Tom Curren

📍Santa Barbara, CA, USA

“Tom Curren was born in July 1964, the eldest of three children of Pat Curren, a pioneering big-wave surfer and surfboard shaper who had surfed Waimea Bay in the 1950s, and Jeanine, who ran a bikini shop. The family settled in Santa Barbara, on California's Central Coast, where the mountains meet the Pacific and the right-hand point breaks, such as Rincon and Sandspit, peel for hundreds of yards. His father shaped boards, dived for abalone and designed bikinis for Jeanine's shop. At six he got his first surfboard, a ten-dollar board his father had bought in Hawaii, but until about thirteen he was more interested in skateboarding. Then he fell in love with surfing, riding the waves at Hammonds Reef after school and the perfect points of Rincon, developing an extraordinarily smooth, fluid style. His mother drove him to contests up and down the West Coast, and he was quiet, shy and deeply focused. He also took up the drums and then the guitar in his early teens, playing along to records. When he was seventeen, his father left the family, but Tom has always spoken of him with respect, calling him one of the greatest men he has known. He went to Santa Barbara High School and won the US amateur titles, then turned professional, and in 1985 and 1986 he won the world title, becoming the first American man to do so, and again in 1990, coming through the trials. His fluid style influenced a generation of surfers, and he still plays music and surfs the points of Santa Barbara.”

Sources: surfertoday.com independent.com huckmag.com