With an estimated four million surfers hitting the beach every year in the United States alone, surfing technology has radically changed with surfboards evolving from solid-wood planks to high-tech, Clark Foam core blanks (about 90 percent of the surfboards made in the United States use Clark) and Hobie Alter pioneering techniques of wrapping polyurethane foam "blanks" in resin-coated fiberglass, the basis of all modern surfboards.

Polynesians began riding waves as far back as 2000 B.C. Hardy pioneers on outrigger sailboats brought the sport with them when they migrated to the Hawaiian islands about 400 A.D., and surfing became both a sport and a way of life connected to Hawaiian religious beliefs. When European explorers first arrived and found villages deserted, they discovered the waves were up, and the whole village was down surfing at their nearest favorite spot.

With the arrival of European missionaries and prohibition of Hawaiian traditions, the sport of surfing almost died in the 1800s. But at the beginning of the 20th century, an Olympic swimming champion and Hawaiian native, Duke Kahanamoku, already a surfing legend on Oahu, traveled to California and Australia to demonstrate the ancient art on local beaches.

Kahanamoku, revered by surfers as the father of modern surfing, also showed Californians how to build the boards -- sparking an wave of innovation as new surfers began to experiment with surfboard shapes and materials. Those experiments would change the sport forever. Instead of standing tall and aiming straight along the face of the wave, smaller, lighter boards, built on polyurethane foam cores wrapped in fiberglass, allowed surfers to change directions with ease and move on the water in ways the ancient Hawaiians never could.

But surfing exploded in 1957 when a 15-year-old girl named Kathy Kohner (Zuckerman) got caught up in the surfing craze at the beach in Malibu, California. Surfers named her Gidget -- short for "girl midget." She told her father about her new hobby, and he turned it into a book. Soon would follow a movie and a TV series. Surf culture spun guitar bands like Dick Dale and the Surfaris, who provided the soundtrack for the movie.

In the 1960s and 70s, surfers took to ever-shorter, one- and two-finned boards and adopted a mellow, organic groove in the water. In the early 1980s, a three-fin design pioneered by Australian surfer Simon Anderson allowed riders to make more aggressive moves. The next generation of surfboards, made from composite materials, promises to be even lighter, stronger and faster. Computer-aided shaping tools are becoming more common, and surfboard contours are becoming more sophisticated.

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