Thomas Edward Blake (March 8, 1902 – May 5, 1994) was an American athlete, inventor, and writer, widely considered to be one of the most influential surfers in history, and a key figure in transforming surfing from a regional Hawaiian specialty to a nationally popular sport. Assessing Blake's significance, the sociologist Kristin Lawler wrote: "Tom Blake is a legendary figure; he's considered the founder of California surf culture. He personally innovated most of what's associated with surfers to this day: he was the first to experiment with making better surfboards, revolutionizing board design in the process with lightweight materials and the fin; he was the first to build a waterproof camera housing and inaugurated the tradition of surfers documenting themselves and their friends; and he was the first among countless surfers to come to write a book on the history and pleasures of surfing. In addition, his personal style became the prototypical beachcomber look, still in effect today."
Early life
Blake was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was eleven months old, and his father left him in the care of relatives in Hibbing, Minnesota, Ashland, Wisconsin, and finally Washburn, Wisconsin on the Lake Superior shore, where he spent most of his childhood. He attended Washburn's St. Louis Catholic School, where, he later recalled, an educational film provided his first awareness of surfing.
Blake attended Washburn High School, but the 1918 influenza pandemic closed the school during his senior year, and local records are inconclusive as to whether he graduated. After leaving school, Blake embarked upon the nomadic lifestyle that would characterize most of his life, working a succession of jobs in Detroit, New York, and Miami. One episode from that period that presaged his later career occurred in Detroit in 1920, when he encountered the legendary Hawaiian surfer Duke Kahanamoku at a movie theater. He shook hands with Kahanamoku and later reported, "I felt that somehow he had included an invitation to me to come over to his own Hawaiian islands... As I look back now I realize how much I was influenced by this first contact with the man who has become the best-known personality in the history of surfing." Blake and Kahanamoku later became good friends.
By 1921, Blake was living in Santa Monica, California, where he supported himself as a lifeguard and occasionally worked as a stuntman in films. Over the years he served as stunt double for stars such as Ramon Navarro and Clark Gable. During this period he became active in competitive swimming. In 1922, he traveled to Pennsylvania to enter a ten-mile race on the Delaware River; triumphing over a field of the east coast's top swimmers and breaking the existing record in the process.
Surfing and surfboards
Blake first attempted to ride a wave in 1921 on an old board he found while working at the Santa Monica Swim Club. According to his account, he wiped out badly and waited several years to try again. By 1924, however, his interest returned, to the point that he traveled to Hawaii to learn more about the sport. Upon arrival, Blake attempted to seek out Kahanamoku, only to find that he was not on the island. However, he quickly became friends with Duke's five brothers, all skilled surfers in their own right, and became immersed in the study of surfing and Hawaiian culture. For the next thirty years, Blake would divide his time between Hawaii and the mainland, shuttling back and forth every year except when interrupted by the Second World War.
Over the next decade, Blake rose to eminence in a sport that had until then been largely the province of native Hawaiians. Back on the mainland, in September 1927, Blake and his friend Sam Reid became the first to surf Malibu Point, and in 1928, he organized, and then won, the first Pacific Coast Surfriding Championship. In 1930, he entered the Hawaiian Surfboard Paddling Championships using a lightweight board of his own design. He overwhelmed all opposition, setting eight new records in the course of the match. However, his victory sparked some resentment among his native Hawaiian friends, feeling that the new board had given him unfair advantage, and Blake stopped entering races after this. Nonetheless, he continued to compile an extraordinary record of athletic feats. In 1932, Blake, with two friends, made the first successful attempt at paddling the 26 miles from the mainland to Catalina Island. Then on August 1, 1936, he set a milestone that still stands: entering the waves at Kalehuawehe near Waikiki, he made a run estimated at 4,500 feet, the longest recorded surf ride in history.