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Key Figures · Rider

Brian Keaulana

On one of five jet skis that outran a closeout set at Waimea Bay during the 2016 Eddie Aikau invitational, as Hawaii News Now reported, and named a founder of the Hawaiian Water Patrol.

At a glance

Role
Rider
On the record
in 2016
Titles on the record
none read off a held results document yet
  1. The early years, in print, 1981 to 1993
  2. The makers and their machines, 1985 to 2005
  3. Noise, safety and federal rules, 1996 to 2002
  4. The rule book years, 2002 to 2018 (this page's records)
  5. Three rule books, 2021 to 2026

The eras this page's records fall in are drawn solid; the others are hollow.

How we know: Each bar runs the years printed on that era's panel, and which eras a page falls in is the archive's grouping of its records, not the length of anyone's career.

  • Confirmed 0

  • Likely 3

  • Contested 0

The grade word on each fact on this page, counted. It grades how firmly the documents tie each fact to this person, not the person.

How we know: the word printed above each fact below, counted on this page only.

Riding outside a race

2016 · Likely

Hawaii News Now's report by Jobeth Devera, published on 27 February 2016, one day after the contest, says Brian Keaulana was on one of five jet skis caught on video having to outrun a Waimea Bay closeout set during the 31st Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational. It quotes him on the size of the waves and on his team being willing to take the waves in a hit. Its captions show rescue team members on jet skis and name the Hawaiian Water Patrol.

Sources: Hawaii News Now 27 February 2016

Likely

American Cinematographer's August 1994 issue names Brian Keaulana as piloting the camera jet ski in the surf sequences of Endless Summer II, The Ride, a motion simulation ride by Rocket Motion Pictures shot in Hawaii with a specially modified wave runner. The item does not date the filming. Reading him as the water patrol's founder is the archive's inference, from the name, Hawaii and the jet ski.

Sources: American Cinematographer August 1994

Organising the sport

Likely

SurferToday's history of the Hawaiian Water Patrol, which prints no date, says the patrol was founded in 1985 on the North Shore of Oahu by Brian Keaulana and Terry Ahue and provides water patrol for surf contests, water events and film productions. It says that when the two saw Herbie Fletcher using a jet ski they decided to try it, and that a few years later the patrol was formed and shared the advantages of using a jet ski in high surf. That this is the driver of the 2016 report is the archive's reading, from the name and the Hawaiian water patrol.

Sources: SurferToday Hawaiian Water Patrol

Elsewhere in the archive

What the archive has not read (3)

  • Surf histories read only through the Internet Archive's full-text search (Rescue in Paradise, 2000; Stealing the Wave, 2007; The World in the Curl, 2013) credit him with work adapting the jet ski for lifeguard rescue; the books are lending items that can be read here only in fragments of a sentence, and nothing from them is used here.
  • Outside's report of April 2004 names him the instructor at a tow-in boot camp at the Coast Guard station at Cape Disappointment in October 2001; it shows him teaching in a classroom, not on a craft, and is not used as a riding fact.
  • No held document dates his first use of a jet ski for rescue (searched the archive's mirror and research cache, 2026-10-18).

Documents cited on this page

  • Hawaii News Now 27 February 2016 (hawaiinewsnow.com): Eddie Jet Ski riders race away from huge waves, by Jobeth Devera (Hawaii News Now, published 27 February 2016), Hawaii News Now, 2016-02-27; editorial, medium. A television newsroom's web report, one day after the 31st Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational at Waimea Bay: Brian Keaulana was on one of five jet skis that had to outrun a closeout set, and is quoted on the waves and on his team's readiness. Medium. Its wave height and its grading word are not used, and only part of the report is held.
  • American Cinematographer August 1994 (archive.org): American Cinematographer, August 1994, page 14, item 'Endless Summer II, The Ride' (archive.org item ac_ac199408, OCR text), American Cinematographer, issue held by the Internet Archive, 1994-08; editorial, medium. A film-trade magazine's item on Rocket Motion Pictures' motion simulation ride Endless Summer II, The Ride, shot in Hawaii with a specially modified wave runner: it says Brian Keaulana piloted the camera jet ski in the surf sequences. Medium; the item does not date the filming. Read from the issue's OCR text.
  • SurferToday Hawaiian Water Patrol (surfertoday.com): The story of the Hawaiian Water Patrol, by Luis MP (SurferToday; no date in the held text), SurferToday; editorial, medium. A surf website's history of the Hawaiian Water Patrol, founded in 1985 by Brian Keaulana and Terry Ahue, with Terry Ahue's and Herbie Fletcher's quoted accounts of Fletcher's jet ski at Pipeline and the writer's account of the patrol taking up the jet ski. Medium for the writer's sentences; the quoted accounts are the speakers' own. The held text prints no date (the page's metadata gave 31 May 2019 when it was read on 2026-10-18; that metadata is not held). Its grading words are not used.
Cite this page

“Brian Keaulana”, BaddJet archive, https://baddjetarchive.com/key-figures/brian-keaulana/

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0 titles on the record · 3 sourced facts · 3 documents

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