"Viewpoint: Nat Young," by Dick Graham, ran in the January 1967 issue of Surfing magazine. The interview was recorded the day after Young won the 1966 World Championships in San Diego. Young was 18.

Now that you’re the new world champion, could you give us your views on the contest itself?

The event seemed a lot better than previous years, even though there were a couple of things that gave it sort of an anti-climax. It was good because the commercial interest wasn’t played up as strongly as before, and they gave you more free time. In Peru last year, every day was full with socializing and keeping up the image for Club Waikiki—meeting the President of the country and stuff like that. This year the commercial side of it was down to a bare minimum, which was good for everybody, providing you had your own transport. I think they did slip up on transport when we first got down to the beach. If it had not been for a couple of good friends, I wouldn’t have had a chance in the contest. Instead of sitting around watching silly girls in the water, we went surfing. That’s another point too: girls shouldn’t surf, they make fools out of themselves.

That first day at La Jolla Shores started off okay, then ended in one-to-two foot sloppy shorebreak. As it got too bad to be surfed—I'm talking about the men's division now, because I’m not even going to consider the women—the contest shifted to that big left at Mission Beach. That was a giant test. I haven’t surfed waves like that for 18 months. I'd planned on surfing a little right-hander all through the contest, and then this giant left had to come and present a big problem. This brought on a completely different attitude for me, right at the start, because I take a different attitude to going left. It was really hard. The facts are there. Corky Carroll beat me straight away in the preliminaries.

You told me that before they even announced the results you knew Corky had beat you, and you were waxing your board for the semi-main heat.

Yes, I got in the semi-main and became leader of the duds. I figured that I’d at least come in last gracefully or something. Then I ended up surfing three heats in a row. It was really one of the worst moments I’ve had; I could hardly paddle.

That’s right, you were in the last prelim heat, the semi-main, then the finals, all in a row. That’s over an hour of surfing without a break.

I was pretty tired, but it’s history now. It was good fun.

That night I remember saying that we can’t go back to that left again. My chances for winning the contest would be ridiculous. I couldn’t have kept up any sort of stand on that left other than becoming leader of the duds. The best minute of my life was when we all crowded around [event organizer] Hoppy Swarts, saying "Let’s take it back to Ocean Beach." I was going, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah!’ Hoppy made a wise decision. And the next morning at Ocean Beach there was good surf, red-hot surf. I got all jazzed. Went surfing with Skip Frye before the contest and got some good waves

He blends with the wave. But I think he gives into it too much. I’m not going to say that the right attitude toward surfing is to make it a giant challenge. You've got to blend this with the aesthetic beauty of the whole thing. But still, there should be an essence of challenge.

So it’s a combination of charge and blend, is that the idea?

Yes, I think so. It’s the attitude I take now. I’ve been working on this with one guy who should have come here to California, as he probably could have beat me in this contest. His name is Bob McTavish. We've been working on some new ideas since I came back from Peru. Another major factor in my attitude is a person from California named George Greenough, who I think is the best surfer in the world.

He's the one who does the bellyboard riding?

Sort of. But I don’t want to discuss it, because I won’t commercialize George's surfing. He does it 365 days a year because he loves it.

He had hangups from being a stowaway to Hawaii a few years ago. I don’t know exactly what the deal is. I don’t think he's allowed to visit the U.S. until he pays back the fares. Bob is sort of an elusive guy, and they can’t catch him

Could you go a little deeper into your philosophy of surfing?

There's one thing I really would have been interested in reading, and that's the questionnaire all the contestants filled out at the World Contest. One question was "What are your thoughts on surfing, and what do you get out of surfing?" I think that would be the most interesting thing to see. Like, how the Irish contestant would have answered a question like that. That would have been ridiculous. Or what any of those people from South Africa would have said was their ideal of surfing, and what they regard as good surfing.

 define surfing and what do you regard as good surfing?

I define it as self-expression; those are the only two words I think I can put it into. I mean, I could run around this for a couple of hours and explain 

 surfing is self-expression and how it offers so much freedom for the person to express his own character. I think John Peck is a classic example. I think John Peck is the best surfer in California, for the mere fact that he is egotistical and that comes right through in his surfing.

How would you then describe David Nuuhiwa? Would you say that he isn’t true to his own philosophy when he surfs?

I would say that David Nuuhiwa surfs in contests for the judges, and not for David Nuuhiwa. He does one thing perfectly. And this isn’t good surfing; this isn’t all there is to good surfing.

Right, exactly. So he can stand up front on a board that’s made for noseriding. George Greenough defines this perfectly. He says that sometimes he gets halfway down the point at Rincon and sees people disappearing on their noseriders into the distance. They're riding so far out of the hook that it has nothing to do with surfing.

You're talking about green-water surfers.

Right! People who fade into the distance on the nose aren’t good surfers. Nuuhiwa is a good surfer, I think. I surfed with him last year in Peru and countless times before the contest, and he's good. Noseriding should be done when the position is right there in front of you, and sometimes he does this, but Nuuhiwa’s image is to ride the nose, and it’s going to make everybody on the beach applaud and go RAH! for wonderful David. Every wave, up front he walks, and stands there. I don’t I think this is good surfing. I could do it if I wanted to. All I would have to do is design something slightly concaved and built with so much area in front that all you do is stand up there and go.

It’s nothing like California boards. Sam is the board’s name, because he’s magic. Magic Sam.

Isn’t there an odd story about the board?

This is true. It’s quite the truth, it really is. Once during a contest in Australia, I fell off in the shorebreak during the finals. There was a channel between the beach and the sandbank outside, and my board was in the middle of the channel. I thought it was the perfect time to try something. I went up to the top of a wave and went, ‘Hey, Sam! Come here!’ And I whistled. And everybody said, "That guy is mad," you know. Well, there was about an eight-foot surf, and Sam came floating out to me on the backwash, through all these waves. It was really classic, I didn’t have to swim a stroke and there was Sam right next to me. So everybody started whispering that it was really magic and that it's not legal.

Minimum floatation, to put me further back in the hook. The board is a little under two-and-a-half inches thick, which gives it no flotation at all, and it is as small as I could possibly make it. Sam is a super-sensitive board. Sensitivity is the one word to describe it. If you want a paddleboard, and you want to get out the back, you go out and buy one. But surfboards are made to ride waves and have nothing to do with paddling. So you get something with minimum flotation and it will put you further and further back into the hook. Surfboards have an accelerator and a brake, just like a car, but much more subtle. On Sam, I know exactly where to put my feet so he will take off and go, and I know exactly where to put them so he will stop. And this is really good fun.

George Greenough made me a personal fin to give the board extra flex and speed at the bottom of a wave.

Does the fin itself flex, or is the board flexing?

You know how a shark takes off when he kicks his tail? Well, when I get to the bottom of the wave and put so many pounds of stress on the fin from the wave, the board just turns. It kicks you forward, because it’s actually stretched during a turn, and when you release it, it flicks straight out.

Midget Farrelly came over to the U.S. and was considered to be a nice, well-mannered, intelligent Australian. Why are you considered a cocky Australian?

There is one thing in surfing, and in how I evaluate life. That is to just be yourself. Midget puts on.

Would you say that Midget is putting on a false image?

Not the Midget that you know in Australia?

 to know in Australia. I make it my business not to know him now because of conflicting ideas. His idea before we even left Australia was, "You want so much to win the World Contest." And I said "Right! That's what I'm going there for!" And he was disgusted. I mean, why else would you come? It’s not my place to say that he’s wrong and I’m right, I’m just saying this is exactly how I am and I know that all of his images and airs aren’t the Midget Farrelly that I used to know. Not the guy that used to run around and have a ball. Now he's projecting a different kind of image. It’s pretty funny.

You think it could be because he may have matured?

Could be. I don’t think so. He is a brilliant person, and yet he still puts on these things, because it’s “in.”

You mentioned earlier that you planned to come over from Australia and win the World Contest, and in earlier writings to me you stated that you had planned on taking the three major contests in Australia [the New South Wales Titles, the Australian National Titles, and Bells]. You did this. Was it because you have control over winning, or is there a certain amount of luck involved?

I usually try to say what people want to hear in interviews. After a contest they'll ask a question like, “How do you feel about what just happened.” You sort of go "Ah, gee," and go on about how lucky you are. I won't do that here. Hell, nobody was lucky. I make my own luck.

Maybe you'd like to explain the incident with Corky out in the water.

I don’t wish to discuss it. Corky Carroll was a fink. He got in the way, so I nailed him. He said he was sorry, that's what matters. That’s very important. Before the finals, Corky apologized.

What about the Mike Doyle-Steve Bigler incident?

That’s pretty funny. It’s hilarious. Steve was being silly out there. He kept turning around and picking up waves in front of Doyle, and he did it to me a couple of times. It didn’t make any difference to me. I’m not hiding the fact that the contest was over before the finals; it was a foregone conclusion that I had won, so I was having a good time out there. It was a nice chance to go surfing. Everybody else was fighting for second and third place. Steve extended himself and he extended himself a little too far. This particular moment actually happened the day before the finals. Doyle and I picked up a little wave. I was on the inside, Doyle was on the outside, and Steve was paddling out. He saw us on the wave and he turned around and caught the same wave. I just said to Mike that "He can’t do that," or that sort of thing. And Doyle went, "This is about the tenth time in a row." And then he just pushed him Bigler off.

What did you think of the judging as a whole during the contest?

A lot of judges were screwed up. I think I can blatantly say it, just by looking at their scorecards, the way the judging was going. The first couple of days were ridiculous. You'd be first on one card and last on another. In Australia, people who don’t pass this judging test are kicked out.

Let’s discuss the California surfer as compared to an Australia surfer; the different philosophy and styles.

The thing in Australia now—McTavish and I just finished a whole magazine on it—is called "The New Era" in surfing. We defined the whole thing and discussed what we are trying to achieve. I've already given you some examples of it, like on how our boards are designed and what their basic functions are. Now, this is completely opposite to what the California surfer wants to do. California boards are built for speed, mine is built for turns, and one minor mistake can put the whole thing off. A certain amount of time must be spent thinking of what you want to achieve before you go out in the water. McTavish and I, honestly, have opened up a new era of surfing in Australia.

In the magazine I just mentioned, there's a portion on the "old era" and that part was done on Midget Farrelly, about him and his style of surfing. Midget's style is aesthetically beautiful. I would say that 80% of California surfers do this kind of surfing. It is aesthetically right to stand on the nose, whereas Midget thinks it is aesthetically right to do pretty turns with his hands in the air, and aesthetically right to stand on the nose with his hands in the air. I'm not saying that aiming for the shore up on the nose doesn't look pretty. It does. Look how many people cheer when Nuuhiwa stands on the nose, riding straight. I’m not saying that exactly how I surf now is right. I'm just saying it s me.

Do you feel that you're speaking for the majority of Australian surfers?

I feel that I'm speaking for McTavish and myself and John Witzig. There are probably another 20 people in Australia who are kind of borrowing, who I regard as good surfers, such as Russell Hughes and Peter Drouyn. They are good surfers, and they all take a positive attitude towards their surfing. There is a new era of surfing, no doubt about it.

 we featured an article titled “The Creative Era.” Could this creative era in United States surfing be compared to Australia’s new era?

No, I don’t think so. I think it's because you get new blood in a sport, and then these things must evolve. The young kid is going to grow up and say that he wants to do something different. He thinks the old way is wrong, so he tries to work out a new way, and not necessarily for the commercial interests, just because he thinks that the old way is definitely wrong.

Yeah. I don’t think I could have done the Midget Farrelly style of surfing. I mean, I tried it. I tried to surf like Phil Edwards too, but I couldn’t do it. It's just like two trains on the one track. Somebody has got to move. Say, for instance, that I sincerely thought Phil Edwards was the best surfer in the world, which I did at one time. This meant that I was following, which in turn meant that there was no possible chance for me ever to get off to my own track. But I believe all kids have the right to follow someone else, until such time as they are able to think, "Well, gee, it's time to do something different now." You just work things out for yourself. You jump onto your own set of lines and away you go.

You receive some commercial benefits from surfing in Australia. How would you compare them with what a surfer in the U.S. might receive? Yours are quite extravagant, aren't they?

The people who watch baseball here in American—those are the kind of people who watch surfing in Australia. Not to such a giant extent, maybe, because we don't have as many people. But the interest in surfing is there, and this is why surfers in my country have things like newspaper columns and radio programs. The general public has a different attitude. This is what gets me about America. The public has such a bad image that they don't even think it’s right to let their daughters go out with surfers. They should be properly educated.

Now that the contest is over, what are your plans?

Well, look at me, I'm going to become an international surfer! I want to see if I can cash in on the commercial angle in America as well as in Australia. That’s about it. I’m not sure yet, to tell you the truth. I'll return to Australia for a while and then come back here, probably by Christmas. There are a couple of things McTavish and I are working on, and if we ever get over here together we will show so much good surfing to these California boys they won’t even believe it.

[Photos: John Witzig, Ron Stoner, LeRoy Grannis]

Nat Young (1966)

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