No other piece of surf equipment has drawn such a varied mixture of praise and criticism from the surfing community quite like the surf leash. Called “kook cords” by surfing’s old guard, the leash drew ridicule from those who believed it made surfers soft, lazy, and poor swimmers. When you look back and examine some of the earliest pioneers of the sport – guys like Duke Kahanmoku, Tom Blake, and Sam Reid – they were world-class swimmers and in extremely good shape, some of that owing to the fact that they had to swim after their boards each time they fell off of a wave. However, the desire to spend less time swimming and avoid a smashed up surfboard that had washed up on the rocks eventually led Santa Cruz surfer Pat O’Neill to develop the prototype for the modern surf leash in 1971.
O’Neill’s leash designs were made out of surgical tubing and were attached to the wrist of the rider and tethered to the nose of the surfboard by a suction cup. Unfortunately, the super-stretchy surgical tubing had a tendency to launch the surfboard back toward its rider, making them more dangerous than going without a leash. Pat O’Neill’s father, Jack, founder of O’Neill wetsuits, famously lost sight in his left eye in 1971 from a whiplashing surfboard. Throughout the early 1970s, the surf leash struggled to gain popularity with surfers who felt it was either too dangerous or too uncool to wear.
Things started to change around 1975, when surf companies like Control Products, Block Enterprises (headed by Larry Block), and Surfmore (started by Bob Nealy) all began developing safer, more reliable surf leashes using bungee cord and leather before advancing to nylon, Velcro, and urethane. Since 1978, urethane has been the primary construction material of the surf leash, whose overwhelming popularity has certainly won over many of its original detractors. According to a 2011 survey conducted by Surfer magazine, 99% of respondents said they used a leash while surfing.