The surf world is small. And it’s huge at the same time. If you’ve never exchanged words, waves, or crossed paths with another person in the global club, you’re somehow only one or two steps removed from one another. That’s been on display this week with the passing of Tommy Peterson, who created a lot of indelible stories with surfers in 71 years on Earth as well as gifting them boards that created tons of memories too.
“Australian surfing has produced some characters, but none bigger then Tom. A great surfer, great shaper, and probably the greatest teller of surf stories there has ever been, he grew up in the shadow of his big brother, but was a huge part of Australian surfing in his own right,” reads one tribute from Surfing World.
You could spend hours today reading personal tributes from all over the world. If you have the time, you’ll get a sense of what he meant to a lot of people, both through his craft, his drinking stories, and the list goes on. Heck, you could just drift through Surfing World’s tribute post alone and see a few mentions of personal encounters and memories.
Mason Ho dropped his own tribute to the guy he called Uncle Tommy and it’s uniquely Mason Ho — just a collection of clips of him riding the boards Peterson had shaped for him over the years.
“Rest easy Uncle Tommy,” he says. “It was always a huge pleasure and insightful time when we seen Tommy Peterson. Always making us laugh while getting the truth right in our face. A real life hero. We are very thankful for those times!”
