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U.S.|Mike Hynson, Surfing Star of ‘The Endless Summer,’ Dies at 82
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/25/us/mike-hynson-dead.html
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Mike Hynson, who epitomized the image of the bronzed surf god as a star of the hit 1966 surfing documentary “The Endless Summer” and, with his outlaw instincts, embodied the rebel ethos of the sport on his way to being hailed a colossus of the curl, died on Jan. 10 in Encinitas, Calif. He was 82.
His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by Donna Klaasen Jost, who collaborated with Hynson on his 2009 autobiography, “Transcendental Memories of a Surf Rebel.” She said the cause was not yet known.
Hynson arose in an era when surfing was often marginalized as a curious ritual of West Coast teenage culture, thanks to frothy matinee fare like “Beach Blanket Bingo” (1965) and a swell of Beach Boys hits. He was hailed not only for his skills on the waves, but also as a noted builder of boards, particularly the popular Red Fin longboard, which he designed for the manufacturer Gordon & Smith in 1965.
His was “one of the greatest surf lives ever lived,” Jake Howard wrote in Surfer magazine after Hynson’s death, describing him as “a hot-dog performer, a shaping genius, a cosmic adventurer” who “altered the sport and culture of surfing in an untold number of ways.”
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Hynson’s life became the stuff of lore starting in 1963, when he was invited by the filmmaker Bruce Brown to join him and Robert August, another young Southern California surfer, on a trek that would lead them through Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, Australia, Tahiti, New Zealand and Hawaii, hopping the Equator to avoid the slightest chill of winter while searching for the perfect wave.
