WindanSea Surf Club Californian Heritage
From California to Caloundra. The roots of WindanSea go all the way back to the early 1960s when a bunch elite surfing mates banded together at WindanSea beach California to create WindanSea Surf Club to compete as a team and become champions.
From day one, WindanSea Surf Club was where the sport's most serious Californian competitive talent gathered. By 1963 members included Miki Dora, Mike Doyle, Phil Edwards, Donald Takayama, Mickey Munoz and hot young juniors David Nuuhiwa, Corky Carroll and the phenomenal Margo Godfrey-Oberg the best female surfer on the planet for a decade or more.
The club set out to be the best in the world and membership was initially by invitation only. An invite into the club was considered an extremely prestigious honour. A tradition the Calondra club They established an international presence with Hawaiian, Mexican, and Australian branches of the club. Members travelled to the South Pacific and Australia to compete in contests and star in the surf films of the day.
The competitive heritage of the club continues today, as the Windansea Surf Club has dominated the Coalition of Surfing Clubs contest circuit ... current membership includes many successful professional surfers and past champions, including Kelly Slater, Joel Tudor, Peter King, Joe Roper, Richard Kenvin and Saxon Boucher. The elements of charity and community involvement are still being fostered.
During the 1970’s the surf culture across Australian beaches developed according to new influences and a proud Australian surfing culture was established that included WindanSea Caloundra.
Windansea Caloundra was created by young Australian surfers inspired by the rich history and traditions of the elite WindanSea Surf Club California and so imbedded characteristics of strong personal and team values to be elite surfing competitors.
This cultural history created an expectation for WindanSea Caloundra members being high quality characters with elite surfing skills and commitment to community.
These ideals found fertile ground amongst Caloundra’s emerging community of surfers Lawrie Jarman, etc and Pa Bendall who had established the Moffateers as an elite big wave and big character club in Caloundra.
And Windansea Caloundra emerged form this melting pot or perhaps primal soup as a fully-fledged elite and excellent surf club. The rest of course is history – world, Australian, state and local champions of over the next 50 years!