In July of 2024, Tom Curren turned 60. It was a significant milestone for Tom, and for surfing. Thirty-four years after he won his last world title, Curren has remained as popular, and relevant, as ever. Now you don’t have to go far back to remember 60 as being a surfer’s retirement age. While the fittest, and keenest of surfers might stay healthy in the water and progress to a longboard to keep the passion alive, it was generally seen as the start of a downward spiral. Surfing wasn’t meant for old dudes; that was golf, lawn bowls and, in a pinch, tennis.
Not anymore, as Tom Curren and his surfing has shown. And while Tom is one of the greatest surfers in history, with a style that has been called timeless for about three decades now, he represents a shift where surfers aren’t retiring at a respectable age, but still charging into their sixties, seventies and beyond.
Tom was, however, late to the party. In February, 2024 Laird Hamilton joined the swinging sixties club. When asked about the milestone he said, “I don’t even have an age. I don’t know how I could feel better.” He has spent most of his life promoting health, wellness and fitness, and is still riding giant waves on a variety of craft.
But Laird is a relative grommet compared to Mike Ho, who might be the leader of the Cocoon generation. This July, Uncle Mike will be 67. Yet as close as last winter, he was still scoring bombs at Backdoor, and in the 2023 Eddie Aikau, held in the biggest Waimea on record, the spritely then 65-year-old caught several 20-foot plus sets and even pulled into a closeout shorey.
His mantra in big waves is pretty simple: “If you can’t swim out, and back, on your own, you shouldn’t be out there.” Ho has credited the incentive of surfing with his kids Mason and Coco as being pivotal in keeping him in the water and is nowhere near done yet.
However, not all these high-performing sexagenarians are icons of the sport or former pros. Down on the south coast of NSW, the formidable patriarch of the three generations of Taplin family chargers is Pete Taplin. A few years ago his son Tim captured Pete, aged 62, scoring one of the bombs of the session, if not the season, at a shallow slab near their home. His boys’ reaction says it all:
View this post on Instagram
Tony Roberts, perhaps better known as a surf-brand filmer and photographer in the ’80s and ’90s, is another who has dedicated the last two decades of life to surfing, yoga and nutrition. His end game is to maintain his performance levels well into his sixties. TR documents his techniques and results to inspire anyone else interested in ripping past retirement.
Perhaps Alan Sarlo has been watching. One of the original Z-Boys team, it’s incredible to think how many waves the “Wave Killer” has killed. In February 2024 The Inertia documented Sarlo, 65, dominating First Point Malibu, showing how he’s lost none of his aggressive and radical style, a good 50 years since he burst onto the scene.
We could go on. The more you look, the more you find post retiree-aged surfers still catching bombs and still ripping. Gary Linden recently celebrated his 73rd birthday by catching a few “inside” 10-footers in the Dominican Republic. In Australia Mark Rabbidge has been shredding on his own shapes on the south coast for decades and continues to do so. The same can be said for his wife, world champ Pam Burridge, thought at just 59, she’s far to young for this list.
And the oldest surfer in the world, as recognized by the Guinness Book Of Records didn’t even start surfing till he was 81. Seeichi Sano grabbed the record when he was 88 and 299 days old and has kept surfing since. “I stopped thinking about my age ever since I started surfing,” he said after the session.
If you are a surfer, age is just a number. Unless you are Laird Hamilton, then it’s not even that.
