Mike Doyle, accomplished surfer and innovator, pioneered the first surf-specific wax and soft-top surfboard. Photo: Doyle Surfboards
Today, the surf world mourns the loss of icon and innovator, Mike Doyle, who reportedly passed away in his sleep early Tuesday morning at 78.
Doyle’s family shared news of his passing via Instagram saying in part, “It’s with a heavy heart that we have to tell everyone the Legendary Waterman, Mike Doyle has passed away. Mike slipped away peacefully in his sleep early this morning at his home on Gringo Hill, [Baja, Mexico], with his loving wife, Annie right by his side… Please know Mike was at peace when he passed and he knew his mom and dad would be there to greet him at heaven’s gate.”
Doyle grew up in the South Bay and took to surfing at 13 in the early 1950s, when the sport was rapidly evolving. In a curious footnote to his career, he learned to ride goofy, but three years later retaught himself to surf regular-footed as he integrated himself into the Malibu lineup.
Doyle famously sold Kathy Kohner – the real-life Gidget – her first surfboard in 1956, which later came full circle: he worked as a surfing stunt double on the 1959 film adaptation.
According to Matt Warshaw’s Encyclopedia of Surfing, Doyle was “arguably the 1960s’ best all-around surfer,” winning or placing highly in an array of ocean contests from riding in individual heats, to tandem surfing, and even prone paddleboard racing.
“Doyle’s presence in the surf world came partly from his reputation as a competitor, but just as much from his powerful and slightly theatrical free-surfing style,” Doyle’s EOS entry explains. “It also helped that he was friendly, articulate, and had good beach-fashion sense.”
Like many of his contemporaries, Doyle was also a tinkerer and innovator – helping to develop the first surf-specific wax in the mid-1960s and later working with Tom Morey to pioneer the Morey-Doyle soft surfboard or soft-top.
In an enviable move, Doyle relocated to San Jose del Cabo, Mexico in 1980 to run a surf school, paint, and revel in the sun, warm water, and trickling right pointbreaks typical of the Gulf of California, on Baja’s southern tip.
Additional arrangements have yet to be made public, but undoubtedly a major paddle out is in the works. Stay tuned for details.
