View to a kill. Lone spectator watches distant surfer take off at outer Rincon, Easter 1981

Derek Hynd, sans contest vest, blown off him during a first wave wipeout, becomes the only surfer in pro contest history to successfully come through a pro heat minus requisite garb, if not in any heat at all - and in soul-black wetsuit at that. Also, the only time this day that a competitor has gone the Hail Mary deep Rincon gamble, about to pay off against the unsighted Dane Kealoha. It is also the only heat featuring both riders on guns. The wind has earlier swung from stormy Sou West to abating West to perfect due North in sculpting best ever conditions. Far off Point Addis has registered every wrapping set over eight hours. All day at this signal, surfers have stroked head down for the horizon. This particular afternoon has literally been the greatest show on Earth.

Out of shot, 1000 plus people stand behind the spectator in a superb act of photographic deception. The sun and the howling offshores have already combined for Simon Anderson's historic centre stage with light beginning to fade. Photog Crawford has already risked life in having been dropped into the lineup by helicopter, survived the experience, and is back on the clifftop for this last main event heat, yet the surfing isn't done. Not by a long shot. The cap comes from two complete surfers - Wayne Lynch via stunning hook under the lip and above the head of rookie Barton Lynch, and Terry Fitzgerald on an island gun with undoubtedly the greatest handful of soul arches ever likely to be seen. By way of grand climactic prelude the prior day, orchestrator Doug Warbrick had privately called this mega swell to just a handful of people at the bottom of an emptying Bells carpark. Most winning pros had left for the day in the assumption that a playful day of diminishing swell was all but gone.

NOT - QUITE. Doug's old secret contact, in the days of finger to the wind and chart at the ready, was 50 miles to the west as the crow flies - and at a lighthouse. He'd just spoken to Doug by phone, "The biggest lift in a sea that I've seen in all my days is bloody well in front of me". Every pro was about to be clobbered without a big wave gun in the arsenal - save Terry Fitzgerald's mob - literally blindsided in dark horror from midnight until incredulous 7 a.m. first light. Few slept right through - from the foundations of Torquay houses shaking.

Derek Hynd 2026