This uncredited article was written by Rio surfer and photojournalist Tito Rosemberg, along with Johnny Hansen, and was published in the January 1968 issue of SURFER.

If you’ve ever been to Rio—the meaning is simple: a local Copacabana Beach surfer has taken a wipeout (literally translated to "rolling the cow") at Baixio, a break noted for big surf.

Brazilian surfers don’t “roll the cow” too often, however. They’re getting adept at wave riding as the sport here grows among natives and visitors. A few years ago, Brazil was strictly the land of carnival, samba, bossa nova, soccer, coffee, jungles, and sun. But today, something new has been added—surfing.

And the Brazilians have taken to the sport with Latin enthusiasm. The only thing that keeps them out of the water is the four days of insanity during February when everyone in Rio turns out for Mardi Gras. During Mardi Gras, beaches are free of surfers who store their boards and instead enjoy the celebrated carnival pleasures: women, booze, music, dancing and, not very often, sleeping. But after carnival, they’re back in action—a growing band fast developing the sport into a major tourist attraction along Ipanema Beach’s sparkling sand.

Brazilian surfing got a boost last April with the arrival of moviemakers Greg MacGillivray and Jim Freeman. With them were top California surfers Mark Martinson and junior Dale Struble—but locals at Arpoador Beach were skeptical. Were they the real Mark and Dale?

The question was answered conclusively and quickly in the surf. Struble locked into a fast, chest-high, crystal-clear Arpoador curl and went screaming right. Martinson dropped in with one stroke, stepped gingerly to the nose and hung ten—making believers out of everybody watching from the beach.

When Martinson and Struble paddled in, they were mobbed by local surfers. Questions, questions, questions: how hairy 

 is the Banzai Pipeline? What kind of board do you ride? Who’s the best surfer—Young or Nuuhiwa? How long does it take to become a top surfer?

Yes, the locals learned a lot from the visiting Americans—and vice versa. The cariocas picked up plenty of style tips during the Americans’ five-week stay. And the Yanks learned plenty about Brazilian surfing.

MacGillivray quickly found out how an English-speaking carioca surfer treats the local police. It happened when Greg was riding in a Jeep jammed with surfers and their boards. A policeman pulled them over and asked in Portuguese: “Don’t you know you must wear shirts when you’re not on the beach? It is a breach of good manners, and I am going to fine you.”

The driver, who has lived all his life in Rio, looked blank and then shook his head: “I speak English. No Portuguese. American 

The cop stared a moment and then tugged at his shirt just below his shiny badge. “A shirt, a shirt,” he said in Portuguese. “You must wear a shirt. Do you understand?”

The driver looked perplexed and then suddenly nodded as if a lightbulb had just gone on over his head.

“A shirt,” he said in English, and everyone nodded put on their shirts. The cop put his ticket book away and waved them off toward the beach.

Greg, Jim, Mark, and Dale had a great time during their stay in Rio. They were the guests of a local surfer who lived in an ocean-facing apartment just a few steps from the surf. They took plenty of movies and caught some fine surf. They were celebrities. Newspapers, television stations, and local magazines gave them plenty of publicity and—in the process—gave Brazilian surfing added prestige.

The Americans also helped stage the Brazilian Surfing Championships. They set up the competition along the lines of a typical American contest. MacGillivray and Freeman acted as judges. Martinson easily won the men’s title and Struble the junior division.

Rio’s beaches boast many regulars who turn out for surfing rain or shine. The group includes: Paulo Roberto, whose nickname is “Da Bullet Man,” and a teenager nicknamed “Crazy Marcos,” whose specialty is singing while waiting for waves and knocking other people off their boards when he finally catches one. (“Crazy Marcos” is sort of a crooning Mickey Dora.) Monsieur Martin is a French airline pilot who can be found paddling in the warm Rio water when he isn’t pushing a Boeing 707 around the world. He’s easy to spot because he wears the latest mini-trunks from France. Other locals include, two-time world skin-diving champion Bruno Hermanny, and bossa nova singer-songwriter Marcos Vale.

Surfing is relatively new to Brazil. Probably the first surfer was back in the early 1930s—a sportsman known as Paulo Preguica (Lazy Paul). He rode a hollow paddleboard that he made at home—and this is the incredible part—he had no idea that surfing existed in any other place in the world except Rio. Paulo surfed a beachbreak off the famous Copacabana called Posto Six Pier.

Brazilian surfing got a boost in the late '40s when Pan Am pilot Jim O’Connell arrived with what is believed to be the first modern-style surfboard ever used in Brazil. The redwood plank was soon copied by the locals and surfing was off and running. The fiberglass board appeared on the scene about 1960 when a local skindiver, Arduino Colassanti, brought one back from a Stateside visit.

Irencyr Beltrão helped popularize surfing by mass-producing an eight-foot plywood board an inch thick and 17" wide. The nose was curved to avoid pearling, and the front and tail were rounded off. The name: 

, or wooden board, and just about all the old-timers in Rio learned about the waves on one of these models. The cost: $15. Brazilian surfers nostalgically look back on the 

 period the way Americans do the old redwood era.

A visiting Australian named Peter Troy, hitchhiking through South America a few months prior to the World Surfing Championships in Peru, was the next surfing messiah to pass through Rio. In 1964, Troy not only showed a fine surfing style in Rio waves, he also taught the locals, including Beltrão, how to shape and produce a modern foam-fiberglass surfboard. Weak styrofoam and ordinary cloth were already in use, but the homemade boards rotted quickly in the sun. The Brazilians kept trying, however, even though materials were available only in rudimentary forms—resins, catalysts, foam, balsa. Importing boards from America or Australia was a real problem because of high shipping costs plus a 200% customs charge.

The new foam board, however, along with Troy's instructions, allowed Brazilian surfing to boom. In 1965, Brazil’s first surfboard “factory” popped up in a dark, cramped, resin-choked garage in a Rios suburb called São Conrado. Like many surf shops throughout the world, it was a haven for the broke surfer looking for a shaping job. Police, meanwhile, were always looking for the factory to find out why no taxes were paid on the boards that were now turning up in ever-greater numbers along Rio’s beaches. Happily, the police are still searching, and nobody’s paying any taxes. The surfers’ secret is well kept. I don’t want to give the police any clues, but the factory is hidden under a swimming pool.

Police have thrown a small damper on the surfing scene by restricting the sport at all of Rio’s beaches between daybreak and two in the afternoon. When the sun comes up, the police come out to strictly enforce the law that they feel is protecting tourists splashing in the water near Copacabana. It’s really unfair, however, because of the nine miles of Rio beaches, only about a quarter of a mile is surfable. So why can’t this one-quarter mile—one thirty-sixth of Rio’s beaches—be set aside for surfing? But I’m told this is an old problem for surfers throughout the world.

In addition to the advent of the foam board, another big factor in surfing’s growing popularity here has been moviea. Surfers frequently sit through repeated showings of films like 

. Sure, they know the films are hokey Hollywood products, but even so, they still have good stock footage of surfing. For surf-hungry Brazilians, it’s quite a pleasure to see movie doubles like Dora, Van Artsdalen, Edwards, and Noll show their style on big waves at Sunset Beach and Waimea. The genuine surfing movies of Bruce Brown and MacGillivray-Freeman have not yet made their way to Brazil.

Surfing will continue to boom in Brazil. Our 3,672 miles of coastline offer excellent point surf and beachbreaks—most of them still to be surfed. Perhaps the only deterrent to the sport’s progress is the lack of good coastal roads leading to the breaks.

At the moment, Brazilian surfing remains centered around Rio. The names of breaks will soon be common in surfing lore as the sport continues to grow, spots like Posto Six, Arpoador, Baixio, Botofogo, Grumary, Guaratiba, and—perhaps the most colorful—Macumba Beach. Black Brazilians in white robes dance and chant in the firelight. They jump into the surf and yell, “Lemanja!”—the goddess of the sea.

Surfers camping nearby especially enjoy the Macumba custom of leaving offerings to the spirits. Bottles of the local brew, cigarettes, candles and even food often are left during the nighttime festivities. In the morning, rocks near Macumba are strewn with empty bottles and the remains of the offerings, but if you think old Lemanja picked up the voodoo goodies—you’re wrong, dead wrong! Ask any carioca surfer!

[Photos, top to bottom: Dale Struble at Arpoador by Greg MacGillivray; Arduino Collasanti at Copacobana by Tito Rosemberg; Carioca locals, 1965, by Tito Rosemberg]

"RIO: CITY OF LOVE . . . AND SURF!" SURFER MAGAZINE (1968)

Subscribe or Login

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint