Unsafe At Any Speed

—

“Hi, NAME REDACTED? I’m calling to ask you about Ricky Rasmussen. I’m working on a story about him and NAME REDACTED told me that you guys were close friends.”

“You should get in touch with him. You know what I mean. You should talk to Ricky personally.”

“How would I get in touch with him?”

“I don’t know. He’s a hard man to get ahold of. Ricky Rasmussen.”

“Yeah…”

“Follow up on it and you might have the story of your life. Okay?”

“Okay, yeah, do you know anyone, do you know…”

Click.

Rick Rasmussen won the U.S. Surf Championship in 1974 at age 19 and was dead by 27, shot in a drug deal gone wrong in Harlem. Still New York’s most prominent surfer, and one of the best surfers of his time, Rasmussen combined the soul surfing aesthetic of the past era with the aggressive power surfing of the future.

In addition to being at the top of competitive surfing and the first East Coaster to win the Men’s U.S. Championship, Rasmussen was among those who elevated surfing to more than just a sport or an activity. He helped make surfing into what we recognize today—an art form, a spiritual practice, something worth sacrificing everything else for, something to chase alone with just a board. He pioneered waves from the Caribbean to Indonesia, sometimes living alone for weeks in the jungle, born with a world-class talent that came out of nowhere, incubated in an Atlantic surfing backwater. Armed with an omnipotent charisma and a gentle nature, yet unacquainted with fear, Rasmussen was ultimately bowed by drugs.

Living free and surfing the best waves around the world before sponsorship and large contest prizes required both free time and money. He shaped boards and imported clothing and other goods from Indonesia. Eventually, however, he turned to the quick money of scamming to fuel his lifestyle. As filmmaker Greg Weaver put it, “the only people who could support the  artists were the Catholic Church, then the gangsters.”

Rasmussen moved into heroin smuggling with his connections from Bali and started using as well. Soon he was addicted and a darkness settled over his life, paralleling the disintegration of the 60s counter-culture dream that surfer-scammers had helped fuel by providing marijuana to the masses, a business that then morphed into something much different. 

Heroin and cocaine marred the outlaw spirituality of the 70s. They also changed surf culture, and twisted the American dream to new heights. After his death, the story of Rasmussen’s life and his contributions to surfing were wiped clean due to the nature of his death, a drug-related murder. Mainstream surfing, which at the time hinged on good old American athleticism, was increasingly enamored by competition and allergic to its darker side. It didn’t dare touch Rasmussen, or even remember him and his contributions to wave riding, shaping, surf culture, surf exploration, and the enormous influence he had on the people around him, nor take note of his singular style.

His death in August of 1982 came just a week before he was scheduled to be sentenced for selling four ounces of heroin, charges he had accrued at a trial one year before in October of 1981. Part of the folklore around Rasmussen’s life and his death included information that he had worked as a criminal informant for the FBI, leading some to believe that he didn’t pass away as reported, but disappeared into witness protection. This information, as well as old friends who swear they’ve caught glimpses of him, and whisper of his existence, beg the possibility that he is still alive somewhere, surfing. And very hard to get ahold of.

“What are these questions you’re asking?” said filmmaker Mike Oblowitz, while I was exploring this line of thinking in 2016. “Someone is going to put a fucking bullet in your head.” 

“Okay,” I replied. 

“The thing about surfing is that it rises to the level of an art form,” he continued later. “I give respect to Rick Rasmussen. There were just a handful of surfers who took it outside of just a sport and transcended that, where it can become a form of yoga or ballet on water. Rick Rasmussen, to watch him surf, he was absolutely one of those guys. There is a handful. There’s Gerry Lopez, Rory Russell, Reno Abellira, Jeff Hakman, Andy Irons, Kelly Slater. And Ricky Rasmussen was one of those surfers.
And he was the first and one of the only from the East Coast.”

—

A Baller from New York

“Ricky lived the good life. It wasn’t peanut butter and jelly, baby. It was the whole restaurant.” 

[Tony Caramanico]

Rasmussen was born on July 24, 1955, in New York City. His family lived in Oceanside, California, when he was young, which is where he got his first taste of the power and speed of the ocean while bodysurfing with his dad and his sister, Susan. She was the first of the family to surf on a board, inspired after seeing the film Gidget. When the family moved to Westhampton, Long Island, Rick’s life-and-death relationship with surfing began.

According to a Surfing magazine profile on Rasmussen in February of 1978, which was written by Drew Kampion, Rick spoke cryptically of the beginning of this new relationship, foreshadowing his future estrangement from societal norms. “The more I was into surfing,” he said, “the closer to nature I got, the further I grew from society—and from my parents, because of their distance from the surfing world.”

Rasmussen’s father, Bill, was a semi-professional basketball player. “I wanted him to be a ball player, not a surfer,” he said of his son. Eventually, Bill relented when Rasmussen’s undeniable talents in the water started to develop. Bill was also a “Right Stuff” test pilot for the Grumman Aerospace Corporation, and told his son to “find out what you want out of life and sacrifice everything else for it.” 

Rasmussen took his father’s advice from the beginning and lived by it. He left school in the 10th grade at the exceedingly tender age of 14 and defected to Puerto Rico to surf. He practiced until he felt good enough, then traveled back to the States and won a juniors contest. He called his parents with the news and asked to come home and be allowed to pursue his dream.

A profile of Rasmussen is incomplete without an overview of the underwater coastal geography at the time of his upbringing, which combined with his inborn nature and talent to create the phenomenon he became. Erected in the mid 60s by the Army Corps of Engineers, the jetties in the Hamptons were meant to prevent erosion and protect oceanfront homes from being washed away. These jetties also made the waves in the Hamptons exquisite for a moment in time—Kirra-like barrels where Rick and others honed their tube-riding skills.

Tall enough to hide inside and smoke a joint with friends, the jetties were “insane” according to Brendan Burr McGill. “Perfect. You didn’t even hit the lip because it was drop off the jetty and pull in. They were amazing.”

Rasmussen had a crew of hometown friends whom he was very close to: Luke Moore, Brendan Burr McGill, Eric Penny, Joe Fuchs, Tyler Calloway, and others. He would pay it forward by picking up the younger guys in his car to take them surfing, just like the older guys did for him when he was a grom. As soon as he started shaping, he would shape boards for them and then employ them in his shaping bay. He would make the crew jog miles down the beach to train, and encourage them to eat vegetarian and drink smoothies to stay healthy.

Luke Moore started surfing in 1971 and Rasmussen gave him a board in 1972. Moore also picked up skateboarding around the same time. When the Cherry Hill skate park opened in New Jersey in 1978, and the pros from California showed up, Moore’s skating made an impression among the likes of Tony Alva, Jay Adams, and Stacy Peralta. They couldn’t believe he was from New York. In fact the Long Island surfers all had a unique style. “That all came from Ricky,” Moore says.

Rasmussen was always ready to help anyone in need. When he found out that Moore had been skipping class, he went down to talk to the guidance counselor to get him back into school. Tyler Calloway and Rasmussen were also friends growing up, only living half a mile apart. Calloway recalls a contest they entered together in South Padre Island, Texas, along with another young surfer from their area. When they arrived, a hurricane was spinning in the Gulf. Rick learned of a big wave spot from a local and insisted the boys paddle across the inlet and up a jetty that was over a mile long to surf it. Rasmussen was about 18, Calloway was about 15, and their friend was maybe 13.

The three boys stood on the beach and the jetty stretched beyond what they could see, whitewater to the horizon. As they paddled out, they realized it was at least 10-foot Hawaiian but they each rode far beyond their capabilities, dropping into waves that seemed like Gulf water abysses.

Rasmussen found a bale of pot washed up on the beach on this same trip and stashed it in his room. The outside of the package was soaked, but he dug into the middle where it was still dry. The bale sat on his bed and everyday the maid would come in and make the other beds, without touching it. Rasmussen discouraged his friends from smoking it. “If you want to be a pro surfer,” he said, “don’t slow yourself down with this stuff.” 

How ironic that statement would prove to be.

—

Pipeline Days

Rasmussen traveled to Hawaii at age 16 and quickly proved himself on the North Shore. “There are people who have fear, and then there are people who have no fear,” says friend and pro longboarder Tony Caramanico. “He was scary. That’s the kind of ‘no fear’ Ricky had. It was like, ‘Oh my god, this guy’s nuts.’”

One story about him involves a session at Pipeline, during which he borrowed a board from Gerry Lopez. Rasmussen paddled out, caught a wave off Second Reef, pulled in, positioned himself deep in the tube, and got spit out right in front of Lopez, who was paddling out on the shoulder. The two were known to split waves when they were in the water together. 

Shaun Tomson and Rasmussen also spent time together in Hawaii in 1975. “He was definitely impressive,” Tomson says, particularly at Pipeline. Rasmussen, however, was rarely invited to contests in Hawaii, and when he was, he didn’t seem to have much luck. His free surfing on the other hand garnered plenty of attention. In the winter in 1975, for example, he caught a wave from Second Reef, which was featured as a spread in Surfing magazine. It was also widely discussed as one of the best waves of the season, the type of underground accolade that speaks for itself.

—

U.S. Champion at Age 19 and Into the Horizon Down Under

Shortly after a return from Puerto Rico 1974, Rasmussen entered the U.S. Surfing Championship in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. He made his dominance clear early in the contest with a left off a jetty, sliding across the wave and then getting barreled. He “trimmed it with five over the nose for three times as long a tube ride as he would have gotten otherwise,” said Yancy Spencer in Surfer. “It was beautiful.” 

Shaper-surfer Skip Frye was watching and said he would have given Rasmussen a 20, had he been judging. A 20 was the highest score possible at that time. Three out of five judges did indeed award a 20 for the ride. 

Rasmussen also took first place in the kneeboarding finals, coming in from his heat and going straight back out into his standup final against Jim Cartland from Florida. He surfed explosively and with abandon and the inevitable fell into place. David Sledge of Surfer described the performance as “the satisfying exception in a sea of sameness. He took chances and blended occasional instances of the spectacular with lengthy rides of competent positions and adequate velocity.” Rasmussen became the first East Coast surfer to win the U.S. Championship, and to this day the only New Yorker. 

The following year he arrived in Sydney on May 3, 1975, just in time for the 2SM Coca-Cola at Narrabeen, the biggest contest in the world at that time. The event had been postponed by one day, allowing him to enter, even though he’d arrived late. This was when Rick and Shaun Tomson initially met, before their time together in Hawaii. Both were on the circuit and trying to make it as professional surfers. 

According to Tomson, Rasmussen was the first guy he’d ever met who was interested in healthy eating and vegetarian food. Although he was puzzled by Rick’s road-trip pit stops for Jarlesburg cheese, he found him to be very gentle-hearted and they were fast friends. He also recalls one of Rasmussen’s early heats in the Coca-Cola, a six-person matchup with some of the best surfers in Australia—Nat Young, Midget Farrelly, Peter Drouyn, Michael Peterson, and Bob Warren. The waves were small and crumbly. About halfway through the heat, Rasmussen exited the water and walked up the beach. 

“Rick,” Tomson yelled. “What the hell are you doing? Your heat’s still on.”

“Nah, the surf is so bad,” Rasmussen replied. “I’ve discussed it with all the other guys in the water, and we’ve all decided to come in together and demand that they re-run the heat when the surf is better.”

“Well, Rick, you better look behind you. No one is following you!”

All the other competitors were still aggressively surfing. Rasmussen was, according to Tomson, devastated. He walked up to the judging tower and tried to reason with them but the contest went on without him.

After the event, Shaun and Rick drove up to the Gold Coast together. Rasmussen met a young Indonesian girl and promptly fell in love. He spent the night at her place, but in the early morning arrived at Tomson’s hotel room and began banging on the door.

“Shaun,” he shouted. “Hey Shaun! Her brothers want to kill me, they want to kill me!”

The two immediately packed up and hit the road. Although Rasmussen was good-natured and kind, drama often followed him. “I think in some ways it was his choice,” says Tomson. “I think in other ways, it was just the circumstances that he fell into.”

—

Unusual Business

Rasmussen shaped his first surfboard, a 4’10”, at age 14. By 1978 he had developed his design skills under the likes of Harold Ige, Sam Hawk, Owl Chapman, Dick Brewer, and Mike Diffenderfer. In that same Surfing magazine profile by Drew Kampion, he says, “To me a surfboard’s just the expression of a feeling, and I can adapt to anything if it’s got a good foil, rail line, and bottom rocker.”

Rasmussen’s exceptional surfing translated into him being one of the most forward-thinking surfboard shapers in the world. His pioneering spirit, entrepreneurial drive, and extensive travels allowed him to set up a laboratory of progressive surfboard design in his friends’ garages in the Hamptons at a time when the shortboard was being redefined weekly. 

Rasmussen also wanted to do turns that single fins didn’t allow. He was ultimately pushed by the small waves of the East Coast to evolve his own surfing and the type of boards he was shaping, creating faster designs that fit in tight, radical arcs. He outlined a theory, which was a throwaway at the time, but became one of the Laws of Gravity of surfboard shaping. It was called, “Rick Rasmussen’s Upside Down Theory”:

In smaller surf I feel you need a faster board than in bigger surf. The big waves provide all the speed you need. I just want the board to hold in and be responsive. A slower board with a lot of rolled V allows me to maneuver closer to the pocket or back inside the tube. It has made it easier to change from rail-to-rail, which helps you to turn up and down in the tube, which in turn helps you to get out of the tube. Down soft rails with an edge on the bottom-round rail sucks the rail into the face and the edge on the bottom allows the water to release easily. That way you can slide off the bevel on off the lips and keep up flowing style to pull off radical moves without losing speed. 

Rasmussen started his own line of surfboards in 1973. In addition to shaping, he developed an import-export business inspired by his unwillingness to rely on nonexistent competition money for a living. In 1977, he brought back half a ton of merchandise, clothing, and other products from Indonesia and sold them at a profit. 

He registered the label Clean & Natural in 1977, and teamed up with Australian Steve Zoeller. Zoeller was Simon Anderson’s business partner in Energy Surfboards and his glasser. (He glassed Anderson’s first thruster in 1980.) As Drew Kampion put it with a chilling premonition, “Rick sees it as a changing world, with surfing as one of the most changing things in it. A new generation is coming in while the old one fades. Only the most dedicated will survive, and no one survives forever.”

Around 1978, Rasmussen stopped over in Bali with his girlfriend, Wendy, staying at one of the Pertamina Cottages in Kuta Beach. According to Rasmussen, a man from the Narcotics Department asked to check his room and, since he had nothing to hide, Rasmussen allowed it. The police mistook a stash of his dried fruit for mushrooms, his first aid powder and yeast powder for heroin, and his Japanese seaweed for ganja. Rick and Wendy were thrown in Kerobokan Prison.

Rasmussen was arrested for possession of illegal substances. True to form during his three-month stay at Hotel Kerobokan, he managed to wrangle fresh salads, hot meals, ice for his fruit, and thermoses of banana daiquiris. He was quickly moved into a separate section of the prison, with a garden and a small pool outside. He also managed to get a stereo, a hammock, and a little pet monkey. Eventually his father flew over to Bali from Long Island. With help from his Grumman Aerospace connections, Bill Rasmussen hired a lawyer and the lawyer paid off various individuals. It took more than three months to free Rick.

Rasmussen was not only one of the first people to start importing clothes, but according to friends of his from Long Island, he also came back from Bali with drugs. “It was kind of a shame,” says Luke Moore, “because back in the 70s there really wasn’t anyone in pro surfing making money. So a lot of the top guys in the contests would smuggle drugs in their surfboards to pay for traveling. A lot of them were doing it.”

—

Rick Rasmussen, The American Sportsman

“The American Sportsman” was a popular national television series on ABC that ran from 1965 to 1986 and featured celebrities and guest spots in the great outdoors. In 1980, they ran an episode that featured Rasmussen, Linda Davoli, and Gregory Harrison surfing Grajagan in Java. Harrison was the celebrity, an actor and lifelong surfer from California known for playing Dr. Gonzo on “Trapper John, MD.”

Tony Caramanico, the graceful and decorated longboarder from New York, had helped the ABC crew produce an episode on artist Peter Beard and convinced them to film a surf episode in one of the most perfect and also wildest surf spots on earth. To get to G-land, Caramanico and Rasmussen started in Beverly Hills, then flew to Hawaii for five days, living the good life all the way to Bali. Upon arrival, Rasmussen rolled through the Ngurah Rai airport with an entourage including a camera crew, about 20 surfboards, and numerous handlers. The trip marked his first return to Bali since his imprisonment.

Rasmussen wore sunglasses and a striped shirt and was carrying a boom box. As they went through customs, the boombox blared a Pink Floyd song:

Money, it’s a gas.

Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.

New car, caviar, four-star daydream.

The crew traveled overland from Bali to Java and then down into the national park and Grajagan village, where they took a boat to G-land, waiting for low tide to cross the treacherous river in rickety wooden boats. Surfer and hustler Mike Boyum had set up a camp there in the years since his first visit, finalizing a deal in 1977 with Javanese authorities. Later the same year, Boyum was nabbed by the FBI in Bali and sent back to the U.S., where he spent two years in a prison in California. By the time ABC arrived, the surf camp at G-land had started to disintegrate, but the crew stayed in the tree houses anyway.

The $150,000 trip was winning, including an Emmy for Dan Merkel for his camerawork and a “Teddy” Theodore Roosevelt Award. It reached the homes of many Americans and placed Rasmussen alongside many others featured on the show, including Robert Duvall of Apocalypse Now, Margaux, Mariel, and Jack Hemingway, plus Peter Beard, Cheryl Tiegs, and Robert Redford.

By 1980 Rasmussen was already very familiar with G-land. In addition to being one of the first to surf it, according to Mike Oblowitz’s film Sea of Darkness, he had been the first to surf the wave at low tide. He was also part of the exclusive crew that lived and surfed G-land in the early days with Boyum, Peter McCabe, and Gerry Lopez. Unfortunately, the ABC trip would be his last to G-Land.

—

Snowing in the Summertime

“He was the sort of guy you didn’t want to know and you didn’t want to meet.” [Derek Hynd]

During the 60s, 70s, and to some degree even into the 80s, addiction and the long-term effects of drugs were still fairly unknown. In terms of drugs intersecting with surf culture, one of Rasmussen’s friends who prefers to stay anonymous, says that, “socially, it was a different consciousness around that era. There weren’t a lot of people around who’d had negative experiences yet. There was a real innocence and an experimental nature to it at that time. Not that that was a good thing, necessarily.”

It was well known in the surfing community that Rasmussen was doing drugs, and it soon became clear he had a problem. Many surfers became addicted to heroin in Bali, because of the super powerful “China White” that was also very inexpensive, according to Mike Ritter. China White also hit the North Shore and other areas of the U.S. On the East Coast, the Long Island Drug Task force reported to Newsday that during Rasmussen’s trips to Indonesia he had made contacts in the “Golden Triangle.” The Golden Triangle covered overlapping land in Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar, and was the largest producer of opium in the world at that time. Luke Moore remembers one day when all the boys were surfing Shinnecock Inlet, toward the end of Rasmussen’s life. 

 “Rick was out there and he was pretty messed up on heroin that day,” he says. “Everybody was so mad at him. Billy [McGill] was the only guy that went up and helped him out of the water, walked him up to his car. I still remember that day. I was with Billy and he was so bummed out. Up until then Rick was definitely his idol.”

In the early 80s, Shaun Tomson was in the Hamptons doing a promotional trip when he called Rasmussen to meet for dinner. He hadn’t seen his friend in a few years because Rasmussen he had dropped off the scene. When he saw him, Rick was still vibrant, but he was also skinny and looked unhealthy. He told Tomson he wanted to make one stop before they headed out to the restaurant. They drove into a remote area. “Just wait in the car for me,” Rasmussen said. 

There was only a house in the middle of the darkness. Rasmussen jumped out of the car, walked up to the door, and banged on it. A huge man answered and he and Rasmussen quickly entered into heated argument. Tomson opened his door and ran to hide in the bushes, thinking it might get violent. “I saw then that Rick was in the grips of some dark force there,” he recalls. “And it was just very sad to see. This vibrant young guy, who was so stoked, and he just went down another path.”

—

They Had Him. They had Ricky.

On October 6, 1981, Rasmussen and four other people were arrested in Southampton, Long Island, for selling four ounces of 89 percent pure heroin to undercover cops. The bust was worth a reported street value of half a million dollars. According to Newsday, the police had spent over a year negotiating with Rasmussen and the others before the arrests were made. The main officer working on the case was a “hippie-looking” cop, according to a New York Magazine article titled “The Cadet and the Surfer” by Michael Daly, published in November of 1982. Rasmussen was released on $1 million in bail, which his father paid, with help from his retirement fund.

The undercover officer offered Rick a deal. In exchange for working as a criminal informant, they would make sure “the sentencing judge received a recommendation of leniency.”

As an informant, Rasmussen went on to help nab drug dealers, including a ring that was importing heroin from India. “Toward the end he was a lot more involved than anyone had any freaking idea,” says Tony Caramanico of Rick. “I just re-learned how involved he was over the last seven years. And that was: they had Ricky. The FBI, the CIA, the DEA. In the end, they literally had him working for them. And he helped stop a gigantic heroin import.” 

Rasmussen was put into even more dangerous situations than when he was just smuggling. On August 9, 1982, he drove his girlfriend into the city to celebrate her 21st birthday, taking her to a Japanese restaurant on the East Side. Earlier in the day he had received an important phone call and became apologetic. “I’m sorry I have to do this tonight,” he told her.

He was shot in the head at West 152 Street and Riverside Drive in Harlem as he was trying to return to his car, once the drug deal turned sour. It was not a grazing wound. After sixteen days in a coma, at 3:15 p.m. on August 26, Rasmussen passed away.

Luke Moore recalls that during the day of August 9, the waves were good, atypical for that early in the season. It was a nice summer evening and all the boys were surfing the bowl together at Shinnecock Inlet. Moore was doing work with Rasmussen at that time and Rick and his girlfriend came down to the beach, dressed up to go into the city. Rasmussen was on the beach yelling out to all his friends in the water. Moore caught a wave in and they exchanged a few words. 

“It was the weirdest thing,” he says, “when I looked at him I felt like I was never going to see him again. He was yelling for Eric to come in, ‘Penny, Eric, Eric!’ And everybody was kind of mad at him at that time. And anyway Eric didn’t go in and that was the last we saw of him. I remember the next morning I was in his shop patching a surfboard and I had the radio on and it came over the speaker: ‘Special report, Rick Rasmussen, pro surfer, shot in the head.’”

—

He Could Perpetuate that Mystery, the Power, and the Soul

For the last years of his life, in addition to being a champion surfer and a progressive shaper, Rasmussen was also a junkie. He became unreliable, and burned more than one person as his previous true nature of generosity and kindness started to unravel. His descent wasn’t glamorous or cool, but it didn’t change the way he had once surfed. And it couldn’t change what he once was before the disease of addiction took over.

Brendan Burr McGill, who moved to Hawaii from the Hamptons to dedicate his life to surfing Pipeline because of Rasmussen says, “Being a grom growing up, he was the guy to emulate. When I’m surfing now and I see a grommet or someone who doesn’t know how to surf, I see the mystery in their eyes. And I had that back then. Surfing was such a mystery. Just looking at the magazines and then the stories of Ricky—he could perpetuate that mystery, what surfing is.”

Tomson recalls Rasmussen, the surfer, as a man with “beautiful style. It was very influenced by Gerry Lopez,” he says, “but his surfing was way more performance oriented. It was like a mixture of old school and what we were doing—really being aggressive and powerful and carving. He had the soul and the power together.”

Herbie Fletcher once recounted that watching Rasmussen on a twin-fin in Bali was the best thing he had ever seen in the water. When asked about it later, he said things change, but it remained the best thing he had ever seen up to that point in his life. His friends on the East Coast also remember many times going down to the jetties to find him surfing alone in the middle of winter with ice on his eyebrows.

“He was a fucking raging heroin addict drug dealer who got shot in a drug deal gone wrong,” Mike Oblowitz says when asked why Rasmussen was left out of the history books. “I mean, when he was shot, it was pretty hectic you know. It was pretty fucking trippy. Surfers didn’t get shot. Surfers did not get shot in drug deals in Harlem. It’s just not what happened. It was freaky.”

Rasmussen brought an enormous amount of positivity to people’s lives, often lifting them up, and being friendly to people no matter who they were, or where they came from. Brad Gerlach remembers Rasmussen once took him on a trip to Mexico to surf. He told Gerlach if he ever needed money for a contest, to just ask and he would cover it. At other times, he had the opposite effect. Joe Albers, when asked if his spirit still lives, says, “Yeah, it sure does. He touched a lot of different people in a lot of different ways. He got a lot of people into surfing. He also got a lot of people into drugs.”

Nevertheless Rasmussen’s style was undeniable. During the 70s there were only a couple of clubs in Kuta—the Pink Panther and Doggies—and everyone would typically be in boardshorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops. But Rasmussen was always in jeans, a nice shirt, a scarf, and his python boots. He surfed Padang Padang barrels with the same sense of panache, all his own, existing only with him, gone after he died.

Early Indonesian surf pioneer Richard Lewis has one vivid memory of “Raz,”: “He was standing at the beach, where the Beachwalk Mall is now, but back then it was just a cactus-lined track with a small coral-wall temple. The track led straight to the beach. There was no beachfront road at the time. He was shirtless, in board shorts, with that deep tan and shaggy sun-bleached hair you only get from days upon days of surfing in the tropical sun. Those early lords of Ulu all had the same kind of lean look, more vacuum-packed than chiseled, because not only did they spend hours in the water, but the hike in and out was also a lung-buster. When I heard about his murder, this memory came back. It’s stuck with me, all the way.”  

[Feature image: Raz, like Jeff Crawford, quickly dispelled any parochial notions where East Coast surfing was concerned. This Yankee flat charged. Photo by Jeff Divine.]