Chapter: 7
Long Division
- Return of the Longboard
- Simon Anderson and his Mighty Thruster
- Surf and Destroy
- Terror from Below
- The Unsinkable Tom Carroll
- An Explosion of Talent
- Tom Curren's Mile of Style
- How to Turn a Circus into a Riot
- I Predict Waves in Your Future
- Cult of the Surf Photographer
- Video Killed the Surf Movie
- Waves for Sale
- Surf Boom Redux
- Terminally Hip
- Super-Sizing the World Tour
- Somebody Should Do Something
- Surfers vs Apartheid
- Make Room at the Top, Obrigado!
- The Last Big Wave
- Eddie Aikau's State of Grace
- A Beloved Rival
The Unsinkable Tom Carroll

Tom Carroll, Pipeline, 1990. Photo: Adriano Sodre

Tom (right) and Nick Carroll, 1990. Photo: Jeff Divine

Tom Carroll, 1987

Tom Carroll, 1979. Photo: Hugh McLeod

Carroll (left) and Curren, Bells, 1986
The Western world developed a huge Aussie crush in the 1980s: Mel Gibson, Men at Work, Crocodile Dundee, Olivia Newton-John, The Thorn Birds. Surfing, of course, had Tom Carroll.
The Marui Pro world tour contest, held at Chiba, Japan, was the least-popular event among IPS pros. It was a long flight for most surfers to get there, the language barrier was high, the surf was often flat, and the English-language surf mags usually didn't bother to send a reporter. Yet the 1982 Marui Pro proved to be the bellwether event of the year. The surf, for once, was good—overhead and of...
Subscribe or Login
Plans start at $5, cancel anytimeTrouble logging-in? Contact us.