Ella Boyd interviewed Lynne Boyer in 2024. 

I was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania. My dad was in the Army, and he got stationed in Hawaii when I was still in elementary school. Before that, when we were still on the Mainland, we would go visit my grandma in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, and I'd ride a styrofoam board on my belly or one of those blow-up mat things. I loved the feeling of riding waves. So we moved to Hawaii when I was really small, then moved back to the Mainland, then back to Hawaii again when I was 11. I remember it was this big decision, were we going to move to Hawaii or Colorado. 

Well, the Army did! They stationed my dad in Hawaii. But I remember before that, thinking to myself, “If we move to Colorado, I'm gonna learn to ski. If we move to Hawaii, I'm gonna learn to surf.” 

Late 1968, I think. My dad got stationed at Schofield Barracks and every Wednesday he had a half day, and he'd take me to the beach. I'll always remember my first ride on a surfboard was at Pokai Bay, on the West Side. They call it rest camp 'cause there's cabins and stuff, for army people. 

Yes, I paddled into this wave on a 9' 4" or something like that, a longboard. I stood up and I remember really clearly the sound of the water clattering under the board as the wave pushed me along. There must have been a light offshore wind. It was just a little wave I caught, tiny, one or two feet, I don't even remember if it broke. But I remember that clattering sound under and the breeze on my face. And the thrill, the adrenaline! That's my first memory of a surfing a wave. I was hooked, completely, from that day on

In high school, early on, so around 14 or 15.

You first came to people's attention in a big way in 1976, when you won the Hang Ten WISA contest at Malibu as a teenager. 

Yeah. That was the second Malibu surf contest for the women. The first one I broke my leg skateboarding just before, and I couldn't go. I was so bummed! Margo [Oberg] won that one. But I went the next year and totally won it. I was stoked. 

Was that what sparked your competitive streak?

No, it was way before that. I've always had it. I wanted to be the best from the minute I started! (Laughs) 

What was next, after that first day surfing? 

I graduated to Makaha pretty quickly. Makaha was a bigger wave, a better wave, with way better surfers. I got good out there. This was during the transition period when boards were going short. One afternoon my mom and dad pulled over to a surf shop on the way home from Makaha and bought my sister Sherry and me each a used board. It wasn’t a super short but it wasn't a longboard, it was sort of in-between, like 7' or something like that. My board (laughs), I just picked it because the colors were beautiful. I had no idea about how boards worked. It was way too gunny; it wouldn't even turn. My sister, meanwhile, picked a wider board. Lucky for me, she didn't like surfing that much, so I ended up riding her board and it just totally ripped. 

If your sister didn't surf, who did you end up surfing with?

You know, actually, she did surf. But I hated going to the beach with her because who wants to hang out with their little sister, right? (Laughs) But I had to take her, my mom made me, so she surfed. There was a little gang of us, my friend Cindy, my sister's friend Betty. I think I was the only one of the group who started entering contests, and pretty soon I realized that I could beat everybody else except this one girl. Her name was Evie Black, and I got her a couple of times but she would just mostly win everything. To this day I'm so glad she never turned pro! 

Rell was like a big sister to me out at Makaha. I was still a grom when I first got there, I didn't even have boobs yet. She was six or seven years older. We were close. I was friends also with Michael Ho's sister, Debbie. She and I would catch the bus out to Makaha on Friday afternoon and stay at Rell's, and we'd surf together all weekend. Martha Sunn, also called Kula Sunn—wow, she was a really beautiful surfer. Martha never turned pro either, but she won a lot of amatuer contests. 

Later on, when you were pro, Margo Oberg was your biggest competition for a really long time.

Yes. Margo was the only one who ever really posed a threat. We were rivals, for sure. 

[Note: Oberg won WCT titles in '77, '80, and '81; Boyer won in '78 and '79.]

No, it wasn't. Not at all. It was like, “You're on your side, I'm on my side, and let's not talk.” I had to have secrets, 'cause I don't wanna give anyone an edge. Competition at that level is so hard. You gotta be quiet and have some secrets to not let the other people get the edge. 

It sounds like when you were competing, you were really, really focused.

I ate, drank and breathed surfing—and then I partied. So yeah, you could say I was focused. I got into alcohol and cocaine, so it was party and surf, surf and party. I made enough money so I could afford to do that. Back then things weren't expensive, you know. 

No, in the beginning my focus was just to become the best surfer in the world. It wasn't about money, it wasn't about partying. I trained really hard on my own. I took up running. I did yoga. I surfed constantly, like five or six hours a day 

Harold Iggy. People don't remember him as much now, but he was one of the best shapers in the history of surfing. Harold Iggy was my shaper and more or less my coach, too, 'cause he passed on a lot of knowledge. "When you take the drop at Sunset Beach, use your legs as shock absorbers, so let 'em loose and squat a bit.” So that's probably part of the reasons I surfed real low, because Iggy said that. And also he told me to think two or three turns ahead, like a slalom skier. That was a big help too. He'd give me tips like that, he told me about the lineups at Sunset, which was a big deal because as a woman it was really hard back then to break in at Sunset. Kind of like the way Pipeline is for the girls today. Men were all riding these big boards at Sunset, and they're super strong, and I couldn't even get a wave. Iggy helped me figure that place out, and it made a big difference. By the time it came to having heats out there, it was so much easier just being out in the water with just Margo, basically. There were other women, but most were too scared and sitting in the channel. They weren't as gutsy as me and Margo.

Only on the biggest days. But even then, you know, the fear kind of dropped away because of the adreline, and because I wanted to win! 

Wow, I don't even remember. It was before I turned pro, and I was winning some contests, and I probably just went up to him and asked if he'd be my sponsor. I knew people who were riding his boards and really liked them. Iggy was pretty famous then. He had his own surf shops.

Yeah, on Queen Street. It was called the Surfboard Shaping Company. I'd surf all morning and work in the shop all afternoon.

No, once that happened I quit working in the shop. 

So Harold Iggy was making your boards. Who were your other sponsors? How were you funding your travel?

My parents paid for my first trip to South Africa and Brazil, which was one of the best trips I ever went on for waves, we scored perfect Jeffreys Bay. Actually, at first, I 

 perfect waves at Jeffreys Bay, because the night before I had a drinking contest with Mike Purpus. Sandy Ordille ended up holding my hair back while I threw up, and the next morning it was eight foot and as good as it gets and I couldn't even get into my wetsuit, I had such a hangover. But then the day after, it was still six to eight. It was epic. There were no houses at Jeffreys at that time. We stayed at a hostel with shared bathrooms. It was so country, but the surf was just insane. So perfect, and so long, your legs would get tired halfway through the wave.

Jeffreys is the only place I ever surfed where the waves were better than Hawaii. 

That was the same year SURFER did a big profile on you, and you were kind of the pinup girl of pro surfing. 

(Laughs) I was so cute! I remember thinking, “I want to look like Farrah Fawcett.” And I kind of did! I look back at those pictures and, you know, I looked like her. Of course, we were so young. We were all beautiful, really. Even people that weren't beautiful look beautiful to me now. I don't know. It's funny, getting older. 

You brought a lot of color to the scene. Your red hair, and your boards were always so bright, and you surfed so well.

I was kind of a star, I guess. But actually, at the time, to be honest, I didn't have much self-worth. Surfing was my whole identity. I was shy and introverted, and surfing was the only place I could just let it all out. In the water, I didn't give a crap about anything on land. I think that's why I stayed in the water so many hours at a time! (Laughs) People called me a fish, and mostly I think what it was, I was just trying to not deal with stuff on the land, you know? Surfing was my escape. 

So you were on the tour for six or seven years, won two world titles, then you just kind of disappeared.

I got really into drinking and using coke. I bottomed out really bad. I hit rock bottom when I was around 25. I got kicked out of the house I was in, my parents wouldn't help at first, they were fed up with me, then I went to AA finally and they took me in. I got sober for about ten months. Then it was contest time again and I left my parents' house in Town and moved into their condo on the North Shore. So there I am back in my old surroundings, I stopped working the steps, and ended up going back out and partying. I remember thinking, "This sucks, I'm so young"—I think I was 26 at the time—"I should be able to party," all that bullshit. So that lasted about three weeks before I hit bottom again. The 

Did you compete after that, or was that pretty much it? 

That was pretty much it. By that point, I was ready to go to any length to stay sober. I tried to go back on tour but I lost all the desire to win. The next crew was coming up: Jodie Cooper, Frieda Zamba, Kim Mearig. I felt so alone out there; I didn't even really try. I just wanted to stay sober, go to meetings, I went to meetings almost every day. The contest scene just didn't matter to me at all any more. I wanted to get my life going as a non-surfer, I wanted to learn how to get a job and do responsible things. 

What role did drinking have, do you think? Was it just to have fun, or a pressure relief from the contests, or something else?

When I drank, I became another person. I could become the life of the party. Part of me really enjoyed that, I think. Drinking made me feel less weird.

Seventeen. Not that young, really, at least not at the time. But once I had that first one—it was a tequila sunrise at a friend's bar in Waikiki; I still remember that—it was like “oh my God, this is wonderful.” (Laughs)

But you weren't a serious drinker at first. 

No, I was a periodic drinker. I got sober around contest times and when we toured. After the contest, that's when it started. 

Did you crash any cars or anything like that?

No, thank God. I could have, though. It was just luck that I didn't. I remember a cop here in Hawaii pulled me over 'cause I was driving too slow. I was wasted. He walked over, hit me with the flashlight, and said, “Oh, you're that surfer. Let me escort you home.”

Oh my god, that would never happen today! I guess it’s kind of lucky, in a way, that everything happened in the time frame that it did. On the other hand, you also had some personal identity stuff going on that you didn't feel comfortable telling people about initially.

That was pretty gnarly. That was, for sure, part of what we're talking about, part of why I was drinking. Being gay back then, having feelings for women, for me anyway, was something you hid and felt ashamed of and guilty about. It was like, “something must be wrong with me.” 

At first, yeah, I just dated guys. But not really; I hardly even dated. I had a boyfriend for a while, but it never felt right. And then I met this friend who turned out to be gay, and she tried to kiss me, and I was like, “Ewww, get away! That's bad, that's terrible; why are you doing that?” 

On the North Shore, we were horsing around on a bed, just goofing around. 

Then there was another friend I had, a really good friend, and she was all the way out, kind of ahead of her time—just the opposite of me! (laughs)—and she liked me. Anyway, when I'd get drunk, I'd give in. I had to be drunk to not be brainwashed by everyone's expectations.

I’m a Townie now. In the summer I surf Tonggs. It's a cool crowd—all different skill levels, just a nice place to surf. I can still surf for a couple of hours. It used to take five or six till I was done. 

My wife just wants to lay in the sun (laughs). 

I was always into art, even before surfing. Then for a lot of years, surfing took priority. After I got myself together, I took some classes and learned how to use oil paints, and then I discovered plein air painting. 

Plein air? That means you do it outside, on site, and you paint wet on wet. I'm still doing that. It's almost like surfing, in a way. You're very much in the elements, and you have to be focused and work fast, ’cause the sun is moving, the clouds are moving, the shadows, you have maybe two hours to get it pretty much done. But meanwhile, yeah, you're in the wind, the sun, the rain, the elements. I love it. 

What do you usually do with the paintings?

Eight different galleries, I think. I'm an established artist here. I've been doing it long enough! Another way it's kind of like surfing—it's super competitive. I have to use a similar energy that I did for surfing. I have to push myself, sell myself, paint like crazy to get better. I used to surf like crazy. Now I gotta paint, paint, paint, you know? (Laughs) But it's fun.

No. I contribute, but my wife, Reka, she's the one with the full-time job [as a NOAA oceanographer] and because of her I can be a bit more relaxed about my painting. I like to just paint what I love. I'm not as good at the business side of the whole thing.  

How does it make you feel, seeing women pro surfers today? 

I love it. They're incredible. But at the same times, sometimes I get really—not envious, or not totally envious, but I sometimes I wish I was young again, because the things they're doing now, those were the things I dreamed of when I was that age. The girls today are literally living the dreams from my generation. 

For a long time I didn't, I was just out there free-surfing, and not thinking about it at all. That was fine. Then Carissa Moore came into my life! I was out one day at Kaiser's, this was when I was still shortboarding, and I did a a carving 360 when Carissa was paddling out. She was just a kid. She saw  me do that and she goes, “Wow, are you Margo Oberg?” Her dad was out there too, and he goes, “No, Carissa, that's Lynne Boyer.” (Laughs) Margo was always bigger than I was! She still is! But I very clearly remember watching this little kid surf and I thought, “Oh my God, I've never seen a girl surf that well.” Carissa was totally ripping, even then, and from that first day I knew she would a world champion. 

Oh yeah! I remember seeing a picture of her in the newspaper, with these four guys. Carissa's in the middle and there's two guys on either side of her, and she's all smiling while the boys are all frowning (laughs). It was so good. She competed with the boys and beat 'em all. 

I liked her, how she surfed, because she did really radical maneuvers.

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