A Hero Is Gone: Mike Hynson 1942-2025
The Endless Summer star was 82.
Today the surfing world woke to news that Mike Hynson — the blonde star of Bruce Brown’s original Endless Summer, one of the most influential designers and style icons — had kicked out for the last time at 82.
It’s hard to overstate how deep a hole Hynson’s death leaves in surfing’s cultural core, and what an extraordinary surfing life he lived.
“Mike Hynson was the second-most polarizing 1960s surfer, behind Miki Dora,” claims Matt Warshaw. “He was also a gifted, innovative board designer and an immaculate craftsman. And the style sense! Off the charts. Hynson was the best-dressed surfer of the 1960s, hands down. Ray-Ban beach-casual perfection during the Endless Summer years; paisley-and-fur pimp-stoner flights of fancy by the end of the decade. His challengers never made it higher than the tops of Hynson’s calfskin-suede ankle boots.”
Born in Crescent City, California, Hynson grew up in Pacific Beach, San Diego, and was one of the founders of the infamous Windansea Surf Club. His blue, red, and white pinlined Hobie that he carried around the world filming with Bruce Brown and Endless Summer co-star Robert August, as well as Hynson’s downrail, triple stringer Red Fin, shaped under the Gordon & Smith label in the 1960s, are two of the most instantly recognizable models of the era.
Following the international success of the Endless Summer, Hynson was swept up in the Orange County hippy scene, one of the main players in the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, the so-called “Hippie Mafia” working towards an international, LSD-induced “psychedelic revolution.” Hynson was involved in the Rainbow Bridge project on Maui, which brought Jimi Hendrix and other musicians there in 1971.
“The revolution wasn’t even televised,” Herbie Fletcher told The Surfer’s Journal a few years ago. “Mike Hynson’s inspirational understanding of surfing made him one of the greats of his time. He was as responsible for surfing’s soul movement as anyone else, maybe more. He recognized that it was all about music. If you merged the cool of jazzmen like Herbie Mann, Dave Brubeck, and Jimmy Smith with the raw sweat of Ray Charles, that’s what Hynson was all about. He was hearin’ Mingus out at Backdoor where I lived in 1967. He built a shaping room next door, and we began some serious experimentation. B.K. and Tiger Espere were there, ask them. As the music started swingin’ toward Cream, Hendrix, and the Stones, Hynson shrunk the templates and dropped the rails; the mini-gun had arrived and Maui was the call. It was Mike who shaped me the first down-rail board anyone had ever seen; he coined the mini-gun and that’s that.”
At the news of his deaths, tributes have flooded social media.
“Thanks for letting me sit at your table throughout life!” wrote pal and pupil, Joel Tudor (sic). ”You gave our surf culture its cool identity! Stoked an entire generation to chase the dream of an endless summer! Love and light to your 1st wife Melinda Merryweather , you son @mikehynsonjr Sun Mike Hynson jr, all the grandkids and life partner till the end Carol! Was a honor to hold your hand last night as you were preparing for the final ride…took my phone and played Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Baby” in your ear before kissing your forehead goodbye and saying I love you! Long may you ride amigo!”
“Elvis has left the building,” wrote longtime friend Ken Lewis. “There will only be one Mike Hynson. For better or worse, this gruff style master changed surfing forever. I first met him in the late 1980s and he was far different than the slicked hair kid in the Endless Summer. He had wild stories and was making some questionable boards at the time. But over the decades, there was redemption but never did he change his tune. Mike was Mike. He had a tough exterior and that’s what left an indelible mark on wave riding forever. Rest easy HY.”
