This is a shortened and edited version of "Glen Winton: the Long and Short," which originally ran in the September 1995 issue of Deep magazine. Winton was 34.

At first I missed it heaps, but now . . . nah.

What do you think about the whole direction of modern high-performance surfing? Can you sit through a Taylor Steele video?

Oh, with pleasure, yes. In 1975 I was sliding and stuff like that, just like the guys are doing now. I can do that.

You were always known as having a taste for the unconventional.

Well, what was unconventional then is conventional now. What we thought was impossible is possible today.

Can you visualize what surfers will be doing in 10 years' time?

The only thing that comes to mind is that they’ll be doing it in a wavepool. What I visualize is guys doing everything and anything in a wavepool on a six-foot wave with a pitching lip. They'll be able to practice one maneuver over and over, like skateboarding. That’s when we'll see a huge leap in what people can do on a surfboard. I think we’ll look back on this period, right now, as the wild time when we surfed the ocean.

Do you have any specific goals right now?

Enlightenment would be first on the list. That’s always been the number-one goal. I think it’s possible. Live forever. For a half-second once I contemplated there not being a God, but that didn’t even last a whole second.

Formal, no. Just a mixed bag of different rules, you know. I follow the Ten Commandments, and stuff like that, as much as I can. I’d be a radical bugger if I didn’t. The world would be scared. Either that or I'd be dead.

Probably be a biker. And a bad one at that.

One moved up here, near me, actually. You know one passed away, eh?

Scott, the one who got a world record, flew to 30,000 feet [in an ultra-light plane]. The year he died I dropped out of the Top 16, because he was a world-class genius, and I used to feed off him, I loved having a world-class genius for a brother. When he passed away, along with losing my brother, I lost that positive feeling.

He had a couple of hard landings, and that must have put a fault in the structure of the plane somewhere. His next time up, it fell apart at a fatal height.

Do you have any particularly fond memories of the tour? Your favorite era?

The ’80s. There was so much money there for a while. I made so much one year it was ridiculous. The clothing industry took off and the companies could do no wrong. On the other hand, did you know I’m still injured from the '88 Billabong Pipe contest? That’s why I wear one glove, because my left arm is still hurt. It was so good that day, I didn't mind getting axed. It was just, "Get me to the next heat," you know, that was all I was thinking. I wanted to stay out there with only one other guy in the water. But my shoulder . . . I couldn’t surf for three months after that contest. There’s a ligament in there that’s still inflamed, and if I do something where ligament gets pushed against the socket I'm screwed.

Yes, I’m having a lot of success with my boards. Being a good surfer, I get free speed, I say. I’ve never shaped a slow board. So I figure . . . well, I want to be the best, of course. And I think I can be. Although I’ve got to give credit to Al Merrick because no one touches him, no one comes close, I don’t care who you’re thinking of at the moment.

I'm 34. But age isn't a block, you know. I’d like to extend the period of time where you can still be a ripping surfer. The other things is, we're just now really getting into a period where you've got kids with surfers for father. Now imagine the generation after that. Tony Ray is a third-generation surfer. But when we get into a period where you've got four- and fifth-generation surfers within the same family—then we’ll see some surfing.

[Photos: John Lyman, Martin Tullemans, Rob Gilley]

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