\n<\/p>\n
Mike Hynson, who epitomized the image of the bronzed surf god as a star of the hit 1966 surfing documentary \u201cThe Endless Summer\u201d<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by Donna Klaasen Jost, who collaborated with Hynson on his 2009 autobiography, \u201cTranscendental Memories of a Surf Rebel.\u201d She said the cause was not yet known.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cBeach Blanket Bingo\u201d<\/a> (1965) and a swell of Beach Boys hits<\/a>. He was hailed not only for his skills on the waves, but also as a noted builder of boards, particularly the popular Red Fin<\/a> longboard, which he designed for the manufacturer Gordon & Smith<\/a> in 1965.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n His was \u201cone of the greatest surf lives<\/a> ever lived,\u201d Jake Howard wrote in Surfer magazine after Hynson\u2019s death, describing him as \u201ca hot-dog performer, a shaping genius, a cosmic adventurer\u201d who \u201caltered the sport and culture of surfing in an untold number of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Hynson\u2019s life became the stuff of lore starting in 1963, when he was invited by the filmmaker Bruce Brown<\/a> 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, <\/em>hopping the Equator to avoid the slightest chill of winter while searching for the perfect wave.<\/p>\n Hynson was only 21 but had already built a reputation as a maverick power surfer on the beaches around San Diego. He could be cocky and aloof, friends recalled \u2014 but not without reason: He already proved his mettle as one of the first non-native Hawaiians to ride Pipeline, on the North Shore of the Hawaiian island of Oahu, sometimes called the most dangerous wave<\/a> in the world, in 1961.<\/p>\n He certainly looked camera ready, with his caramel tan and sun-whitened hair pomaded back in Dracula fashion, a hairstyle soon to be imitated by surfers around the world.<\/p>\n Mr. Brown had only $50,000 for his project, leaving his stars to pay for their own tickets around the world. To finance his trip, Hynson turned to the renowned board maker Hobie Alter<\/a>, whom he had worked for, to provide him $1,400 for airfare<\/a>, \u201ceven though I\u2019d stolen nine surfboards off him a few years earlier,\u201d he said in a 2017 interview with the British newspaper The Guardian.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Unbeknown to his strait-laced companions, Hynson brought along with him a stash of amphetamines and a three-month supply of Tijuana marijuana. \u201cI was young, stupid and loaded<\/a>,\u201d he said in a 2009 interview with OC Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Orange County, Calif.<\/p>\n The first stop was Senegal, where the locals \u201cwere using wooden planks to belly board around in the waves,\u201d Hynson told The Guardian, \u201cso when they saw Robert and me surfing upright, they were overwhelmed.\u201d<\/p>\n Bigger game awaited them. Hynson finally spotted their quarry at Cape St. Francis, on South Africa\u2019s south coast \u2014 a \u201cperfect reeling right-hander<\/a>, without a surfer in sight,\u201d as Surfer magazine once described it.<\/p>\n \u201cOn Mike\u2019s first ride,\u201d Mr. Brown said in his narration of \u201cThe Endless Summer,\u201d \u201cthe first five seconds, he knew he\u2019d finally found that perfect wave.\u201d The waves, he added, \u201clooked like they had been made by some kind of a machine. The rides were so long I couldn\u2019t get them on one piece of film.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In his autobiography, Hynson recalled the experience: \u201cI haven\u2019t had too many adrenaline rushes like that in my life, a pure and natural phenomenon. It was electrical. The hair on my neck stood straight up.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Michael Lear Hynson was born on June 28, 1942, in Crescent City, Calif., near the Oregon border, the elder of two sons of Robert Hynson, an engineer who worked for the Navy, and Grace (Wheaton) Hynson. In his early years, the family divided its time between Hawaii and San Diego, finally settling in Southern California when he was 10. As a teenager, he took up surfing with a crew called the Sultans.<\/p>\n After graduating from La Jolla High School in San Diego, Hynson found himself dodging letters from the draft board in the early years of the Vietnam conflict. \u201cI\u2019d been sidestepping them for three years,\u201d he wrote in his book. The around-the-world trip for the film, he added, \u201cwas the miracle I needed.\u201d<\/p>\n The journey brought no shortage of challenges. On a layover in Mumbai on the way from South Africa to Australia, Hynson had to tape five 16-millimeter film canisters containing the treasured Cape St. Francis footage under a baggy Hawaiian shirt, to sneak it past Indian customs agents who had been confiscating cameras and film in a crackdown on unauthorized photography.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Distributors initially showed little interest. Warner Bros., Hynson wrote, \u201cpredicted it would never go beyond 10 miles from the beach.\u201d Mr. Brown eventually proved them wrong, attracting lines around the block for a screening in Wichita, Kan., during a driving snowstorm. \u201cThe Endless Summer\u201d went on to gross more than $30 million.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n By the late 1960s, Hynson was off on another quest, this time to find enlightenment with the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a band of psychonauts and drug smugglers in the Laguna Beach area. The Brotherhood blended elements of Eastern religion with a faith in the transformative powers of psychedelic drugs, which they dealt in such prodigious quantities that the authorities branded them the \u201chippie mafia.\u201d<\/p>\n Hynson was soon taking LSD regularly, but he evaded arrest long enough to make another cinematic foray: He masterminded \u201cRainbow Bridge\u201d<\/a> (1972), which he originally conceived as a surfing film. The film, directed by Chuck Wein, a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Andy Warhol, evolved into a quasi documentary about mysticism, surfing and drugs, climaxing with a Jimi Hendrix concert at the base of the Haleakala volcano in Maui.<\/p>\n In one scene, Hynson eagerly breaks open a surfboard and produces a hidden bag of hashish (actually Ovaltine), reflecting a smuggling tactic he had employed with the Brotherhood.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Despite the film\u2019s giddy portrayal of drug use, Hynson\u2019s dependence on drugs, particularly cocaine and methamphetamine, eventually led to a precipitous slide, including time behind bars for drug possession. \u201cI hit rock bottom,\u201d he told OC Weekly, \u201cand then stayed there for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n He eventually pulled out of his spiral and began crafting surfboards again. He credited his ex-wife, Melinda Merryweather, a former model for the Ford Agency, and his longtime partner, Carol Hannigan, as his \u201cangels.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Hannigan survives him, as does Michael Hynson Jr., his son from his first marriage.<\/p>\n In a 1986 video interview, Hynson looked back on his perfect ride in South Africa and wondered whether he and his companions had invented a surfing fantasy with it or simply reflected one already embedded in the surfer consciousness. \u201cIf we wouldn\u2019t have had \u2018Endless Summer,\u2019\u201d he asked, \u201cyou think there would still be this quest of a perfect wave?<\/a> Think anybody would even care?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t particularly care,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when I saw it, I knew exactly then that we had popped a bubble and made a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n