I was 14 years old when I saw the center spread of John Peck doing the impossible. At least it was impossible then, in 1963, when he was photographed being shot like a cannonball from the tube at Pipeline.
Pipeline was a new surf spot then, and La Jolla’s Butch Van Artsdalen ruled the place, consistently charging from behind the curtain. But Van Artsdalen could surf switch stance and ride “regular foot” (left foot forward), something that gave Butch the advantage of facing the wave.
While Peck, who died last week at age 81, was gifted enough to switch stance and face the wave, he chose to surf it as a regular foot. Just as Van Artsdalen broke new ground by showing that Pipeline could be controlled, Peck led the way in the tube for future regular-footed Pipe masters like world champions Shaun Tomson and Kelly Slater.
Few in the ’60s had dropped in as late as Peck, and fewer still could match his ability in the tube. Once he made his turn, he set his line, got low, grabbed the rail and got as deep, perhaps deeper than anyone at the time.
In an era when surfers are being spat out of barrels like a cannon shot, Peck’s surfing probably appears dull. But, if you keep in mind that fewer than a dozen surfers had ever made a wave at Pipeline in 1963, and that the boards were long, heavy and flat with baseball-shaped rails, John’s performance ranks highly in surf history.
While Peck stood out in Hawaii in waves of all sizes, he was equally skilled in the smaller waves of Southern California. It was here that he showed his ability in noseriding, after turning harder than nearly anyone else at the time. Once I saw a Surfer Magazine shot of him laying the hardest backside turn I had ever seen, I tried duplicating the move, without success. Nobody could match his rail work.
Along with inventive genius Tom Morey, Peck developed one of the mid-’60s most advanced surfboards, the Morey/Pope Penetrator. Everything from the fin to the winged nose, which offered the board more lift when on the tip, were radically different from its predecessors.
By 1967 or 1968, surfing experienced something called the shortboard revolution, where boards shrank from 10 feet to 7-something seemingly overnight. Board changes may have been the reason Peck fell off the radar, but I think it was caused more by his obsessive use of mind-altering substances.
In 1969, I lived in a big hippie house in Maui when John Peck arrived, nearly naked, at our door. He had been living on the beach, and judging by his rail-thin appearance, was not eating regularly. He said he had three bodies, and the one we saw him in now had been abandoned for a time. He was not surfing and didn’t own a surfboard.
Not long after that brief encounter, I lost contact with Peck. Then, in the late ’70s, I saw him paddle out at Beacons. The waves were a bit small and slow for his liking, but he, nonetheless, surfed better than most anyone else in the lineup that day. We spoke for a while, and I found him lucid, happy and healthy.
From that time forward, I saw John whenever a big north swell rolled into our window. Year after year, well into his 70s, he blew us all away by catching the biggest wave from as deep as possible. I was proud to be his friend, and continued learning from his overcoming attitude, courage and often puzzling sage wisdom.
