Dawn Patrol:

In the days long before Kelly Slater it was a given that the best surfers came from Southern California or Hawaii. Sure, there was surfing in Australia, South Africa, and Peru, but their surfers weren’t considered to be on the same level.

At the bottom of the heap was the U.S. East Coast. It was assumed that because of the smaller, inconsistent waves, East Coast surfers wouldn’t be able to compete with Californians and Hawaiians. In surfing magazines coverage of the East Coast, it was relegated to a few paragraphs with black and white photos on the last couple of advertisement pages.

By the mid 1960s things would change as Florida surfers like Gary Propper and Bruce Valluzzi began to get more notice and Cocoa Beach local Mike Tabeling, riding for Dewey Weber Surfboards, began flying out to compete in West Coast contests. Mike would rock the status quo by winning some big events like the Laguna Masters at the Redondo Breakwater and in 1967 he made history by becoming the first East Coast surfer to be ranked No. 1 on both coasts.

I met Mike through a mutual friend, and though I knew about his 60s contest surfing, it wasn’t until I got to know him a little better and he agreed to an interview that I learned the extent of his accomplishments.

Tabeling began surfing in 1963 at the age of 14. Less than two years later, he was competing at the World Championship in Peru. In fact he is one of the few surfers to compete in four of the first five World Championships: Peru in ‘65, Ocean Beach in ’66, Puerto Rico in ’68 and Bells Beach in ’70.

He was the first East Coast surfer to be on the cover of Surfer Magazine and the first to win contests in California and internationally. He and Nat Young were the only team riders to have their names on a Dewey Weber model board. The Weber “DNT” (Dewey, Nat, Tabeling) came out in 1969 and today they are highly valued by collectors.

When I asked him about the East vs. West rivalry of the 60s Mike said the West Coast guys were generally nice and that he made friends with South Bay surfers Mike Purpus and Dru Harrison. But he told me, “Yeah, there was a huge rivalry. They were getting beat by a guy from the East Coast and that was unthinkable”.

In the early 70s Mike left competitive surfing and began traveling. In 1972, he made his first trip to South Africa where he surfed the perfect, uncrowded rights of Jeffreys Bay – then virtually unknown except to a few locals like Tony Van den Heuvel.

He went back for 10 months in 1974 and in 1988 he returned to stay for 10 years. Mike still rates “J Bay” as his favorite wave, with Kirra (Queensland Australia) second.

Today Mike lives in Capistrano Beach and heads the Southern California and Mexico division of Global Surf Industries ( www.surfindustries.com), the world’s largest distributor of surfboards. Going strong in his 60s Mike still surfs regularly.

JOHN BURTON’S surf column appears Fridays. He may be reached by e-mail at hot_dogger@mac.com.