This episode is presented by Rainbow® Sandals
Born in 1953, raised in Hawaii, Keone Downing started surfing at age five at Waikiki. He’s won many surf contests, but his crowning achievement, undoubtedly, is winning the 1990 Eddie, on a board shaped by his father, the late George Downing, one of the founders of modern surfing, a big-wave pioneer, a design innovator, and a Waikiki beach boy.
Keone inherited his father’s waterman ethos. A devoted outrigger canoe paddler, he and his team won five Molokai to Oahu races in the 1980s, and Keone was the 1988 World Canoe Surfing Champion.
Today, Keone and his sister, Kaiulu, run Downing Hawaii, the shop their father launched in 1968. Keone shapes, surfs, fathers, grandfathers. He’s attuned to the ocean and conscious of surfing’s roots, history, and spiritual leanings in a way that’s palpable.
In this episode of Soundings, Downing talks with Jamie Brisick about his father, the birth of modern surfboard design and the influence of wartime innovations in aerodynamics, the values of teamwork, and surfing Waimea Bay.
Produced by Jonathan Shifflett.
Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin).
Feature image by Tom Servais.
