Power Trio
by Corky Carroll
Back in the early thru mid 1960’s I had the good fortune to be growing up in Orange County at the time that surfing was booming. It had gone from a smallish bohemian kinda activity, only done by some beatniks along the coast and in Hawaii, to a full-blown national fad.
It seemed that everybody was surfing. There were surfing contests almost every weekend at one beach town along the coast or another. I was in most of them too. About the time that I was first able to drive I had a couple of good pals who I spent a ton of time with surfing and going to events. Mark Martinson and Billy Hamilton. Both of these dudes were excellent surfers and super fun guys to hang out with. The kinda guys who appreciated a good party as much as I did.
Mark was a little bit older and was the first to be able to drive. He was able to borrow his mom’s car sometimes. There was this one time that there had been a great party on a Friday night up in the South Bay. We both had dates. Marks date was a tad, lets say, more amorous than mine so on the way back I did the driving while Mark and said date had the back seat. Said date might have had a bit too much punch at the party and wound up barfing in the back seat. We had to totally hose it out to get it clean.
The next morning Marks mom asked him why the back seat was all wet. With a total straight face, he told her that we had stopped to check the surf and parked too close to the water and a big set wave and broke over the car and the back window was open. And SHE BOUGHT IT.
This sort of gives you an idea of how things went with us in those days. The three of us all could surf well, although had completely different approaches to it. Billy was super smooth and worked on his style intensely. Down to making sure not only his hands were in proper position but also even his fingers. His surfing was beautiful to watch. Mark was a power surfer, compact and surfed with a lot of speed. I was more flamboyant and went for big moves. Lucky for me that in those days it was the more flamboyant moves that scored the most points in the contests, so I won more of them.
There was one that Mark won down in Oceanside and I took second place. He had got a killer ride in the finals where he did a “cheater five” all the way across a good wave. The first time that Mark had beat me. We had gone there in my first car. All the way home he was doing cheater fives across my dashboard and laughing. I was seething, but at the same time stoked for my pal.
All through those years the three of us hung out and went to parties and surf competitions together, trying to redefine the term “fun.” And our surfing grew. I think that the friendly competition amongst us had a lot to do with that.
As we, can I even use the word, “matured?,” our different approaches more or less wound up wearing off on each other. Billy’s incredibly good style started to become more powerful and he had the moves to go along with it. To this day I would say that he is the most stylish surfer that I have ever seen.
Mark added more flare into his surfing and probably would have been one of the top competitive surfers ever if it had not been for an unfortunate disagreement with the Draft Board and having to lay low during what would have been the prime years of his career. I smoothed out and got some power. Short boards were great for me and thankfully I was in the right place at the right time during those first years of the “shortboard revolution.”
The three of us have remained friends thru the years even though we all went off in different directions. Billy lives on Kauai and makes great boards. He is also father to the infamous Laird Hamilton. Mark was also a great surfboard shaper who worked with Robert August in Huntington Beach, commuting from his home on the North Shore of Oahu. He recently passed away, sad to say. Much of the foundation of both my surfing and my life was forged hanging out with those two dudes. I was thinking about it today so thought I would share it with you.
