Photo: Dick ‘Mez’ Meseroll // East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame
The godfather of Virginia Beach surfing has passed away. Pete Smith was a pivotal figure in the history of not only Virginia Beach, but East Coast surfing in general. As the Virginian Pilot reports, he died on Tuesday at the age of 86, after years of battling prostate cancer and other health issues.
Smith first started surfing at the age of five, as his entry in the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame recounts. “My uncle would put me on his 14-foot, 100-pound board with him, and as I got older, he would help me take it out and I’d ride it by myself,” he explained. “Eventually, I got strong enough so that I could balance it on my shoulder and control it with my head.”
Smith went on to be a pivotal member of the burgeoning surf culture of Virginia Beach. In 1962, he and a group of fellow surfers attended the inaugural East Coast Surfing Championships (ECSC) in Gilgo Beach, New York. Just a year later, they managed to move the competition down to Virginia Beach, where it was renamed the Virginia Beach Surfing Festival. Eventually it would regain the original moniker and continues to this day as one of the East Coast’s longest running surfing competitions.
In 1983, Smith and fellow surfer Bob Holland opened the first dedicated surf shop in Virginia Beach. The store also had the distinction of earning exclusive rights to carry the boards of legendary shaper Hobie Alter, on account of a letter Smith wrote to SURFER magazine about Virginia Beach’s surf scene that made its way into Alter’s hands. Just a few years later, Smith & Holland Surf Shop opened a second location in the Outer Banks. Though Holland would eventually exit the business in the late 1960s, Smith continued to run the original Virginia Beach store for decades, renaming it Pete Smith’s Surf Shop.
“He was one of the premier surfers here in the beginning,” Smith’s friend Nabil Kassir told The Virginian Pilot at a 2024 birthday celebration for Smith. “Before, there were surfers who used to surf on these wood boards, but he came with his Hobie. He changed the whole thing.”
A paddle out in Smith’s honor will be held at the East Coast Surfing Championships in August.
