For a country at the bottom of Africa, a long way from surfing's traditional centres, South Africa has produced an astonishing run of great surfers. World champions, a Championship Tour stalwart, big-wave chargers who conquered Mavericks and an Olympic medallist all learned their craft on our beaches. These are the South African surfing legends who put the country on the map, and the stories behind their biggest moments. Every one of them started the same way: as a kid on a local beach, chasing waves before school.
Where South African surfing began
The first person recorded surfing standing up in South Africa was Heather Price, in 1919, and Muizenberg in False Bay is widely regarded as the home of South African surfing. The sport grew through the 1950s and 1960s along the Cape and Durban beachfronts, and in 1966 The Endless Summer showed the world the perfect right-handers of Cape St Francis. Travelling surfers who came looking for that wave soon found J-Bay just up the coast.
That growth happened under apartheid. Beaches were segregated by law, many South Africans were shut out of the sport for decades, and the country's surfers were cut off from much of international competition. It is a history worth remembering when you look at who gets to surf today, and why development programmes that bring more young South Africans into the water matter.
South African surfing legends: milestones at a glance
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1919 | Heather Price is recorded surfing standing up, a South African first |
| 1966 | The Endless Summer features the right-hand point at Cape St Francis |
| 1977 | Shaun Tomson wins the IPS world title |
| 1981 | Tomson wins the first Beach Hotel Classic at J-Bay, forerunner of the J-Bay Open |
| 1987 | Wendy Botha wins the women's world title for South Africa |
| 1989 | Martin Potter wins the ASP world title |
| 2006 | Grant "Twiggy" Baker wins the Mavericks contest |
| 2010 | Chris Bertish wins at Mavericks; Jordy Smith wins at J-Bay |
| 2014 | Baker wins Mavericks for a second time |
| 2017 | Bertish completes a solo, unsupported crossing of the Atlantic on a stand-up paddleboard |
| 2021 | Bianca Buitendag wins silver at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics |
| 2024 | Sarah Baum wins the WSL J-Bay Classic and surfs at the Paris Olympics |
| 2025 | Jordy Smith wins two Championship Tour events and finishes third in the world |
Shaun Tomson: the 1977 world champion
Born in Durban in 1955, Shaun Tomson learned to surf in the beach breaks around the city under the eye of his father, Ernie, alongside his cousin Michael and his brother Paul. In the mid-1970s he travelled to Hawaii and changed the way people rode the tube. Where others raced through barrels, Tomson seemed to slow time down inside them, weaving and pumping through sections that looked impossible and driving through closing lips over shallow reef. That era, when a crew of young South Africans and Australians shook up the North Shore, is captured in the film Free Ride and in Bustin' Down the Door, the 2008 documentary Tomson co-produced.
In 1977 he won the world title on the International Professional Surfers tour, becoming South Africa's first professional world champion. In 1981 he also won the inaugural Beach Hotel Classic at Jeffreys Bay, the contest that grew into the J-Bay Open. Away from competition he founded the Instinct clothing label and became an author and speaker, best known for his book Surfer's Code.
Wendy Botha and the women who broke through
Wendy Botha won the women's world title in 1987 representing South Africa, at a time when the country's athletes faced growing isolation. She later took Australian citizenship and won three more world titles for her new country, in 1989, 1991 and 1992, making her one of the most successful women in the history of the professional tour.
That same year, 1987, Shavonne Hill won an event at J-Bay. It would be 37 years before another South African woman won at Supertubes, a gap that Sarah Baum closed in 2024. In between, South African women such as Bianca Buitendag carried the flag on the Championship Tour.
Martin Potter: the 1989 world champion
Martin Potter was born in Blyth in the north of England in 1965, but his family moved to Durban when he was two, and the city's punchy beach breaks shaped his surfing. He turned professional as a teenager in 1981 and quickly stood out for a radical, aerial approach at a time when most competitors kept their surfing on the face of the wave.
Potter brought aerials and 360s into competition and argued for judging that rewarded risk, ideas that later became the norm on the elite tour. In 1989 he won the ASP world title, and today he is a familiar voice to surf fans as a commentator on the World Surf League's broadcasts.
Big-wave chargers: Twiggy Baker and Chris Bertish
South Africa's cold, powerful coastline has produced some of the world's most respected big-wave surfers, and the proof is at Mavericks in California. Between 1999 and 2016 the invitational contest there was held ten times, and South Africans won three of them. Grant "Twiggy" Baker won in 2006 and again in 2014, and in 2008 he also won Red Bull Big Wave Africa at Dungeons in Cape Town. You can watch Dungeons do its thing on our Dungeons surf report whenever a big winter swell hits.
Chris Bertish won the Mavericks contest in February 2010, famously on a borrowed board. In December 2016 he set out from Agadir in Morocco on a custom stand-up paddleboard and, 93 days later in March 2017, landed in Antigua, completing a solo, unsupported crossing of the Atlantic and raising money for South African charities along the way.
Jordy Smith: two decades at the top
Jordy Smith was born in Durban in 1988 and arrived on the elite tour as a powerhouse: he won the 2007 qualifying series and was named 2008 Rookie of the Year. In 2010 he won the Billabong Pro at Jeffreys Bay in front of a home crowd, then won it again in 2011. He finished the season as world number two in both 2010 and 2016, and added Championship Tour wins in Rio, at Lower Trestles twice and at Bells Beach.
What makes Jordy a legend is longevity. In 2025, at 37, he won both the Surf City El Salvador Pro and the Margaret River Pro and finished the year ranked third in the world, almost two decades after his rookie season. His J-Bay wins are part of the story in our history of the J-Bay Open.
Bianca Buitendag: Olympic silver
Surfing made its Olympic debut at the Tokyo 2020 Games, held in 2021, and Bianca Buitendag gave South Africa one of the stories of the competition, surfing her way to the final and a silver medal behind the USA's Carissa Moore, who took the first Olympic gold in women's surfing. It capped a career in which she reached fourth in the world on the Championship Tour in 2015. At J-Bay in 2018, competing as a wildcard while recovering from a back injury, she reached the semi-finals of the first women's Championship Tour event at Supertubes in nearly two decades.
The next wave of South African surfers
The current generation is writing its own chapter. Sarah Baum, who grew up in Amanzimtoti on the KZN South Coast, came through the local trials to win the WSL J-Bay Classic in 2024, then surfed for South Africa at the Paris Olympics after qualifying at the ISA World Surfing Games despite breaking her foot during the event. In the same J-Bay Classic, Mikey February, whose style the WSL has called one of the best in the world, reached the men's final.
Why does this corner of Africa keep producing surfers like these? A few things stand out:
- Swell. The Southern Ocean sends groundswell to the south and east coasts all year, so South African kids grow up surfing real waves, often.
- Variety. Heavy beach breaks in Durban, long walls at J-Bay, cold reefs and big-wave spots around Cape Town: surfers here learn to handle every kind of wave.
- Competition. Durban's famous winter contest, the Gunston 500, was held at the Bay of Plenty on the Golden Mile before it moved to Ballito, J-Bay has staged contests since 1981, and East London's Nahoon Reef hosts an annual pro event.
Behind today's stars is a growing pool of young surfers from every part of the country, and the breaks that shaped the legends are still there. Durban's beachfront, where Tomson, Potter and Smith grew up, features in our guide to South Africa's best surf spots, and J-Bay's world-class point is covered in depth in our free J-Bay Surf Guide.
Every name on this list started as a grommet on a South African beach with a borrowed board and a lot of stoke. Find your wave, whether it is a gentle peak at Muizenberg or a winter swell lighting up Supertubes, and if you want the reminder close at hand, it is printed on our Find Your Wave tee.
