Eddie Aikau: Beyond the legend

Everybody in Hawaii knows that Eddie would go, and T-shirts and bumper stickers from Sandy Beach to Wai­mea Bay offer daily proof. But it turns out that a lot of people — even some of today’s professional surfers — have no idea why he went.

Documentary filmmaker Sam George understood that when fellow filmmaker Stacy Peralta asked him three years ago if he felt there was enough to Eddie Aikau’s life and times to make a movie.

"I said not only is there a great story, it is the greatest story never told," George said in a phone call from his home in Malibu, Calif.

So George told it. He said he found the Eddie few know and in the process found an allegory for the Hawaiian Renaissance.

His new film, "Hawaiian: The Legend of Eddie Aikau," will open the Maui Film Festival Wednesday night with a screening under the stars at Wai­lea. And in October it will be part of ESPN’s acclaimed "30 for 30" documentary series.

The film uses family photos, historical footage and little-known personal history to reveal an intimate portrait of Aikau.

"What is exciting is when you get a chance to tell people something deeper than what they thought they knew," said George, a 57-year-old former editor of Surfing and Surfer magazines.

"Our film is not just about Eddie," he said. "It places him in the context of contemporary Hawaiian culture. The Aikau family is the story of Hawaii."

Aikau, a big-wave surfer and lifeguard without peer, is arguably the most legendary Hawaiian of modern times. He died a hero trying to save his friends as they clung to the capsized hull of the voyaging canoe Hoku­le‘a in 1978.

But 35 years after his death, Aikau is better known for the prestigious surf contest held in his honor. The Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau, which markets the phrase "Eddie Would Go," is held only when the waves at Wai­mea Bay are at least 20 feet.

Although a biography was published in 2002 — Stuart Coleman’s "Eddie Would Go: The Story of Eddie Aikau, Hawaiian Hero" — there have been no major profiles in the surfing press and nothing done on film, said George.

"Here’s a family, a Hawaiian family, with one foot in the past and one in the present," George said. "And Eddie bridged that. He was very contemporary, but he also reflected a traditional Hawaiian culture that in modern times had been seriously marginalized."

AIKAU gained prominence in the late 1960s and ’70s as a big-wave surfer and North Shore lifeguard. He was the first city lifeguard at Wai­mea Bay, where he rescued more than 500 people.

By March 17, 1978, Aikau was part of the Hoku­le‘a crew as the double-hulled sailing canoe began a 2,500-mile voyage to Tahiti. He had grown increasingly interested in the re-emerging pride in Hawaiian culture, and Hoku­le‘a was a guiding star of that renaissance.

But on the first night of the voyage, while being battered by heavy seas and gale-force winds, the canoe overturned not far from Lanai. Crew members clung to the vessel for hours before Aikau convinced everyone he could paddle a surfboard to land. He set out for help, confidently stroking over heaving swells, and was never seen again.

Hokule‘a navigator Nai­noa Thompson, who was aboard the ill-fated voyage, offers a riveting account of the tragedy in the documentary’s final 20 minutes, the filmmaker said.

"Nainoa Thompson says it best," George said. "Because of what Hoku­le‘a meant to the Hawaiian people, Eddie Aikau could not stand to let that be a failure."

George re-created that scene and shot it from a helicopter off Koko Head. It is one of the film’s most important moments and the first scene he envisioned for the project.

"With that in mind, everything led up to that," he said.

When George started working on the film, a lot of people told him there were no photos or footage of Aikau surfing, but none of them "had dug very deep," he said.

George found photos among the collections of older surf photographers and TV film clips that aired on ABC’s "Wide World of Sports," which regularly covered the Duke Kaha­na­moku Invitational Surfing Championships in Hawaii. Aikau won that contest in 1977, and his brother Clyde, who is also a Wai­mea Bay lifeguard and pro surfer, was the 1973 winner.

But the real gold mine was under the Aikau family home in Pauoa. George had heard there was supposed to be a crate full of family memorabilia stashed there, but nothing prepared the filmmaker for what Aikau’s sister, Myra, brought out: hundreds of family photographs and yellowed newspaper clippings of the surfer’s achievements.

"For a documentary filmmaker, that was like King Tut’s tomb," George said. "That is what brings the film to life, that intimate look at Eddie."

THE STRENGTH of Aikau’s story is his rediscovery of his Hawaiian identity.

"I would say it is one of the most cultural films about Hawaii and about a Hawaiian that you have ever seen,"said Glen Moncata, vice president of sales and marketing for the Pacific Basin for Quiksilver and a longtime organizer of the big-wave contest. "What’s great about this film is it’s not a surf film. It’s a cultural film."

Aikau wanted to do everything he could to understand his culture, Moncata said.

"I think he was proud of being a Hawaiian, and by going on the Hoku­le‘a, he felt it was what he needed to do to figure out where he came from," he said.

The film had its world premiere in April at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, but George held a screening last fall in Hono­lulu for the Aikau family and their friends. Myra Aikau said more than 400 people filled the theater.

"They had everyone in tears," she said. "They did such a good job."

She will be on Maui for the festival screening, along with her brothers, Solomon and Clyde, who called the film "fabulous."

A lot of people told Clyde Aikau it was the best movie of any kind they had ever seen. It has a message even nonsurfers can relate to, he said.

"I think the bottom line is that surfing and saving lives and this and that is one thing," he said. "But everybody, no matter who you are — a person from Idaho or from Ireland or wherever — everybody understands the feeling of sacrificing one’s life for someone else."

That resonated with North Shore lifeguard Mark Dombroski when he saw the film last fall. Now 59, he credits Eddie Aikau with helping him get hired in 1975.

Dombroski looked up to Aikau, whose dream came true when he was accepted for the Hoku­le‘a crew. Aikau was in his prime, and he loved saving lives at Wai­mea, but the voyaging canoe became his passion.

In the end, it also drew everything about him into a single act of courage.

There was no doubt Eddie would go. It had nothing to do with the size of the surf, but instead, the size of his heart.

"When he left that boat, I am sure he thought he would make it," Dombro­ski said. "And everybody on that boat probably thought he would make it."