“Hard-charging, God-fearing Pipe specialist” Tamayo Perry killed by shark

RIP.

The Hawaiian surfer turned city lifeguard Tamayo Perry, described in 2005 as Pipeline’s most dominant surfer, has reportedly been killed by a shark, likely a Tiger, near Goat Island in Kahuku.

First responders were called after a body was found with bite wounds near the notoriously sharky surf sport.

Perry, who was forty-nine, was a staple of magazines an films around the turn of the century, was always a stand-out at Pipe, obvs, and was famous for taking off on any damn thing that blackened the horizon at Teahupoo, a fifth at the Billabong Pro evidence, as if it was necessary, of his bona fides there.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Tamayo Perry (@oahusurfingexperience)

From Warshaw’s EOS,

Perry was born (1975) and raised on the East Side of Oahu, began surfing at age 12, and soon became best friends with future pop crooner Jack Johnson, who lived in a beachfront house at Pipeline.

Perry was known in his late teenage years as the quiet up-and-coming local boy who had to borrow surfboards because he had no sponsors.

By 1997, the wiry goofyfooter had gone a long way to developing a tuberiding style combining traits from Gerry Lopez and Tom Carroll, his two favorite old-school Pipeline surfers. He’d meanwhile become a devout born-again Christian: Asked by a surf magazine to name the last two books he’d read, Perry listed the Bible and The End: 50 Reasons Why Jesus Christ Could Return Before the Year 2000.

Perry has competed selectively, and with modest success, finishing fourth in the 2000 Pipeline Masters Trials and fifth in the Billabong Pro Trials at Teahupoo. Nonetheless, by 2005 he was generally regarded as Pipeline’s single most dominate surfer.

It’s the second shark attack on Oahu this month.

Two weeks ago, a woman was rushed to hospital with serious injuries after being attacked near Haleiwa on the North Shore.