COURTESY OF STUART COLEMAN
Fearless Eddie Aikau aboard the Hokule'a, from which he departed on his surfboard for the last time in 1978.
Finding the real For Eddie Aikau, departing the capsized Hokule'a atop his surfboard for the island of Lanai on the morning of March 17, 1978, was less an act of daring than self-sacrifice. As with hundreds of previous ocean rescues as a North Shore lifeguard, the fearless Hawaiian had placed the welfare of his fellow man before his own. This final, selfless gesture, many say, immortalized the well-loved waterman, yet as Stuart Holmes Coleman relates, Aikau's legend was cemented long before the Hokule'a set sail on that fateful voyage.
Eddie Aikau
3 years of research revealed
Book tells of a heroic modern Hawaiian
a man more complex than even
his friends and family realized
By Shawn 'Speedy' Lopes
slopes@starbulletin.comColeman's new book, "Eddie Would Go: The Story of Eddie Aikau, Hawaiian Hero," is the first biography to capture Aikau's storied existence. Upon moving to Hawaii nearly a decade ago, Coleman, an avid surfer from South Carolina, learned of Aikau through Hokule'a voyager Marion Lyman-Mersereau and was moved to commit the story to paper.
In compiling three years of research, Coleman interviewed sailors, harbor pilots, big-wave surfers, lifeguards, community activists, scholars and Hokule'a members as well as Aikau's family and friends.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Stuart Coleman, author of Aikau's biography, "Eddie Would Go."
"I wanted to get the most well-rounded portrait of this guy and who he really was," Coleman said. "Being very aware of the fact that I was a haole from the mainland telling this local story, I wanted to put it as much as possible in their words and tell the story through the people that knew him the best."
Through their recollections, Coleman discovered Aikau was an individual far more complex than he had imagined.
"Here's a guy that dropped out of high school in the 10th grade, and yet some of his closest friends were scholars and teachers," he said, noting that Aikau's incomparable knowledge of the sea allowed him to relate and easily converse with scientists and oceanographers on ocean matters. "The best compliment I've gotten is from people who knew him well who say, 'I never knew that about him.'"
COLEMAN IS THE director of an educational nonprofit called College Connections Hawaii, which offers affordable SAT-Prep classes and college advising around the state to help students get into college. The agency is launching a Tutoring Program through the DOE as part of the No Child Gets Left Behind Act.
Coleman said Aikau's story is an inspirational one. Born on Maui in 1946, Aikau was born to a poor family that moved to Oahu in 1959 and lived at a Chinese graveyard in Pauoa, which they tended. The close-knit and popular Aikau family, he said, would spend what little they had on their now-legendary parties where local entertainers, surfers and friends would gather.
"Even Mayor Fasi came by because he knew it was a great way to meet people and be associated with this family that was becoming, in their own way, a very powerful social force."
"Here's a guy that was intensely local in many ways and fiercely proud to be Hawaiian," Coleman said. "And yet when the Hawaiian renaissance was happening in the '70s, and there was a lot of anger toward haoles, he and his family were among the first to step up and protect people from all over. He got involved and helped resolve some very intense racial disputes on the North Shore."
As Coleman explained, in 1976, as the rapidly evolving Hawaiian surfing community endured new conflicts on several fronts, a rift between Hawaiians and Australians resulted in violent episodes and death threats around Oahu. Many of the Australian surfers went into hiding, fearing for their lives.
"He stepped in and (famed Aussie surfer) Rabbit Bartholomew, for one, said, 'Eddie Aikau saved my life that year.'"
COLEMAN IS AWARE of the danger confronting every biographer, which is to mythologize his subject. He tried to avoid that by assembling what he believes is an accurate account of Aikau's life, including his travails and excesses. Still, Coleman said, during the research project he found nothing that compromised Aikau's character or public standing.
COURTESY OF STUART COLEMAN
Eddie Aikau was a courageous surfer. Here, a youthful Aikau stood shoulder to shoulder with surfing icon Duke Kahanamoku.
"He really was sincerely devoted to helping people," Coleman said with a sigh of wonder. "You know, it's so rare these days to see someone risk his life on a regular basis. Even when most of the other lifeguards on the North Shore who were incredibly brave wouldn't go (into the water) during certain conditions, he would."
Just as Aikau's courage inspired the popular catch phrase "Eddie Would Go" among North Shore wave riders, the late surfing great Mark Foo introduced the enduring slogan to a public audience at the first Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational in 1986. In the years since, those ubiquitous "Eddie Would Go" bumper stickers have served as reminders of Aikau's legend.
Even so, Coleman said many misconceptions about Aikau abound, and many confuse him with other Hawaiian cultural icons such as George Helms and Tommy Holmes. "Other people only thought of him as a big-wave surfer and lifeguard, and he was so much more than that."
That's partly why Coleman has committed himself to perpetuating Aikau's memory through his book. He continues to promote the biography, traveling to California this week in hope that others outside of Hawaii will come to recognize the Aikau legacy.
If all goes well, he hopes to close a paperback rights deal with a New York publishing house.
"As I was writing this, I realized that this guy's story was really the story of modern Hawaii and the Hawaiian renaissance," he said. "It was a much bigger story than I had first thought -- one that's not just for surfers, but for anyone who is interested in Hawaiian culture."
Click for online
calendars and events.
