Peter Troy has been a pioneer concerning surf trips and riding the most famous waves around the world when there weren’t known yet. He’s a globe-trotting Australian surfer, maybe the first one.
Troy was born (1938) and raised in Torquay, and began surfing at age 10 on a 16-foot hollow paddle-board. He and four other members of the lifeguard-based Torquay Surf Club, using inflatable rubber rafts, became the first to ride the soon-to-be famous waves of Bells Beach in 1952. After helping the launch of the Bells Beach Boardriders Club in 1958, he planned as co-founder the inaugural Bells Beach surfing contest in 1962, which evolved in 1973 into the Rip Curl Pro—Australia's first and longest-running professional surf contest.
Then he started a four-year surfing sojourn that took him to Great Britain (where he introduced the sport to the English Channel Islands), Italy, Spain, Morocco, France (where he placed first in the debut European Surfing Championships), the Canary Islands, the Virgin Islands, mainland America, and Hawaii.
Moving on to South America, Troy made the finals of the Peru International and after arriving in Brazil by train, Troy took a walk down the beach at Copacabana and spotted a brand-new surfboard lying on the sand next to the son of the French ambassador. Troy borrowed the board and gave an impromptu surfing demonstration that made national headlines, and earned him an introduction to the Brazilian president. Roaming through distant lands with a surfboard at that time was unusual. Good luck followed the lanky blond-haired, blue-eyed Australian as he moved on to Argentina, where he was feted by the rich and beautiful, and flown from town to town in a government-provided plane.
After returning to Peru to compete for the Australian team in the 1965 World Surfing Championships, Troy crossed the Panama Canal on a timber freighter, traversed the Atlantic and the Greenland Sea, and visited the Spitsbergen Islands, 600 miles from the North Pole. Dropping down through Europe into Africa, he passed through the Middle East, joined an anthropological expedition in Angola, walked 200 miles across the Kalahari Desert, and landed in South Africa, where he rode the newly discovered waves at Jeffreys Bay.
Back to Australia in the early 70’s, Troy and his parents owned and operated a motel at Noosa Heads (Queensland). Then, he was co-owner of a Sydney theater that screened only surf movies, just before opening his own surf shop in Queensland around the 90’s.
Troy visited 130 countries, including 38 in Africa alone. He was named one of "Australia's 50 Most Influential Surfers" by Australia's Surfing Life magazine. He was inducted into the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame and was Medal of Order of Australia for his service to surfing.Troy died suddenly, while at home in Queensland, in 2008, after a full-filled life of expeditions towards research into waves and happiness.