In the Lineup: More than gender determines winners in surf

At a pau-hana party at Tiki’s Grill & Bar in Waikiki, a well-dressed woman at the buffet table waved me ahead of her with a friendly smile. “You go first!” she insisted.

I thanked her and introduced myself; her name was Francine. Small and slender, tan, with a flower in her long, sun-streaked dark hair, she looked familiar, but we didn’t remember having met.

Walking back to our tables, we paused at a balcony overlooking Queen’s Surf. The waves were flat, I said — I wasn’t missing anything.

Francine laughed and said she’d guessed I was a surfer. “I surf, too. Well, I boogie board — my husband surfs. We go to Lighthouse, off Diamond Head.”

Maybe that was where we’d crossed paths. Lighthouse is near Suis, where I surf. But neither of us had tried the other’s regular break.

You get attached to a place where people know you and are more likely to share waves.

“I remember when I first started, I was the only girl in the lineup,” Francine said. “Now there’s so many!”

“Isn’t it great?” I said.

Francine’s eyes widened. She tilted her head with a birdlike, quizzical look.

AS MORE women surfed, I’ve always thought, things would get more equal. After all, starting next year, women will receive the same prize money as men in World Surf League events. But when it comes to equal opportunity for waves, progress has lagged in this male-dominated sport.

Francine began surfing 40 years ago, but a generation later, when Carissa Moore started out, she, too, was the only girl in the lineup at times. “Sometimes it is still a struggle to get waves with all the guys out there,” Moore mentioned to Ferd Lewis in his Star-Advertiser column about WSL’s pay parity announcement.

I was surprised that the popular 26-year-old, three-time world champ faces the same pressures I do.

“It just can be intimidating at times,” Moore told me in an interview. “Males out in the lineup are stronger, more aggressive, and sometimes it’s hard to stand up and take ownership, meet that intensity. Everyone wants waves.”

That’s why she treasures Kewalos, her local spot. “It’s pretty friendly. I’ve been surfing there my whole life, and get some respect there.” She surfs with her dad, Chris Moore, her husband, Luke Untermann, and, lately, “some little girls we’ve been coaching.”

AT KEWALOS the morning of Sept. 13, it was like trying to pick a dolphin from a pod, trying to distinguish Moore from the other surfers sitting offshore in a gray mist and drizzle. Then she leapt into action, carving a wave and springing aloft in a flash of pink-and-white board and big plume of spray.

After paddling in, she was greeted with a white orchid lei that rested like sea foam on her shoulders as she stood barefoot on the sea wall. It was her second surf session in the four days since she’d returned home from her win at the Surf Ranch in California, and she would probably surf again that afternoon with the girls she’s been mentoring after school. “It’s really fun,” she said with a smile. “But Dad’s the main coach,” she added.

He’s her coach, too. Was it difficult to share him?

“It took a little while, but it’s OK, just as long as I come first!”

Moore added that she and her family have founded a nonprofit organization, ­MooreAloha, to mentor local girl surfers. “It’s really special for us to be around that energy,” she said. “Next year, I’d like to do something bigger, maybe a surf camp for girls.”

“ISN’T IT better that more women surf?” I asked Francine.

She shrugged.

“I mean, there’s just so many more people, it’s so crowded!”

Once again, she shot me that look.

I realized who Francine reminded me of: Rell Sunn, champion surfer and children’s mentor, shining Queen of Makaha, who died of breast cancer, age 47, in 1998. I met her once, when the boys I surfed with entered me in a Waikiki junior girls’ contest. Rell outsmarted and outsurfed me, and although I didn’t know it then, it was an honor to lose to her.

“In the Lineup” features Hawaii’s oceangoers and their regular hangouts, from the beach to the deep blue sea. Reach Mindy Pennybacker at mpennybacker@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4772.