Quick Take
Santa Cruz’s iconic surfer statue has long celebrated the city’s surf culture – but it tells only half the story, write two veteran Santa Cruz surfers, Kaila Pearson and Sarah Gerhardt, the first woman to surf Mavericks in 1999. From Antoinette Swan and the Hawaiian princes to generations of pioneering women who challenged barriers in the lineup, women have helped shape Santa Cruz surfing from the beginning, they argue. A companion statue honoring the women of the water would, they write, recognize women’s often-overlooked contributions and reflect the full history of our surf town. If Santa Cruz values its surfing heritage, they believe, it should make that legacy visible for future generations.
Locals Kaila Pearson and Sarah Gerhardt tell their Santa Cruz surf stories and explain why the female surfer statue matters to the community and to them personally. Read those stories here.
For more than 30 years, the iconic bronze statue “To Honor Surfing” has stood sentinel on West Cliff Drive, overlooking Steamer Lane. The statue is dedicated to all surfers: past, present and future. Artist Thomas Marsh took inspiration from Santa Cruz Surfing Club, a pioneering group of headstrong and athletic young men who established the Westside as a premier surf break in the 1930s and 1940s. Marsh wanted to evoke that golden era for anyone who looks upon the statue.
And indeed, the statue is beloved. He is woven into the rhythms of daily life in Santa Cruz. He watches the surfers, gets dressed up at Christmas, and has become one of the most recognized landmarks on the California coast.
But he tells only half the story.
Women have had a lengthy history of local surfing, even as their stories went largely untold. That’s why we believe our community needs a second surfer statue – one honoring women.
If you study it closely, the story of surfing in Santa Cruz begins with a woman.
The tale of Antoinette Swan underscores the importance of women to Santa Cruz surfing history, as noted by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH) exhibit “Princes of Surf 2025: Heʻe Nalu Santa Cruz.”
Swan, born Antoinette “Akoni” Marin in 1832 on the island of Oahu, was of Spanish and royal Hawaiian Ali’i lineage. She arrived with her husband in California, moved to Santa Cruz in the 1860s and served as host to the three young Hawaiian princes who visited in 1885 and famously rode redwood boards at the mouth of the San Lorenzo River.
The princes are credited with introducing surfing to not just North America, but the Western hemisphere. They stayed at Swan’s home that summer and for the next few summers when they were away on break from St. Matthew’s school in San Mateo.
According to surf historians Kim Stoner and Geoffrey Dunn, Swan, also a surfer, was the social and cultural linchpin of the story and central to the origins of surfing in the Americas. She lived on the corner of what is now Cathcart and Front streets, just upstream from the rivermouth.
For most of the 20th century, her role was nearly forgotten. She is buried at Santa Cruz Memorial Park, less than a mile from where surfing history was made.
Now, 140 years of surfers have followed the princes into our waves.
Early surfers such as Pat Collings, later known as Pat Fassio, were among the first women to paddle out in Santa Cruz in the 1940s, when the lineup was almost entirely male and simply entering the water required quiet courage.
Betty Van Dyke surfed the waters of Santa Cruz from the early 1950s, when she became one of the early group of pioneering women in the surfing community.
Rosemari Reimers-Rice moved her family to Santa Cruz following years of surfing in Hermosa Beach in the mid-‘50’s and ‘60s, trained as an exceptional outrigger canoe paddler and became one of the few female lifeguards of the time.
Jane McKenzie, known as “Jane from the Lane,” started surfing in Santa Cruz in the mid-1960s. With encouragement from her mom, Jane pushed into the overwhelmingly male lineups and carved out a place when women were not exactly welcome.
Then came Robin Janiszeufski-Hesson, known simply as Zeuf and revered at Pleasure Point as its “queen.” She was not only a skilled surfer but also “The Girl in the Curl” – a teacher, nurse, connector and inspiration to generations of women in the water.
Later, Sarah Gerhardt emerged as one of Santa Cruz’s most iconic figures — the first woman to surf Mavericks, breaking through one of the sport’s most formidable barriers.
Today, more women than ever are paddling out, driven by their own passion for surfing. These female surfers help shape a welcoming lineup, mentoring and encouraging the next generation of women surfers.
This legacy is why we support the effort to create a new statue, a bronze “twin” to the existing male figure, “To Honor the Women of the Water.” The statue would honor those who paddled out before it was easy, those shaping the lineup today, and those still to come.
This would be only the third statue in the world (that we can find) dedicated to female surfers.
That is an astonishing and sad number. The first was Dana Point’s life-sized tribute to surfer Joyce Hoffman (2022); the second is on Australia’s Bondi Beach, of Pauline Menczer (2025).
The proposed local statue would continue this momentum, honoring generations of women, ensuring their stories are not only remembered, but made visible in the very places they helped define
It’s envisioned as a unifying landmark, a complement to the Westside’s iconic male surfer at Steamer Lane. Together, the two figures will frame the Santa Cruz World Surfing Reserve from east to west, recognizing the full story of the region’s surf culture.
At its core, the effort is about visibility and legacy: honoring the women who have always been part of this coastline, whose contributions have too often gone unrecognized, and ensuring their presence is reflected in a lasting, public way.
We are not alone. The ocean carries the stories of countless women, their grief, their joy, their grit, their deep love for the water.
The male surfer on West Cliff Drive has stood for 34 years, beloved, iconic, but only half the story. It’s time to tell the rest.
Kaila Pearson is a biology professor at Cabrillo College, UC Santa Cruz and West Valley College, deep-sea biologist, surfer, ocean lifeguard and artist. Everything Kaila does revolves around the ocean. Kaila was born and raised in Santa Cruz and has lived in Santa Cruz the majority of her life. Kaila was born four months after the Westside surfer statue was unveiled. She has appreciated this statue her entire life.
Sarah Gerhardt is an ocean lover, wife, mother and chemistry professor at Cabrillo College. She was raised by a single, quadriplegic mother and taught herself to surf on the Central Coast of California. She moved to Santa Cruz to earn her doctorate in chemistry in 1998 and became the first woman to surf Mavericks in 1999. Sarah and her husband have lived in Santa Cruz since then, enjoying the natural beauty and community of the county.
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