by Jim Kempton, photos courtesy of JP Van Swae

When one thinks of the Father of modern-day surfing, Duke Kahanamoku is the name everyone recalls. But if you think of the father of Orange County surfing , there is one iconic standout – Lorrin Whitey Harrison. He was the man who introduced surfing to the area south of Los Angeles more than any other surfer in history. His influence on board-building, introducing the catamaran, and discovering San Onofre shaped southern California’s surf culture more than any other figure in West Coast history.

 

Born in Garden Grove, California, in 1913, Whitey became not only a great surfer, but - like Pete Peterson - an accomplished waterman in many of the ocean disciplines including sailing, fishing, diving and paddling. His personal history in surfing reflects much of the development of the sport and lifestyle in both California and Hawaii from the 1920s on into the 1950s.

“When I was twelve,” Whitey recalled, in an interview with the Surfer’s Journal, “I started walking to Corona del Mar from Laguna Beach to go surfing. We surfed there from 1927 till 1935. That’s when they dredged the channel out to 60ft. deep. There were cables going across the break out to the dredge. We’d be riding and have to jump the cable or lay down on our back to go under it. We thought it was great fun to go out there with the construction going on, surfing in all that. We used to walk there from Laguna because there was no way to drive at the time. I didn’t have a board then, but there was a bathhouse at Corona del Mar and Duke Kahanamoku had made a board out of white pine and left it there. It took us a couple of hours to walk the twelve miles from Laguna Beach to Corona del Mar, but all the way was pretty nice.”  

 

It was the era of Prohibition on alcohol.  Whitey noted that “There was nothing from Abalone Hill all that way, except rum runners, leftover crates, boxes and bottles strewn around the beach.”

Unbeknownst to the crew, Harrison’s surfing in Corona Del Mar’s idyllic surf haven was about to vanish. As dredging commenced to make way for the Newport Harbor, the prolific waves field that had once been the epicenter of Southern California’s surf tribe began to slowly disappear. The surfers knew they had to find another place. And there were rumors of another perfect spot in an old fishing camp called San Onofre.

Whitey was part of the early crew at San Onofre, where Southern California surf culture’s roots would begin to grow. On their first trip to San O, he loaded up the crew into touring cars and we went down to check it out. 

“We went clear down to where the atomic plant is now and surfed that spot. Then we came back up the beach and tried it right where the main shack is now. That’s where we found it was always steadiest. The surf was always pretty good. In one day, we surfed all the different breaks.  The entrance to the beach was just across from the old San Onofre Train Station. You’d drive across the tracks and down the dirt road. At that time Santa Margarita Ranch owned the beach there along with another ranch that owned the land north of the point. We weren’t the first to go down there, people had been going fishing down there for years. The ranchers didn’t seem to mind. In fact, the first time we went there, they were making a Hollywood movie.  They had built this big palm thatch house right on the beach. We slept in it the first night we stayed there. 

This was about 1933/34. By 1935, Corona del Mar was over and San Onofre was our main spot.”

Harrison’s wanderlust and surf passion drove his desire to visit Hawaii, where he knew surfing was the birthplace of the lifestyle he’d come to love. After trying to find a job  as a seaman on one of the boats bound for the Islands, he finally climbed on board the U.S.S. Monterey.

“They had a dance, then the boat took off that evening and I just stayed on. I went out and slept in a steamer chair.  About three or four in the morning this guy came by and said, ‘Hey, where’s your room?’ I said, I couldn’t find it, I made a mistake. So he went off looking for my name and I took off and ran into some other officer.  This is late at night the first night out, so they took me to the Captain and logged me in as a stowaway.  

They caught three more of us. Everyone was either riding freights or stowing away, that   was the only way to get anywhere during the Depression. So they kept us in the brig, but we got to eat the same as the crew. Then about five miles off Diamond Head, they had us climb down a Jacob’s ladder to a tug and we laid out there from 4am to 6:00 that night. Four stowaways and none of us knew each other. I could see the Moana Hotel onshore...it looked like paradise, and I was ready to swim in until we saw some giant sharks.  That night, they put us on a freighter, the Manakai, and we ended up in San Francisco.”

Lorrin turned right around and did the stowaway thing once more: Through the grapevine Harrison learned that the best place to stow away was in the lifeboats. He hid out for two-and-a-half days inside one of them. 

“It was coal black in there. I couldn’t see anything. When I finally climbed out, I was punchy from no food or water. So they hauled me up and stuck me in the isolation ward. All they gave you on that ship was bread and water and I was pretty hungry. They were supposed to have emergency provisions on the lifeboats, but there weren’t any.” 

The ship sailed into the dock at the Aloha Tower in Honolulu with the Royal Hawaiian Band playing and streamers flying. “We were the first people off the boat, in handcuffs, and they turned us over,” he remembered. “But the cops were great. I ate six breakfasts, ham and eggs, everything! They made us stay at the station ‘til the boat left. When I walked out, I was  able to find a job for four dollars a day pressing clothes. I stayed for six months, then stowed away home with Pete. I went over and back every year from then on through 1935, and of course, many times after that.”

Nat Young remarked in his book on surf history, “Stowing away became a surfing tradition that continued right into the sixties”

The automobile had helped increase surfers’ ability to go on surf safaris. At places like Long Beach, Palos Verdes as well as San Onofre, surfers established the Southern

California surf culture. Following their trips to the Hawaiian Islands, guys like Harrison and Peterson were major influences in helping foster a love of Polynesian culture.  Both men were instrumental in helping transplant elements of Polynesia and Hawaii onto the beaches of North America’s Southern California.”

The Hawaiian beach boys taught us to love their music and instruments as well as their waves, explained Whitey. Waikiki was the heart of surfing at the time Whitey teamed up with Pete Peterson. They both lived together for a while and became close friends.  They were two of a very small group of early mainland surfers in the 1940s. While in Waikiki, Whitey worked as a beach boy. In addition to friends like Pete Peterson, Tom Blake, Wally Froiseth and John Kelly, Whitey also hung with the Father of Surfing, Duke Kahanamoku. But his next big adventure is hardly known in the surfing world.

Even as far back as the ancient Hawaiian legends, Sunset Beach on Oahu’s North Shore has always been known for its great surf. But it wasn’t until Whitey explored it in the ‘30s that the North Shore was put on the surfing map. Whitey was one of the first of two surfers to ever ride the place. This was confirmed in a Malcolm Gault-Williams conversation with legendary Hawaiian surfer Wally Froiseth. “Whitey Harrison and Gene “Tarzan” Smith (a Hawaiian local who Whitey had become friends with) went out to Haleiwa one day.  This was, like, around ’37,’38. It was a big day.  And they both almost drowned.”

“When I was in Hawaii Whitey, we were paddling canoes all the time ... When I came back with my first wife, we lived in Dana Point.” He started fishing commercial, and then got a motorcycle and rode it all the way to Los Angeles to work at Pacific Redi-cut Systems Homes for a summer. Pacific Redi-cut Homes was the first company to produce commercial surfboards. After World War II, board experimentation shifted from Waikiki to Southern California. Besides the addition of balsa, the innovation of the fin and the introduction of new materials like fiberglass helped spur development. The scoop nose and use of the rocker that Harrison tried out were the early inklings of improved board design. Lorrin even made some of the first known short boards. But they were built especially for the kids.

 A New Wife, an Old Home, and a Changed World

In 1946, at age 33, Whitey married his second wife, Cecilia Yorba, from one of California’s pioneering Spanish families. Using his surfer’s charm, Lorrin invited her to surf the day he met her on the beach at Doheny. He coaxed her out to the lineup along with his business partner in his abalone business.  He caught a wave with Cecilia but his buddy was on the shoulder and jumped off when he saw them coming tandem. 

“I was standing up, and his board flipped right over, hit on top of her head and shoved her teeth through her lower lip. So that’s how we started. Since then she got so she could ride really good.”

They raised their family in a historic 200-year-old adobe in Capistrano Beach that had

originally belonged to the Yorba clan. It is one of the oldest in Orange County and by far the oldest structure on the coast from Dana Point to Camp Pendleton. Behind the Adobe was a large barn built around 1890. During the early days of surf life on the coast it became an important center for experimentation with various water craft. These included diving gear, paddle boards and outriggers as well as surfboards. In the beginning it was a place for their horses, but not long after Lorrin converted it into a surfboard shop where he and his son-in-law, Jean Pierre “Fly” I, built two hundred and sixty rental boards for San “Steamboat” Mokuahi to use as tourist rides in Waikiki.  He built nearly twenty canoes in the barn as well. And in 1955, Lorrin Harrison became the first to try polyurethane foam in Orange County.

Lorrin’s grandson, JP Van Swae still lives in this home, A longtime photographer for Surfer Magazine, JP has not only chronicled the surf culture but has documented the ancient adobe home as it has weathered over the centuries. He remembers zest his grandfather had for surfing. And his passion for sharing it with everyone. “He loved to teach us grandkids about the beauty of the ocean,” JP says. “And he lived to the fullest right up to the end.”

 With the exception of orange and avocado ranching, Whitey’s work history was almost all related to the ocean. He was instrumental in introducing outrigger canoe racing to the mainland; put in time as a lifeguard; surfboard builder and innovator. He was a master lobster and abalone harvester based out of Dana Point Harbor. Harrison is credited for discovering San Onofre, pioneering the North Shore and building his final family home on the Big Island of Hawaii.

“Whitey was one of the best divers on the coast,” said noted diver David Tompkins. “He was all over the place, living up at Cojo for weeks at a time, diving out in the Channel Islands.  He showed us the way.” 

“Lorrin was the stuff life was made of, long-time friend and fellow surfer,” Mickey Muñoz offered. 

“Lorrin was around here long enough to remember Steelhead salmon spawning up San Juan Creek, and through all of the pollution in general, Lorrin was always true to himself. He wore his coconut hat and would get up in the morning with a big smile on his face and facing all these issues with that smile. He was always enthusiastic and positive. We lost a great light and energy.”