This uncredited article ran in the August 22, 1962, issue of Teenagers' Weekly magazine, published out of Australia. The magazine cover shows a group of surfers on the beach (young Midget Farrelly is front and center), with a cover blurb reading "Australian Wins International Surfing Championship in Peru." Bob Pike had indeed just won the small-wave event in the Peru International contest. Midget, meanwhile, was just a few months away from Winning the Makaha International, which was a much, much bigger deal.

Where the surf is running best anywhere on the coast between Surfers' Paradise, Queensland, and Torquay—there you'll find Bob Pike. Enjoying the sun, sand, and salty spray, he's also training hard, for in a few months he plans to be off again to South American to defend his title of Surfboard Riding Champion of Peru.

Bob, now 22, won the championship last March in competition with the best from Hawaii, California, France, and Peru, and he made such a hit with the people of Lima that they asked him to come back in March—all expenses paid. 

[Note: Felipe Pomar of Lima was in fact the official winner of the 1962 Peru International; Pike won what was often called the "shorebreak," or small-wave performance, event.]

An old boy of the King's School, Sydney, Bob's home is at Manly, just north of Sydney. The first Australian to win a surf championship overseas, he was a member of the 20-strong Australian team which competed in the International Surfing Championships at Makaha Beach, Hawaii, last summer. Because he injured a leg he had to drop out before the finals. Several members of the team qualified but had to return home before the finals, delayed by lack of a suitable surf, were held.

Bob, however, got a lucky break soon after the Hawaiian championships were over. John Severson, a champion Californian rider who was visiting Hawaii for the surfing titles, offered Bob a trip to Peru. The editor of the American magazine 

John won all the board-riding events in last years Peruvian championship and, before he left, the organizers asked him to arrange for Australian, Hawai­ian, and Californian riders to compete in their 1962 championships.

John choose Bob and a Sydney friend, Mick Hickey, of Bilgola (another northern Sydney Beach), to represent Australia. It was a great surprise to Bob.

"I didn't even know they surfed in Peru, but what a way to find out," he said.

So off he went to California where he joined two other boys heading for Peru, and they all drove down to Mexico with their surfboards tied to the roof of the car.

Taking a couple of weeks for the trip, the boys stopped to surf all the famous beaches along America's West Coast. From Mexico, they took a plane to Lima, capital of Peru, where they were put up at the best hotel, as guests of the city's Waikiki Surf Club. During their month's stay, the visiting surfers went to a party as guests of the President of Peru and were lavishly entertained by the city's citizens.

Bob said all the visiting surfers received "royal" treatment.

Servants employed by the Waikiki Surf Club took charge of their surfboards, rubbed them down with paraffin wax, carried them to water's edge, and even waited to carry them back after Bob and the other boys had finished riding. The servants handed them towels after they showered in the surf club, and even rubbed suntan lotion on their noses before they went out in the sun again.

"There are several beautiful beaches near Lima," Bob said, "but the surf is small. The biggest waves are about 10-ft high, and a permanent onshore wind makes the water too choppy for really good surfing.

"But Peru itself, and the people! They're terrific."

For winning the international exhibition board-riding event, Bob was awarded a bronze carving of two seagulls mounted on a marble base. The trophy weighs 36 lb. and is valued at £150.

After leaving school at 15, Bob did a two-year course at Sydney Technical College to become a qualified wool classer. He worked in shearing sheds in N.S.W. and Queensland to save the £600 for the trip to Hawaii.

During that time he visited every surf beach in the eastern States.

"Fairy Bower, about a mile off Manly Beach, is THE spot in Australia when the waves are on," he said.

"The surf in Hawaii, how­ever. is even better—just like I'd always imagined."

But it is very different from ours. Waikiki Beach is similar to many Australian beaches, and not so good. But for the keen rider, other Hawaii beaches have the perfect waves. These beaches—Makaha, Sunset, Ala Moana, and the Banzai Pipe­line—have the best surf in the world. The waves, building up to heights of 15- to 25-ft, and then dumping on the shore, are very exciting to ride.

"And the greatest thrill of all is the Banzai Pipeline." This is an area where the waves, often reaching 25ft, curl over at the top to form a "pipe" before dumping on a rocky shelf of jagged coral.

"And this was the place that put me out of the Hawaiian championships. I lost my board going down the Pipeline, but got out of it with a few scratches and an injured leg. My board, however, was wrecked. All the front was bashed in and the fin was snapped."

BOB PIKE IN "TEENAGERS' WEEKLY" (1962)

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