The Legend
Duke Kahanamoku
1890 to 1968 · Honolulu, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi
Ambassador of Aloha
“In Hawaii, we greet friends, loved ones or strangers with Aloha, which means with love.”
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, the first of nine children. He was named for his father, who had been named by Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop after the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit to the islands in 1869. He grew up on the sand at Waikīkī, surfing a solid koa board sixteen feet long and weighing a hundred and fourteen pounds.
In 1911, in his first competitive races in Honolulu Harbor, he broke three freestyle world records. Officials on the mainland refused to ratify the times and assumed the stopwatches were wrong. A year later he won gold in the 100m freestyle at the Stockholm Olympics and settled the argument. He would go on to compete at four Games across two decades and take six medals, the last of them at forty-two.
A Life on the Water
Duke’s Journey
1890
Born in Honolulu, the first of nine children. Named for the Duke of Edinburgh, a name that would come to mean the ocean itself.
1911
Breaks three freestyle world records in Honolulu Harbor. The mainland refuses to believe the times.
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.
1929
Rides a wave one and an eighth miles at Waikīkī, still counted as the longest ride of the modern era.
1934
Elected Sheriff of Honolulu. Re-elected thirteen times, serving until 1959.
1960
Named the State of Hawaiʻi’s official 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 to 1932
6
Olympic Medals in Total
Malama 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.