Greg and son Jed, NYC. Photo: Brooks/A-Frame

Greg Noll is not Da Cat because he is Da Bull. He is Da Bull of da North Shore. It is widely held that in 1957 Da Bull became the first man to ride Waimea Bay. 1957! Right when most Americans were watching Elvis Presley on Ed Sullivan and Russians were watching Sputnik fly high in the sky and Brits weren’t watching anything because their TVs were blacked out from 6pm to 7pm for Toddlers’ Truce, there Greg Noll was surfing mountains. Da Bull!

He is not Hawaiian, no. He was born Greg Lawhead in Manhattan Beach, California but changed his name to Noll because his mom married one after Lawhead got dumped.

He first went to Hawaii when he was seventeen years old and lived on the beach at Makaha for seven months and finished high school at Waipahu. He loved Makaha but he loved bigger waves more so he started hanging around that dastardly North Shore. He surfed Sunset, Laniakea, and then on November 7, 1957 he convinced six of his friends to follow him out to the Bay. There they surfed mountains.

The year before he had brought surfing to Australia. Real surfing. The Australians rode all weird but Da Bull, along with the American lifeguard team, visited with their “Malibu chip” surfboards and slayed all the convicts. “We hit ‘em like a comet,” Noll said. Silly Australians. Da Bull!

He road the largest wave ever, at the time, at Makaha in 1969 and then that was it. He quit and moved to Alaska to fish commercially. But he’s back now making limited edition Miki Dora surfboards that sell for $10,000 apiece.

$10,000! Da Cat! – Chas Smith