In surfing, there are a lot of “legends.” Living ones, dead ones, young ones and old ones. It’s a term that’s thrown around a lot, and sometimes it can feel a little over-used. But when it comes to Herbie Fletcher and Michael Ho, “legend” doesn’t really even cut it.
Herbie, as you well know, is the patriarch of the Fletcher family. It’s a family that Esquire Magazine once called “surfing’s first-family“. Herbie was surfing before he was 10 years old. Before the coming decade was up, when he was 18, he’d won the Juniors division at Redondo Beach and placed seventh in the world. That was a long time ago, of course, but it was just the first pencil marks of the indelible mark he was to make on surfing. In the ’70s, be bought a little company called Astrodeck and quickly turned it into surfing’s most popular accessory. He’s in the Surfing Hall of Fame. Christian and Nathan, his two sons, have made their own indelible marks on surfing. And now in his early seventies, Herbie’s still doing what he started off doing: surfing.
Michael Ho, as you also well know, had a big part in turning surfing into what we know it as today. He doesn’t feature quite as much in the short clip you see above, but even just a few short waves from him are worth watching. In his early 60s, Ho is still charging massive Pipeline and mixing it up with the best of them. The Pipe Master gave the world Mason and Coco, and he, like Herbie, is still just spending his days chasing waves.
