Peter Troy: adventurer, surfer and free spirit

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Pioneers try things out and persevere when things almost invariably do not turn out how they were hoped to. Surfing in the 50s and 60s was trial and error, much like snowboarding in the 80s, and those sports still are in another sense. Peter Troy was the epitome of this age, willing to travel anywhere and try anything to find what every surfer searches for. He died suddenly on September 29th, having lived as full a life as one could wish for.

I'll not pretend to know much about him. As a latecomer to surfing and its legacy, and not even a practitioner, my claim is small but I've heard his name enough times and hearing of his passing has made me delve deeper.

An Aussie, a teenager in the 50s and serial traveller from then on, the list of where he hadn't been would be significantly shorter than those he had. Life as a travelling surfer in those days was "like travelling around the world carrying a grand piano. Everybody wanted to know you. Everybody was nice to you," he said.

It's unbelievable how many places he went, the adventures he must have had, too many to list here and go into in any justifiable depth. Perhaps the most renowned place he uncovered was Lagundri Bay, a near-mythical destination amongst the surfing fraternity with perfection for waves and riding fulfillment in spades.

Sea Of Joy is an early cult surf film with Tamarin Bay, Mauritius, its focus and Troy one of its surfers along with Wayne Lynch. Again a fresh discovery on the surfing map back then and one that Peter Troy helped to bring to the wider consciousness.

His legacy is his free spiritedness, the ability to cut against the grain and walk his own path. He travelled to surf, and on the way created a lifestyle so aspired to in modern times.

“Well, to me it was a total opening, because people had never really met a travelling surfer …. And it just kept on going. For some reason or another you’d look at the map and think ‘Oh I’ll go on down there’ and when you got down there you met other people and you started to acquire languages and you started to acquire experience …you met some guy and he’d say ‘Well why don’t you go out to the Galapagos, you know the Chilean navy can take you out there, here’s a little letter,’ and he’d write it on a table napkin or something and you’d give it to the admiral of the Chilean navy and you got a free trip in those days. And each time you became more extroverted in what you did, the easier it was to get to the next place.”