Tommy Peterson, Shaper Behind Tom Curren’s Fireball Fish, Passes Away

Australian surfing lost a charismatic architect overnight. Tommy Peterson, brother of the mercurial Michael Peterson and creator of the now-mythologised Fireball Fish, has passed. Details remain scarce, but his death closes another chapter in Australian surf history.

The Peterson name carried weight — his brother, MP, was the dark prince of ‘70s competitive surfing, a blur of talent, paranoia, and amphetamines, immortalised by that cutback shot and a police chase that required 35 squad cars to stop him. But while Michael made his legend inside of Kirra’s cylinders, Tommy was in the shaping bay, crafting. His hands pushed design forward, even if his name never quite got top billing.

One of those boards found its way under Tom Curren’s feet. The Fireball Fish wasn’t meant for Curren — it was originally shaped for Jay Phillips, a rising Gold Coast talent. But when Curren and Frankie Oberholzer drifted through Coolangatta, Phillips was already en route to a pro junior at Bells. The board changed hands, and history followed.

After the famous Search trip, Curren brought the board back to Australia, where it landed with Mark Thomson, a design mind linked to Greenough and McTavish. Before leaving, Curren passed it to Mark’s son, Daniel Thomson — who, as it happens, spent his early years riding one of MP’s old single fins.

For years, the Fireball Fish slowly faded into obscurity — until it found its way under the feet of Mason Ho.

“My dad used to hang with him and MP back in the day,” Mason says. “Every time I see Tommy I’m like, ‘What’s up, uncle?!’ I’ll ask him about whatever I’m into at the time. When I last saw him, I’d been watching Searching for Tom Curren, so I asked about the board Curren was riding.”

Tommy made him one in three days.

“It has a lot of sentimental value,” Mason says. “I put it in all these situations where it should have broken, but it didn’t. Pipeline, the Waimea shorebreak, West Side sandbars — somehow, it held up. So now I’ve put it away, nice and safe. I don’t think I’ll ride it again.”

“It’s more than just a surfboard,” Mason says. “It’s this little piece of living history.”

Now, another piece of history is gone.