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Depression-era regularfooter from Los Angeles who beat former schoolmate Pete Peterson, among others, to win the 1940 Pacific Coast Surf Riding Championships. According to the 

' coverage, Tucker was "rated the most daring rider on the West Coast."

Biographic information about Tucker is hard to come by. He went to grammar school, and was in the same grade, as champion surfer and paddler Pete Peterson. 

By the late 1930s, Tucker was a member of the elite Palos Verdes Surfing Club, and was likely living in either Redondo or Hermosa Beach. 

While surfing Hermosa Pier in the spring of 1940, the metal fin screwed to the tail of Tucker's board sliced him on the ankle. "It required 30 stitches and two hours to close the gap," photographer Doc Ball wrote his 1946 

Tucker nonetheless was in top form later that year when he won the 1940 Pacific Coast Surf Riding Championships, at San Onofre. As he told writer Leonard Lueras, years later, "I won by switching boards at the proper times. I rode an 'ultralight'—a hollow 50-pound plywood board—in the morning, and then when the chop came up later in the day I switched to a heavier 120-pound spruce. Once enough people were eliminated [from the contest], and I didn't need the extra weight for personal protection, I went back to the more maneuverable ultralight." (Tucker clarified what he meant by needing "protection" for a surfing event: "If you were in a contest situation and a guy took off in front of you, it was your obligation to show no decency. You went right through him or otherwise mowed him down.")

While he was regarded for a number of years as among the best surfers in California, Tucker himself knew where he stood. Pete Peterson, he said, "was the greatest waterman on the West Coast. He was the best, and maybe Lorrin Harrison was second best. I was hot one year and beat 'em both, but I was just lucky." 

Tucker was also among the most decorated paddleboarders of the era, and in 1940 he led the Hermosa Beach Surfing Club to an undefeated paddleboard season. 

Tucker, Cliff

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

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