Respected New Zealand surfer and craftsman Allan Byrne is on life support in an Indonesian hospital following a motorbike accident.

Mr Byrne, who lives on Australia's Gold Coast, was holidaying in Bali ahead of a surfing competition when the accident happened on Friday.
The 62-year-old was taken to hospital with a broken arm, but doctors soon diagnosed a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain, the surfing website Surfersvillage.com reports.
He is now in a coma on life support surrounded by his wife and three adult sons.
Mr Byrne, known to friends as AB and Al, was born in Hamilton and competed at surfing world championships throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
He moved to Australia in the 1970s and founded board shaping company Byrning Spears, where he carved out a reputation for quality channel-bottom boards designed using his knowledge of aerodynamics learned while in the New Zealand Air Force.
According the firm's website, he continues to travel to favourite surfing spots like Whangamata on New Zealand's Coromandel Peninsula, Bali in Indonesia, Kaifu in Japan and the North Shore of Hawaii to work on updating his board designs.
He was due to compete in Bali's Rip Curl Cup at the Padang break, starting this week.


http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2013/08/06/09/19/nz-surfing-legend-on-life-support

Terrible news - thinking of you and yr family AB during this tough time and hope you can pull through. I have had the pleasure of owning several of your lovely boards over the years - they have brought me much joy. I hope you can pull this challenge off.

Bloody Bali bikes... hoping for a full recovery.

Sorry to hear.
Met him and rode his boards.
A pleasant man to deal with and a great shaper.

Yeah no ****ing good. RIP

+ 1 byf

Thoughts to the family....sad sad day.

Yeah, watched him in awe many times charging in big Burleigh swells many moons ago and had the privledge of chatting with him in Indo along time ago and riding one of his boards.
Nice bloke, shame.

RIP,in memory of a person who pleasured so many with his craftsmanship!

RIP champ.

I left the best wave I could have caught for AB today.

Select to expand quote

chrispy said..
I left the best wave I could have caught for AB today.

Select to expand quote

WA71 said...

chrispy said..
I left the best wave I could have caught for AB today.

I liked the last quote,very cool

Good work with these postings Doggie. Much appreciated.

Select to expand quote

Ted the Kiwi said...
Good work with these postings Doggie. Much appreciated.

No worries Ted. My thoughts go out to his family, feel lucky to own one of his boards and its still the best board I've ever had.

Sad moment for surfing.