Surfer lingo boathouse pro#
Surfer lingo boathouse professional#

His grandfather, Milton Hamilton Townend (known as “Les”), grew up in seaside Manly before lying about his age and enlisting to fight in World War I at 15. And Peter Townend was card-carrying middle class, the son and grandson of Gold Coast hotel proprietors who were almost royalty in the rough-and-tumble hotel trade. Rabbit Bartholomew’s parents were both professionals and the family only fell on hard times when the marriage ended. In fact, Michael Peterson was the only Coolie Kid genuinely from the wrong side of the tracks. They called them the Coolie Kids, and they have often been depicted as working class urchins, stealing milk money off doorsteps as they made their way to dawn patrol sessions at Greenmount-MP, Bugs, and PT. But those who really know him understand that one of the most stylish surfers in history is lurking just below the gaudy uniform, just west of the red carpet. Part booster, part huckster, part spin doctor, part self-promoter, part humanitarian, part soft touch, total enthusiast, total optimist, total bowerbird, and total genuine human being, the real PT is too often lost in the pink glare of the spotlight, a victim of his own excess. He’s doing his thing as only he can, keeping the flame alight for the sport, the culture, the history, the heroes, the villains, the winners, the losers, the paupers and the gazillionaires.

Surfer lingo boathouse professional#

PT is working the room, as he does, as he has been doing for most of the 40 years since he became professional surfing’s first world champion, as he was doing for years before that too, as he will be doing until they wheel him off to the Surfer’s Rest Home for soft food and senior nappies and Bruce Brown surf movies on the big screen before bed. “Yew, bro! Catch you at G’s Boathouse for some Happy Hour Heats? And what about your Jets, wooden spoon for them this year! Hey, mate! Good to see you’re staying vertical! Ha ha!” Here a shaka, there a handshake, always a beaming smile, cracking wise as he goes, squeezing in a selfie-his own as often as those of his adoring public-whenever the opportunity presents itself. The short, thickset man in the pink shirt and matching sneakers moves through the crowd with the surefooted gait and the practiced patter of a minor league politician on the campaign trail. In the end, that’s the sort of depth we’re after anyway.

As things turned out, subscribers still enjoyed a sprawling, insider perspective of a surfer for the ages. Wave pools, the Olympics, atonal Tour management: PT would have been (and still would be) a font of incredulity and bemusement in the face of professional surfing’s modern era.

Surfer lingo boathouse pro#

But the story of the ebullient first pro champion might have been better served had it been held for today.

The scribe-heavily-decorated Phil Jarratt-delivered an immersive profile and summoned hot takes from our carnival-barker subject. A forgone conclusion, a PT bio was a case of us waiting for exactly the right writer to appear at precisely the right time.