Shaun Tomson (1977 World Champion of Surfing) WSA All Star Team surfboard. Shaped by Don Kadowaki in the mid 1980s. Featuring airbrushed flames with unique batman style stomp pad. 6’6 squash tail, 2+1 fin setup. All original condition.
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Shaun Tomson, born on the 21st of August 1955, in South Africa. Former world-surfing champion (1977). Born to a Jewish family, in Durban, where he learned to surf with his older cousin Michael and brother Paul. Shaun also received his education in South Africa. He graduated as a Business Finance major from the University of Natal, and from Northeastern University with a Masters of Science in Leadership with a focus on social change. Having a great passion for surfing since his youngest years, he took part in amateur surfing competitions and traveled to Hawaii for the first time in the late 1960s.
As a teenager, he found surfing in Hawaii a huge challenge but continued to master his skills on well-known South African waves, including Cave Rock and Jeffrey’s Bay. At Jeffrey’s he gained notoriety and adopted his low, sprawling stance. In 1975, he became an important part of the “Free Ride” generation, along with Mark Richards, Wayne Bartholomew, and others. They showed style and courage in riding the infamous waves of Oahu’s legendary North Shore. The “Free Ride” generation’s surfers are the first serious professionals in the history of this sport. Especially Shaun Tomson, who is still recognized as a role model for today’s pro surfer. He has become a representative of the movement. Regarding his personal style, he changed the way surfers rode the tube section of the wave. “Time is expanded inside the tube.”- that’s what he used to say. He created a special style of pumping and weaving through and around collapsing sections of the barrel. Shaun’s appearances at Off The Wall and Backdoor Pipeline immortalized in the movie “Free Ride”, made him known as the most advanced surfer of that time. He won the 1975 Pipe Masters laying the base for his appearance at the freshly formed IPS Grand Prix world championship tour. He competed on the professional tour for 16 years. His major success was winning the International Professional Surfing World Championship in 1977. Shaun Tomson has won 19 major professional events, being both the youngest and the oldest competitor to win.
Since his professional surfing career ended in 1990, he has been up to a variety of things, including becoming an environmentalist, actor, writer and businessman. He belongs to the world’s largest environmental group. Shaun was the first professional surfer to join this community in 1984. He’s also a successful motivational speaker. Shaun recalls that it has always been a passion of his. He has worked for some of the biggest companies (General Motors, Cisco, Google, Disney, and others) giving speeches about the influence of positive values on success in life and business. The importance of Commitment and Positivity is based on his own experiences of overcoming different challenges, in and out of the surf. He has concluded his special business philosophy in the books “Surfer’s Code–12 Simple Lessons for Riding through Life” and “The Code: The Power of “I Will”. He founded, managed and sold two successful clothing brands–Instinct in the 1980s and Solitude in the 1990s (along with his wife Carla). Shaun currently lives in Santa Barbara, California, with his wife. Shaun has been recognized as one of the 25 most influential surfers of the century and as one of the 10 greatest surfers of all time (Surfer Magazine 1999).
