Ambassador of Aloha
He was Hawaiʻi’s Ambassador of Aloha, a role invented for him because no title fitted.
Duke Kahanamoku
Olympic champion, sheriff, actor, and the man Hawaiʻi sent out to meet the world. Above all of it, he was the person who carried surfing off these islands and handed it to anyone who wanted to learn. This is his story, and the reason his name is on everything we make.
Born in Honolulu, 1890
Born of the Sea, Built for the Wave
Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku was born on 24 August 1890 in Honolulu, in what was still the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. He was raised in Kalia, Waikīkī, a few hundred steps from where the gallery now stands.
In 1912 he won gold in the 100m freestyle at the Stockholm Olympics. He went back in 1920 and again in 1924, and came home with five medals, three gold and two silver. He rarely brought them up.
A Life on the Water
Duke’s Journey
1890
Born in Honolulu on 24 August, in what was still the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. Raised in Kalia, Waikīkī.
1912
Gold in the 100m freestyle at the Stockholm Olympics, the first of five Olympic medals.
1912
Olympic gold in the 100m freestyle at Stockholm, and relay silver. A global figure overnight.
1914
Carries surfing to the US Atlantic coast, Australia and New Zealand. At Freshwater Beach in Sydney he shapes a board from local pine and paddles out.
1920
Two golds at the Antwerp Games, at thirty.
1925
Pulls eight men from the surf off Newport Beach using his board. The police chief calls it the finest surfboard rescue the world has seen. US lifeguards change how they work because of it.
1925
Brings eight men alive off a capsized fishing boat off Newport Beach, California, on 14 June 1925.
1934
Sheriff of the City and County of Honolulu, an office he held until 1961.
1960
Named Hawaiʻi’s Ambassador of Aloha, a role invented for him because no title fitted.
1968
Dies in Honolulu on 22 January. His ashes are carried out past the Waikīkī break.
By the Numbers
A Life in the Water
3×
Olympic Gold Medals
4
Olympic Games: 1912, 1920, 1924
6
Olympic Medals, Three Gold and Two Silver
Mālama Pono
To care for something properly, and with care. That is what we were set up to do with Duke’s name, and it is the standard every piece here has to meet before it carries his signature.