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Wayne Lynch (1951- ) |
 The Largest Surfing EncyclopediaA-Z: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Advertisement
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A surfer who holds as clean a line through the tube today as he did 30 years ago, Wayne Lynch is perhaps the best example of the pure-bred evolutionary surfer, one of that small group who pushed the sport through perhaps its greatest shift of skill -- from the longboard stateliness of the early '60s to the full-bore creativity of the shorter-board '70s and beyond.
Lynch was born and raised in the small coastal town of Lorne in Victoria, Australia, some 25 miles southwest of Bells Beach. Like many young Aussies of the time he was in the surf almost from infanthood, riding rubber inflatable mats at the age of six in the small, clean beachbreaks of the area. Lorne, being more sheltered from weather than nearby Bells, didn't see quite as much swell, although its sand and rock bottom pointbreak can produce some magical moments. Oddly enough, this remote, chilly arena -- most of Australia's cutting edge surfing of the time was being done in Sydney and Queensland, thousands of miles north -- would prove perfect for forming his vital, tube-oriented style. Dad Bill and mother May were strong though quiet supporters of his surfing. Bells locals can recall May driving a very small Wayne up to Bells Beach for the local competitions in 1964, Bill often being in the background at bigger events. "He was so far ahead it was amazing," reported local surf photographer Barrie Sutherland, who would shoot numerous images of a developing Lynch in the next decade. Wayne won the Australian junior title four years running between 1967 and 1970. In this time his surfing underwent an extraordinary metamorphosis, as he engaged all his remarkable surfing talent with the task of drawing an entirely new set of lines on the wave -- a template for shortboard ripping that can still be seen in the best surfing of today. In Paul Witzig's movie, Evolution, released in 1969, Lynch, along with Ted Spencer and Nat Young, are captured at work on this massive leap forward in style, carving turns from the lip to the base and connecting them in combination as had nobody in surfing history. Wayne would recall the Evolution phase as one of frustration; he felt stymied by the boards available to him, and always wanted to do more. Yet he showed the way for surfers from Tom Carroll to Mark Occhilupo, particularly with his searing backside angles and extraordinary tube sense. A successful competitor when he chose -- Lynch won the Sydney Surfabout contest, at the time the world's biggest pro event, in 1975, and was runner-up in 1978 -- he was better known for his love of surfing for its own sake. Not to coin a term, he was Soulful. He was the one Australian surfer of the period who gained complete acceptance from the Californian surf community, for whom soul was uppermost. Indeed, in his reticence and suspicion of public life, he was a forerunner of the ultimate Californian surf hero, Tom Curren. "Wayne Lynch's famous backhand re-entry!" Lynch once told Tracks magazine. "What a joke! I didn't consider it to be that good." Lynch seemed also prey to bad luck at critical moments: on a visit to Bali in 1974, he was badly injured in a terrible motorbike accident, and fell into malaria during his recovery. And on his much-anticipated meeting with Pipeline in 1976, a wipeout resulted in facial injuries. Yet -- perhaps because they could sense his deep commitment to the art of surfing, as well as the sport -- he remained a favorite of many grass-roots surfers worldwide, a popularity sealed by the late-'70s Jack McCoy documentary A Day In The Life Of Wayne Lynch. One famous scene from the documentary shows Wayne and Nat Young leaping from a cliff to tackle heavy rights alone deep in coldest Victoria, an act at dramatic odds with the urban showmanship of the early professional days. A master craftsman in the world of surfboard shaping, Wayne learned from Torquay board designer Pat Morgan. Even in the early days Wayne had a futuristic imagination. A board of his from 1966 hangs in the Australian Surfing Museum in Torquay; it's a stumpy, deep-veed thing he designed in order to try barrel-rolls, a move yet to be mastered by any stand-up surfer 35 years later. Through the 1980s and '90s his wonderfully clean designs were hunted down by numerous champion surfers worldwide; in 2000, with the help of investors, he formed a new label, Evolution, based in the San Diego area of California. "I feel the same about surfing now as I've ever felt," he told Surf Guide magazine in 1999. "I'd say I'm a lot more detached from it, not as compulsive about having to surf constantly to appease an inner hunger or insecurity about losing touch with the performance. As you grow older you naturally seem to develop a balance between all your commitments and activities." Between trips to California, he lives near Apollo Bay, Victoria with wife Lindy and their two children. -- Nick Carroll, June 2001
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