Tom Carroll, Tom Curren, Martin Potter and Cheyne Horan boycotted the three South African ASP events in 1985, in protest against the government’s apartheid policies. It was a very strange moment in surf history: the sport’s only fullcontact interaction with global politics.
We came out looking great. Or, no, we came out looking ridiculous. Both, actually. Depended on where you were looking, or who you were talking to, at any given moment.
Very much on the ridiculous side was the fact that pro surfing, in 1985, was pretty much the only globe-hopping sport still running events in South Africa. The country had been barred from the Olympics since 1964. After 1980, visiting athletes who competed in SA risked being put on a United Nations blacklist.
(There were no legal consequences to
