During my stint at Tracks, I’ve had the good fortune to spend some time with Tommy Peterson, who sadly passed away late last week. A twist of fate put me alongside Tommy at Mick Fanning’s big retirement soiree a few years back. Tommy showed up to the fancy venue with a massive joint in his top pocket and his mind set on causing a little mischief.
Kelly Slater was invited up on stage to pay tribute to Mick. Tommy would take the piss out of anyone, the bigger the target the better, and just as Kelly approached the microphone and hundreds of people went quiet, Tommy roared, “Kelly! Holy shit you’re here? Holy shit you old dog. Hey, where’s your broken foot? I haven’t seen you for a while knucklehead.” Kelly broke into a smile. Like many other well-known surfers, he’d asked Tommy to shape him boards in the past and had the utmost respect for him. He also knew that Michael Peterson’s brilliance owed much to the fact his brother, Tommy, always had his back.
When Tracks posted a photo to commemorate Tommy’s passing on Instagram, Kelly chimed in with a comment. ‘Loved that guy. What a classic. Sorry to see Tommy gone. He’s a big piece of surfing culture and history.”
Although always respected as a master craftsmen, Tommy’s legacy as a shaper is synonymous with the 5’7″ Fireball Fish that Tom Curren rode at Bawa, in Indonesia, in 1994. The story goes that Tommy shaped it for South African freesurfer, Frankie Oberholzer, who was on the same Search trip. Curren snaffled the Fireball and shifted the arc of history by slaloming into 12-footers on Tommy’s 5’7″ Fireball. The resulting footage is widely credited as being integral in ushering the modern fish movement.
Tommy continued to make the Fireball Fish and it was released as an off the rack board by Rip Curl back in the early 2000’s. One year at Bells, Tracks took a Fireball to the contest site and invited surfers to ride it. A handful of the world’s best sampled the Fireball and loved it, but the experiment was cut short when Joel Parkinson ran over a duck-diving Andy Irons. The board was badly dinged and stayed in the repair shop for the remainder of the event. Parko apologised and later explained he’d ordered a board off Tommy.
The Fireball roared back into popular surfing consciousness a few years ago beneath the twinkling toes of Mason Ho. Meanwhile, Tommy was also commissioned to make boards for Steph Gilmore, Jordy Smith and Mick Fanning amongst others.
Tommy continued to shape, right up until his passing. Recreations of his brother’s famous boards became something of a specialty – the fabled ‘Fang’ was on his list, as to was MP’s 1977 Stubbies-winning design. However, in a era where shapers bombard social media and websites with content in an attempt to capture our attention, Tommy’s approach to marketing was a little different.
It seemed he was more intent on preserving the mystique of of his craft, or at least the sense of scarcity. In a recent story titled Searching for Tommy Peterson, he told Tracks. “If they find me they’ll be right. I haven’t got a telephone number or anything out there that they can look up…they’ve got to track me down and find me and order a board. I won’t be going out doing letter drops and mail drops telling people I want work… F&5k, I’ll be 66 in eight weeks.”
Another classic revelation was made by Tommy when he was quizzed about the board ridden by his brother in one of surfing’s most timeless images – The Michael Peterson cutback from ‘Morning of The Earth’ and the Tracks Feb 1972 cover. MP’s sinewy frame melting through a carve with a single-fin at full tilt still enchants us to this day.
However, when we asked Tommy about the board in the shot Tommy was typically candid in his estimation. “I couldn’t ride it. It was too wide. It had so much area in the nose that when you tried to do a cutback it just threw you off… like a George Greenough kneeboard; take you four days to do a cutback. They were useless. No one could ride them… like surfing a disc, something that you wipe your feet on when you get home – a doormat.”
When I suggested to him that Michael could ride it, Tommy eloquently articulated the wizardry of his brother.
“Yeah, he was the only c&$t that could!”
I’ve ridden alongside Tommy in cars, shared schooners at venues that owe half their history to Tommy and his brother and stared at lineups as he artfully dissected the waves. There was a common thread to every encounter I had with him. I always laughed out loud, I was always entertained, and I always learnt something.
Even when he was drunk and stoned, Tommy’s encyclopaedic memory never failed him. I’m saddened to know I will never again hear his throaty chuckle and I’m mad as hell that I never ordered one of the beautiful boards he continued to make up until his final days. With a wry chuckle at his own self-awareness he once told me, “If you get a Peterson board you’re doing well… They’re worth more when I’m dead.” I’m not so concerned about the value of the possession I don’t own, just disappointed I won’t be able to paddle out and put a Tommy Peterson board on rail.
They don’t make people like you anymore Tommy. If there is such a place beyond this earth, then it’s hard not to imagine you up there sharing a few waves and a yarn with your brother, before telling God to bugger off and stop hassling you about that new board.
