boards were made alike. Each new board was a chance to add another feature, or to drop away a proven or suspected deficiency. For the new narrow-tail boards, the tail was first rounded underneath, then later sharpened into a V-shaped keel for even more secure purchase in the wave. This made such a positive groove that maneuverability was sacrificed. It took a mighty effort to change the course of the board and by the time it turned it was often too late to avoid wipeout or a run off the end of the wave. Even then, turning, at its best, was a slow swing compared to today’s sharp power turns. Turning was usually accomplished by dragging one foot in the water.

While these experiments were underway in Hawaii, the surf craze had begun to take hold in California. Duke Kahanamoku and some of his contemporaries had visited Mainland beaches some years earlier, demonstrating the manly Hawaiian sport to wondrous audiences. George Freeth, an Irish-Hawaiian, is said to have been the first to introduce Hawaiian surfing to California as early as 1907. By the early 1930s, there were enough Californians taking up surf riding to create a surfboard market. More enthusiasts took up surfing than knew how to build boards so the task fell to a few enterprising surfers-turned-businessmen.

Under the impetus of competition, these early entrepreneurs cast about for distinctive new materials and designs that would help sell boards. One of the developments out of California was the technique of gluing strips of wood together that had been chambered out beforehand for lightness. This idea soon made its way to Hawaii. For decorative effect, strips were alternately redwood and soft pine or balsa. These semi-hollow, laminated boards were usually three and one-half to four and one-half inches thick. The fabricating of these laminated boards involved the use of electric jointers and saws and heavy gluing clamps, and at this point the work was for the most part moved from the garage or living room into the more mechanized shops of the commercial factory, small as the latter were at the time. Even so, thanks largely to the inventiveness of a small handful of surfers who continued the search for new answers and made their own custom boards, the design of standardized factory surfboards gave way slowly to the improvements of the experimenters.

By the late 1930s, the Hawaiian narrow-tail design had incorporated the California-style laminated construction, and at the outbreak of the World War II this was where things stood. The lighter materials made boards somewhat more maneuverable, easier to handle, and nicer to look at, while the narrow tail had made it possible to ride big waves tightly tucked into the curl.

Then, for the duration of the war, board design went into a deep freeze.

The next big breakthroughs in materials and design, along with a revolutionary new riding style, were to come in the post-war years.

"THE GLASSY STEEP TUBES OF BROWN'S SURF FOR THE FIRST TIME WERE SUBDUED AND MADE RIDABLE!" - JOHN KELLY ON THE INVENTION OF THE HOT CURL SURFBOARD

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