The Greatest Surfers of All-Time
A List of the All-Time Greatest Surfers!
No Summer is complete without fun activities on the beach- and surfing is one of the most exciting and adventurous Summer sports out there.
But who are the greatest surfers to ride the waves?
Surfing - mystical, magical, majectic.
Some see surfing as a spiritual experience, and some see it as an adventurous activity that gets their adrenaline going.
Others are just here to admire the technique and incredible craftsmanship of the surf-gods. Either way, no-one can be indifferent to this amazing spectacle.
But what first made surfing so popular? Who are the people who actually dominated the sport, making it the cultural phenomenon that it is today?
What are their stories, and how did they become internationally-renowned legends in the world of surfing?
In this article, find out about the 5 greatest surfers of all-time, including all of their contributions to the sport.
5. Mark Richards
You can’t talk about surfing without the Aussies!
Here to represent Australian achievements in the sport is the man who cemented Australia’s dominance as the best surfing nation in the 1970s, Mark Richards.
Born in 1957 and raised in Newcastle, Mark Richards grew up around surfboards, surf-o-planes and pint-sized longboards.
Around 15 minutes South of his city is Blacksmiths Beach, with gentle waves that helped him learn to surf.
Later, he worked on improving his skills on Snapper Rocks. This is where he went on holiday trips with his family on Queensland’s Gold coast.
He surfed a lot growing up and he joined many junior competitions around Australia. In 1974, when he returned to Hawaii for the North Shore Winter, he got a late entry into a contest at Waimea Bay.
At only age 17, he had to make a tough decision: to go and face his first huge waves, which were well-over double the size of the waves he’d faced before.
This was a pivotal moment for Richards. He decided to stay in surfing waters and give his all.
It turned out to be the right decision for him, as he absolutely dominated the surfing scene in the 1970s.
He won the 1975 Smirnoff World Pro-Am Surfing Championships.
He then went on to win 4 consecutive years of the International Professional Surfers (IPS) World Champion, from 1979 to 1982.
Later on, in 2001 he won the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Grandmasters World Champion.
Richards got the nickname, “the wounded seagull” due his unorthodox stance and style of surfing.
Besides his remarkable wins, he is also accredited with advances in building surfboards.
In 1975, the Hawaiian artist Albert Dove designed a superman-style badge for him with “MR” inscribed on it, which went on to become his logo.
He had this engraved on all of his boards and suits for most of his career.
His obsession with twin-fin surfboards came a year later, at the Surfabout in 1976, when he saw Reno Abellira on a highly manoeuvrable twin-fin fish.
He thought something like that would be better than a single fin for small waves.
During the following years, he took lessons from noted pioneer Dick Brewer, who helped him learn more about putting design into actual form.
He also helped Richards improve his own designs. These designs went on to become legendary, helping him improve his gameplay.
Due to back injuries and chronic pain, he went on to retire and take care of the Mark Richards Surf Shop in Hunter St, the same shop started by his parents.
4. Antoine Albeau
Antoine Albeau is widely recognised as one of the greatest, fastest surfers in the world.
He was born in 1972 in La Rochelle France.
He started surfing at the age of 5 on the island of Ré (on the west coast of France).
He was guided by his father, who opened the École de Voile de La Couarde, a surfing and sailing school on the south coast of La Couarde-Sur-Mer in Île de Ré.
Little did his parents know that Antoine would grow up to become the fastest windsurfer in the world!
By the age of 11, he was already competing, and by the age of 19 he became a professional windsurfer.
It is fascinating to think that in just 1 year when Albeau was around 18, he sailed over 315 times- an achievement many don’t even make in a lifetime.
He made his debut in the PWA World Tour in 1994.
The all-around French sailboarder went on to conquer the sport of windsurfing, becoming the world’s most successful, fastest wind surfer, winning 25 world championship titles during the course of his career.
He set a new all–category world wind powered sailing speed record in 2008 with 49.09 knots (90.91 km/h or 56.49 mph) on the Saintes Maries de la Mer Speed Canal.
4 years later, in 2012, Antoine Albeau went on to improve his own record with a new achievement and record of 52,05 knots (96.34 km/h – 59.9 mph) on the Luderitz Canal in Namibia.
In 2015, he once again broke the windsurfing speed world record after sailing at 53.27 knots (98.65 km/h) in Namibia.
Even as he got older, he continued to break records. In 2020, Albeau broke windsurfing's nautical mile speed world record at Plage du Rouet in La Palme, France.
3. Layne Beachley
Another Aussie legend, referred to as the most successful competitive Australian surfer of all time, is Layne Beachley.
Born as Tania Maris Gardner in 1972 in Manly, New South Wales, her Mother was a victim of date rape, choosing to give her up for adoption to Neil and Valerie Beachley.
Layne Beachley overcame quite a traumatic childhood before finding her inner strength and actively deciding to climb the ladder of elite surfing, unintentionally becoming a national treasure.
Neil was a surfer and a member of the Manly Life Saving Club, and he introduced Layne to surfing. She started surfing at the age of 4 in Manly Beach.
By the time she was 16, she was already surfing professionally and competing against male athletes.
She went on to conquer her first ASP World Tour event in 1993 (Diet Coke Women's Classic) and her last contest was in 2006 (Billabong Girls Pro).
The surfer is often regarded as a “competitive beast” and she is one of the most infulential women in surfing, spending 19 years travelling the world and competing with the greatest!
Throughout her career, she went on to do the impossible, winning 6 consecutive world titles from 1998 to 2003 and another in 2006.
She faced 20-foot waves at Phantoms on the North Shore of Oahuin 1997.
Later on, she went to face a couple of 50-foot waves at Outer Log Cabins, becoming the first woman to tame the death-defying slab barrels of Ours at Cape Solander, near Sydney.
Besides world championships, she also won the Women's Triple Crown of Surfing in 1997 and 1998.
Furthermore, in 2004, she earned a wildcard into the Energy Australia Open in Newcastle Beach and became one of the first surfers to compete at a men's event.
She is not only one of the most accomplished women in surfing, but she is also one of the most accomplished people in the history of the sport.
That’s why she was awarded the Australian Sports medal and entered the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.
After leaving the professional surfing world behind, she founded the Awake Academy – an online mental health service that provides courses for self-improvement, empowerment and helps people take control over their lives.
This academy helps women and girls overcome adversities and financial hardships.
She became an icon, an inspiration who worked hard on herself to reach the top. When she reached it, she devoted herself to helping others achieve their dreams too.
2. Duke Kahanamoku
We can’t talk about surfing legends, without discussing the original surfing figure! The man who is known as the “father of surfing” according to Duke Kahanamoku.
Born to a minor noble family less than 3 years before the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1890, Kahanamoku went on to become a Hawaiian competition swimmer and he ended up popularising the sport of surfing.
Kahanamoku was part of a family of Native Hawaiians. In fact, his parents were direct descendants of Kamehameha I.
Although not part of the formal Hawaiian Royal Family, they were from a prominent Hawaian ohana (family).
Duke Kahanamoku grew up on the outskirts of Waikiki and he spent much of his youth at the beach where he developed his swimming and surfing skills.
He was an incredible swimmer, who a year before the Olympics was timed at 55.4 seconds in the 100 yards (91 m) freestyle, beating the existing world record by 4.6 seconds, in the salt water of Honolulu Harbor.
Moreover, he broke the record in the 220yd (200m) and equalled it in the 50yd (46 m).
Unfortunately, the AAU didn’t recognise these achievements and they frowned upon them in disbelief, making up excuses for his success. It was years before he got the proper recognition he deserved.
Nonetheless, he went for it and the very next year in 1912, he easily qualified for the U.S. Olympic swimming team.
Kahanamoku went to the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm and he won the gold medal in the 100m freestyle, as well as a silver medal with the second-place U.S. team in the men's 4×200m freestyle relay.
At the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, he went on to prove that his success was well-earned based on his skills, as he won gold medals in both the 100m (bettering fellow Hawaiian Pua Kealoha) and in the relay.
During the following 1924 Olympics in Paris, he finished the 100m with silver.
However, what matters even more is what he managed to achieve between and even after the Olympic competitions.
He got to travel internationally, visit swimming exhibitions and promote the sport of surfing.
Kahanamoku’s trip to Sydney Australia’s Freshwater Beach in 1914 is widely regarded as a seminal event in the development of surfing in Australia.
He even convinced lifeguards across the US to use surfbaords as standard equipment for water rescues after helping with the rescue of 8 men with his surfboard and making repeated trips.
Kahanamoku ended up serving as the Sheriff of Honolulu, Hawaii from 1932 to 1961, completing 13 consecutive terms.
He was the first person to be inducted into both the Swimming Hall of Fame and the Surfing Hall of Fame. He also established the first worldwide surfing contest- the Duke Kahanamoku Invitational.
His life and work have been an inspiration, and the grounds upon which the entire surfing culture ended up being built upon.
1. Robert Kelly Slater
Widely considered one of the greatest surfers of all-time is our pick for the very top – Robert Kelly Slater!
He is an American professional surfer, and a name that everyone recognises and connects with surfing.
Born in 1972 in Florida to a bait-store proprietor, Robert Kelly Slater grew up around water, specifically Cocoa Beach, where he learned how to surf at the age of 5.
By the age of 10, he was already well-versed in surfing and winning age-division events up and down the Atlantic coast.
Although he became the most recognisable surfer of all-time, early in his career when he first dabbled into professional waters in 1990s, he struggled and only ranked 43rd in the world records.
After growing up in Florida, Slater claimed to never be comfortable in waves of consequence until his trip to Oahu in 1987, where he met “Big Wave” Davis.
Even though the 2 of them didn’t even speak a word to each other that day, and Big Wave Davis simply gave Slater a wink as they paddled out and traded waves that afternoon, Slater still credits Davis for his determination to tame the big waves.
He states in his biography:
"Brandon's knowledge and poise in large surf had a huge impact on my career. Anytime I'm dropping in to a big wave, I think back to that wink in the Makaha parking lot and I push myself over the edge."
He went on to win the prestigious Pipeline Masters in Hawaii and secured his first world title at the age of 20. At this time, he became the youngest surfing world champion ever in 1992.
He is best known for his remarkable record, as he was crowned World Surf League champion 11 times!
Kelly Slater has uniquely dominated the sport, becoming both the youngest and oldest men’s champion in history, alongside his historical 55 career victories.
With his unique techniques, and incredible aerial moves that have not been observed before, he managed to revolutionise the sport and uplift it to a whole new level.
Rightfully, he holds the title of the greatest professional surfer of all time. However, today he is considered more than just a surfer.
Slater is a huge activist for environmental causes, a philanthropist and a successful entrepreneur.
Moreover, he brought surfing culture to a wider audience.
This includes various endorsements and products in various forms, such as helping to popularise Baywatch. He even participated in the show.
He also pioneered the Wave Pool, a truly successful achievement!
