Del Mar’s early surf story starts with a homemade board, two lifeguards, and a beach that looked very different from the one visitors know today.
In 1934, Bob Smith and fellow lifeguard Dick Stumm were living together on Stratford Court. The two traveled to San Onofre and Palos Verdes to watch other surfers and ride borrowed boards. Then they decided to build their own.
Their board was made of balsa and redwood, stretched more than 9 feet long, measured about 24 inches wide, and weighed more than 80 pounds. Three bolts held it together. The Del Mar Lifeguard Department’s history identifies it as the first surfboard built in Del Mar, and Smith and Stumm as the community’s first board surfers.
The enormous wooden board was practical only in small to medium breakers. When larger swells rolled in, body surfers gathered around the pier, sometimes jumping into the water from the pump house. Smith remembered the south side of the pier as the better surfing area and recalled that the beach had more than twice as much sand as it does now.
Skimboarding was also popular at low tide, with Smith and friends sometimes using a tow rope and car to skim along the water’s edge.
By the 1960s, surfing had become a much larger part of Del Mar’s beach culture. Mike Doyle, an early professional surfer who lived in Del Mar, recalled working for surfboard builders Bill Bahne and Tony Chanin, whose manufacturing shops were in the old Del Mar powerhouse.
Doyle also recalled that in 1961 he, Don Hansen, and Del Mar resident Bob Driver opened Hansen Surfboards in North County. Doyle said the shop was located where the present-day Kraken Bar is, with manufacturing next door across from what is now the Chart House.
The growth of surfing is also reflected in the Del Mar Lifeguard Department’s 1965 logbook. On July 4 that year, lifeguards recorded 100 surfers among the 1,500 people at the beach.
That history will be highlighted during the Surf Del Mar Festival, scheduled for Oct. 8-11 and presented by the Del Mar Historical Society. The four-day event will include a surfers’ reunion, surf films, a book fair, art events and programs exploring Del Mar’s surfing history.
For a community whose surf story began with two lifeguards and a homemade wooden board, the festival provides another opportunity to look at how surfing became an enduring part of Del Mar’s history — and how those stories continue to be shared.
Read more history stories here. Do you have a story to tell? Send an email to DebbieSklar@cox.net.
Sources:
- Del Mar Lifeguard Department, “Early History of Lifeguarding in Del Mar.”
- Del Mar Lifeguard Department, “Some Highlights from the Del Mar Lifeguard Longbooks.”
- Surf Del Mar Festival, “Surfers Reunion.”
- Surf Del Mar Festival, “Festival Schedule Oct. 8-11, 2026.”
