Rawson, Pat

Even-keeled, hard-working surfboard shaper from Sunset Beach, Hawaii; regarded by many as the maker of the world's finest big-wave boards during the 1980s and '90s. "There was a point," TransWorld Surf magazine wrote in 2001, "where any traveling pro would give a testicle to get a Rawson board while on the North Shore."

Rawson was born (1954) and raised in Santa Monica, California and started surfing at age nine. Three years later, after convincing his father to let him convert the family ga...