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In our latest mag Monty Webber continued to probe the complicated psychological profiles of our most mythologized surfers. Chapter two of the Dark Lineage series zones in on Michael Peterson and Joe Engel. You may have read about this duo before, but Webber always finds a way to weave intriguing new insights and revelations into his narrative. Below is an excerpt from the profile of surfing legend Michael Peterson which featured in Issue 593.
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Michael ‘MP’ Peterson
It would be impossible to overstate the legend of Michael Peterson in Australian surfing. When my older brothers and I started riding fibreglass surfboards in 1973, he was regarded by us as the best surfer that had ever lived. In a country that idolised sporting heroes, MP was recognised as the best so far in the fledgling sport. No-one could have imagined what would become of him over the next decade, particularly since we had such a limited understanding of mental illness back then. His childhood friend and 1976 World Champ, Peter Townend, described him as: “Miki Dora, James Dean and Marlon Brando, all rolled into one.” To say he was charismatic is an understatement. But he was much more than that. MP was the surfer who drew our attention to the occasionally sublime connection between madness, creativity, and ultimately, true greatness.
He grew up in Coolangatta, Queensland, along with his little brother Tommy and younger sisters Dorothy and Denise.They were raised by their single mother, Joan, who peeled prawns and worked in kitchens for a living. Joan couldn’t afford to buy her sons surfboards, so Michael and Tommy retrieved lost and dinged up boards that had washed onto the rocks at Greenmount Point and took them home and repaired them. As members of the Tweed Heads and Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Clubs, the boys used to sneak even better surfboards from where surfers left them during the week at the surf club.
In late ‘67, like many other surfers up and down the coast, the boys unwittingly placed themselves right at the centre of the shortboard revolution. They were stripping the fibreglass off old ‘tanks’ and reshaping them as 7’, 6’, 5’ and even four-footers. I talked to their close friend, Kerry Gill about a 4’3” surfboard the brothers had made him, and he told me:“It was one of the best boards I ever had.”
Michael won the first of three Queensland State Titles in 1971. In ‘72 he won the first of two Australian National Titles. In‘73 he won the first of three Bells Beach contests. In 1974 he won the inaugural Coke Surf about at Fairy Bower, pocketing $3000. It was the most money a surfer had ever won at the time. My older brothers, John, Greg and I, caught the Manly ferry over to watch the event and I clearly remember the God-like presence of MP as he dominated the event. Everyone went quiet when he took off on a wave and spoke about him in hushed and reverential tones.
Michael appeared in many surfing movies and on the covers of a lot of surfing magazines. Apparently, he couldn’t cope with film premieres, as he didn’t like being the centre of attention. In interviews he often spoke cryptically, and his mercurial tendencies made him a difficult figure to deal with. Meanwhile, his star turn in ‘Morning of the Earth’ (1972) consolidated his reputation as the fastest man to ever ride a surfboard.
MP’s jagged and somewhat frantic surfing style was appropriated from Nat Young, who had dominated the sport in the decade prior to Michael’s ascendance. Nat surfed with an elegance that Michael didn’t bother adopting. But like Nat, he often timed his bottom turns with a wood-chopper motion of the hands, and flicked his head up to look at where he was going. Fascinatingly, the progenitor of this seeming affectation was none other than the legendary Bobby Brown.
In 1975 Michael shaped his ‘secret weapon’, which only added to the enigma. Known variously as the ‘Moon rocket’ or ‘Fang tail’, it was a 6’6”, 6-channel, triple flyer. The channels and flyers were deeper and more dramatic than anyone had ever seen, a complete nightmare to glass. All those sixes in a row made me wonder whether he’d sold his soul to the devil, the mark of the beast. Michael also revolutionised the bottom curve in the boards he shaped for himself. By placing one foot in front of, and behind, the rocker in the middle, he could both accelerate ands tall. He admitted to an interviewer: “It feels like I’m cheating.”
Michael went to Hawaii three times and his performances there only reinforced his status. During a surf movie premiere at the Manly Silver Screen in 1976, the audience, of which I was a member, screamed with delight at his attack of a big wave at Sunset Beach. In a surfing magazine, accompanying a fantastic colour photograph of him going right on a big wave at Pipeline, (Backdoor was not yet considered surfable at size,) was his answer to the question: “Why did you go right?” – “They wouldn’t let me go left…”He was also quoted as saying: “I don’t know why I have a lot of these problems; I try to be like everybody else, but it’s hard.”
In 1977, my brother John returned home from a trip up the coast with Super 8 footage of Michael Peterson’s last win. It was the first Stubbies contest, held at Burleigh Heads (highlights below). It was also the first time surfers had competed ‘man-on-man’ in two person heats. Michael not only had a reputation as the fastest surfer, but also the quickest paddler in surfing. He was also known to mess with the minds of his opponents, by arriving late for his heat or final. The general consensus at the time was that surfing ‘one-on-one’ with him would be intimidating.
My brothers and I must have watched that film a thousand times, projected against the wall of a darkened bedroom. Cheyne Horan got us to show him it over and over so that he could study how Michael sped up and slowed down in the tube. In Australia, Michael was recognised as the first surfer to break the 10-second tube ride. Some of his barrels at big Kirra in the early 70s were reportedly even longer. He once said: “My favourite place is inside the tube, no-one can see me in there.”
Michael Peterson dropped out of sight after his Stubbies win. He lived for a while in Angourie and the last time I saw him surf was in 1978.
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