Phil Jarratt's profile on Gary Elkerton ran in the December 1987 issue of SURFER. This version has been slightly edited.

Gary Elkerton is no wimp, that’s for sure. He’s number four in the world, among the best on the biggest days at Sunset and Waimea, and perhaps the most explosive surfer in the world today. But how tough is he, this great hulk from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast?

1) In 1985, Gary took off on a 12' west peak at Sunset and met a flying board halfway down the face. Result: 56 stitches in his knee. The doctor told him he’d be out of the water for six-to-eight months. Two weeks later, Gary filmed the best scenes for Quiksilver’s promotional flick, 

. Said producer Bruce Raymond: “Gary was evidently in a lot of pain, but that seemed to make him try harder. There is no doubt that the scenes in the movie where his leg is bandaged show some of the most radical surfing you’ll ever see.”

2) After his big season in Hawaii last winter (2nd in the Billabong, fifth in the Pipe Masters), Gary went home to Queensland to rest before the Oz tour. Over a period of six weeks he entered four triathlons and finished better than mid-pack in all of them.

How tough is Gary Elkerton? He is the Crocodile Dundee of surfing, and his time is fast approaching. At 23, he’s right on target for his own four-year plan to win the World Title. And, where once he was a wild man, into everything going, Gary is now dangerously single-minded. Determination and discipline are his watchwords. Nothing will distract him from his purpose. The wild, rebellious party animal who was known to the surfing world as “Kong” has gone through some serious changes. “He’s become bloody boring," says a friend from Queensland.

Gary Elkerton is not boring, but he may well be one of the most misunderstood players on the world stage of surfing. The reason is simple: To understand where Gary is going, you have to understand where he’s coming from—and where Gary comes from is beyond the comprehension of most of us.

Keith “Bully” Elkerton was barely in his teens when he started working at the old Byron Bay whaling station, and by age 15 he was the toughest sonofabitch in what was, in those days, one hell of a rough town. When he got older, Bully moved down the coast a few miles to the port town of Ballina and took work on the prawn trawlers, plying the east coast of Australia right around the tip of Cape York and into the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Bully eventually mellowed, married, bought himself an old trawler, and started a family.

Gary, the firstborn, learned to walk between the prawn shells on the back deck of the trawler. He learned to swim in the time-honored fashion: Bully threw him overboard in the shark-infested Queensland waters and fished him out with a gaff. The Elkerton kids (two more, a girl and a boy, followed) spent their formative years sweating out correspondence classes in the cabin by day and working as deckhands by night, as Bully worked the coast from Ballina to Karumba on the Gulf.

When the family got too big for the trawler, Bully bought a caravan, which his wife towed up the coast highway and parked wherever the prawns were running. The kids were in and out of schools along the way, but young Gary—a giant for his age—was more often than not conscripted for deckie duties on the trawler. It was a funny old life for a kid, but Bully had had no need of a formal eduction, and he couldn’t see why it should be different for his kids. Besides, they were getting a different kind of education. There was money in fishing. It was a good life. Asked about those years now, Gary gets kind of dreamy. “I learned a lot about the ocean,” he says. “Developed a real respect for it—and for a few other things, too.” It is unstated, but Gary clearly has a lot of admiration for his hard-as-nails Dad. The harder you drop 'em, the higher they bounce, perhaps.

Bully landed a contract supplying prawns to industrial workers on the Aboriginal mission settlement of Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the Elkertons moved into a fishing camp on the beach. The fishermen and their families were served meals in a tin shed mess hall, but Gary was seldom there. His Aboriginal schoolmates taught him to hunt and fish and fend for himself on the land. He was the whitest kid on the island, but became black in spirit. He says: “I loved the Aborigines, still do. I love the way they seem to understand things without really saying too much. They taught me a lot about being Australian.”

When the island contract finished, the Elkertons moved back to Karumba, the Gulf prawning port where shanghaiing is still a fact of life and the hookers carry flick- knives in their garter belts. Gary (he was Kong now, as in King) got into motorcycle racing on the scrub tracks. He recalls: “It was rough, a real rough town, but I never got into fights. I was bigger than the other kids my age. I tended to be the leader of the pack.”

Eventually, Bully Elkerton settled his family at Mooloolaba on the Queensland Sunshine Coast, adjacent to Fraser, Moreton, and Stradbroke Islands, and some of the best prawning waters on the east coast. Gary tried going to high school, but the academic life didn't stand a chance. On the one hand he had his father constantly hauling him out of school to go prawning, and on the other hand he had the powerful lure of the surf. He had come to surfing relatively late, via a variety of beaten-up old Malibus and a surf-ski his grandfather had built and stashed in the garage, but it soon replaced motorcycling as his sport of choice. And as he reached a level of competence as a surfer, Gary started to notice things he had never noticed before out on the reefs where he fished with his father: waves. . . perfect, lonely waves.

Soon after he had turned 15, Gary was hauled out of school for good and he became a full-time deckhand, out on the ocean for three, five, sometimes even seven nights at a time. The work was hard, hauling up the nets and cleaning and cooking the prawns from dusk until dawn, but the days made the nights worthwhile. Bully would pull the trawler into the lee of an island and bed down for the day, but Gary had no time for sleep. He’d paddle a mile or two to one of his secret reefs and surf perfect, lonely barrels until his arms gave out. Then he would slowly paddle back to the boat and shut his eyes, just as his father opened his.

More than once Gary’s ocean senses told him to be cool—that something was following him through the water. On one occasion he pulled himself into the boat, turned around for his surfboard and saw a three-meter shark gliding underneath it. He grimaces at the memory. “You kind of know when they’re there, but the important thing is to stay calm. I believe they can feel the vibrations of panic and it sets them off. It’s hard not to lose it, but it’s the best chance you’ve got.”

Gary’s solo surfing way out to sea bred a distinctive style and attitude. He surfed by himself and for himself. He knew he was good enough to explore the interiors of those barreling reef waves and get airborne across the coral, but he had no idea how this would translate into contest points back in singlet-surfing land. In fact, Gary wasn’t all that interested in finding out. He had a livelihood, and he had his own surf park that stretched a couple of hundred miles up and down the coast. The status quo wasn’t to shabby.

But something in him said to compete. He had friends in a local club and he went with them to a weekend competition. Elkerton blew the entire club out of the water. Almost overnight he became a legend on the Sunshine Coast: a strip of tacky holiday homes and secret surf spots that has produced some interesting characters, but few real surf heroes. Everyone wanted to know: who was this overgrown grommet with no neck?

Gary quickly went on to win the Sunshine Coast Junior Title, and then pulled off four Queensland Amateur Titles in a row. He was a freak, totally blitzing the field, but it wasn’t this that propelled him into surfing stardom. It was the animal spirit that his surfing and lifestyle seemed to be built around. There were comparisons with Nat Young and Michael Peterson, but Gary was not in their mold. He was in no one’s mold—that was the attraction. In a points-for-maneuvers world, Elkerton surfed for himself. He didn’t give a shit. He was his own man.

Word spread that the big kid was red-hot. Local board builder Paul Pascoe told his friend Alan Green, founder of Quiksilver, about Gary. Green was intrigued. He was from the west coast of Victoria—a stretch of rugged cliffs where anyone who plays by the rules is considered a wimp—and to promote his products he chose not champions, but true surf rebels. “Just be yourself,” Green told Gary. “Go surfing, and we'll support you.”

It was an offer no surfer could refuse. There were no obligations other than to be seen wearing Quiksilver trunks at the best surf breaks in the world. Green was keen for Elkerton to remain competitive at the amateur level, but he wanted to distance him from the Pro Tour circus, reasoning that he was more enigmatic—and thus valuable—for doing his own thing.

Gary traveled widely at Quiksilver’s expense and built up something close to a cult following for his radical attacks on unsuspecting surf locations. 

, the Quiksilver-funded 1982 short film, was the icing on the cake. For the first time since the inception of the Pro Tour a decade before, here was a legitimate surf hero who didn’t even have a pro ranking!

In 1983, Elkerton won the Australian Amateur Title, and the following year led the Australian team to the World Amateur Championships at Huntington. The mood was right for confrontation. The Aussies had had it their way for too long, and the Californians, inspired by Tom Curren, were at last in the ascendancy. There was intense rivalry throughout the tournament and, amidst some controversial judging decisions, Gary finished fifth. A feeling had been building in him for quite a while, and it suddenly jelled. He wanted, badly, to beat the shorebreak heroes at their own game

He phoned Alan Green who strongly advised against joining the Tour. “Go pro and well dump you,” Green said. Red rag to a bull. "Well, I’m going to,” Gary responded, and hung up.

He flew to Lacanau to join the 1984 Tour, already one-third completed. After six months of fighting through the prelims—with one memorable third in the Op Oz, he clinched a place in the back 16 at Bells. Gary finished 27th in the world, an excellent effort considering his late start, and set his sights on the Top 10 for 1985.

Despite Alan Green’s initial reluctance, he now had the full backing of Quiksilver and enough other supporting sponsors to cover his Tour bills.

In his first full season on the Tour, Elkerton showed patches of brilliance and patches of competitive naivete. He still managed to finish the year rated 11th, but there were those who wondered whether he had the discipline and determination of a champion.

Their doubts were laid to rest when Gary emerged for the '86 Tour. This, suddenly, was a very different Gary Elkerton. 

 magazine had published a profile on Gary in which he called the new American pros "a bunch of softcocks," and the ethics of that remark were still being debated in this and other publications. But Gary himself had meanwhile turned his back on the whole deal. He was now only interested in surfing.

Elkerton’s goal for the 1986 season was to make the Top Three, and in order to achieve that he had to call upon a hitherto unused component of his personality: self-discipline. On land he was helped in this regard by the fact that he had taken up with a beautiful and exotic French model named Pascale (now Mrs. Elkerton), but in the water his new disciplined approach drew immediate criticism. He had, in effect, caged the animal within. It was too cruel to be true. Here was the ultimate free surfing spirit bowing to the machine.

Gary was playing by their rules, playing it safe, and scoring the points. It was almost hard to watch, at first, as he not only milked each lousy little wave to the shore, but didn't get the results. It was a lose-lose. But when the Tour hit Europe, Elkerton suddenly hit his stride, finishing 3rd in the French and English events. And in Japan he broke through, winning a knuckle-biting three-setter against Martin Potter in the Marui Pro.

Last winter on the North Shore, Gary cemented his reputation at Sunset and Waimea and proved that, in real surf at least, there was very little compromise left in his competitive push. He placed runner-up to Mark Richards in the Billabong Pro. He also found time to introduce young brother Bongo (yes, Bongo) to the thrills of 15-foot Waimea. Says Gary: “It was his first time in Hawaii and he was just coming out to sit in the channel and watch, but he’s an aggressive little bastard and he just paddled over and took off. He made the drop and kept going, all the way to the beach.”

Back in Australia for the final leg of the tour, when Elkerton came out of the water at the Coke Classic to learn he’d just gone down in a split decision to flavor-of-the-month Nicky Wood, he told a television reporter: “The wheels just fell off.” Gary’s long-shot bid for the championship went the way of Tom Carroll’s.

But by his own reckoning, he is on target for a World Title this year. He and Pascale have adopted a bunker mentality, shielding each other from the hoopla and politics of Tour life. Says Elkerton: “I’m off the party program. If I win a contest I’ll go out and celebrate, but if I don’t I’ll stay at home because I don’t deserve it. You have to have that discipline."

But all work and no play, asks the interrogator, mindful of what Gary’s Queensland buddy had said?

“It’s just the way I feel. I always said that I was going to rage until I turned 21, and then have a real serious appraisal of what I was doing and where I was going. I’m standing by that. It’s just a different type of fun, chasing the Title.”

Outside the contest arena, Gary is experimenting with asymmetrical tails, but there is nothing experimental about his surfing, free or competitive. He is a joy to watch, drawing long, powerful lines or snapping with precision. It is not just his size that reminds you of Simon Anderson. It’s his disdain. As if he knows more about the moods of the ocean than any 10 men.

With just two Tour wins, total, and less than $50,000 in winnings behind him, Elkerton, for all his brash ability, has not yet set the pro tour afire. Hating to be even the least bit negative, you ask, ever so timidly, what if the wheels really 

“It hasn’t even crossed my mind,” says Gary. “I’m on a mission to win the World Title and there are plenty of things to do once I’ve accomplished that, and plenty of other things to do even if I don’t accomplish it. At the moment there are no signs that the wheels are going to fall off, so I’m just concentrating on the task at hand."

[Photos: Art Brewer, Jeff Divine, John Seaton Callahan, Brian Bielmann]

"CALL ME MR. ELKERTON," GARY ELKERTON PROFILE BY PHIL JARRATT (1987)

Subscribe or Login

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos

Contests