Barry Magoo McGuigan, the oldest competitive surfer dies.
In Cabbage Tree harbor last Saturday, 100 friends, family and past rivals paddled out to celebrate the 85 year old's life, surfing almost every day and shaping the sport of surfing in Australia. Passing away this week from two year battle with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, he was remembered as one of the legends of surfing on the Central Coast. He stood on his head for 10 minutes each day, he surfed pipeline solo in the 60’s, he quit his job as a butcher to become a fireman in order to surf more, and he was the namesake behind the Magoo Surf Charity Classic, a competition raising over $300,000 for cancer services over the years.
If you’ve never heard of Magoo, it’s because he was pretty quiet about his achievements. He never won any big awards, he never sung his own praise. But he was a legend on the central coast, and he was the worlds oldest competitive surfer at the age of 85 years old.