Tributes pour in for surf filmmaking giant Jack McCoy, dead at seventy-six

“Jack McCoy's work existed on a different artistic plane altogether”

The surf filmmaking great, the masterful Jack McCoy, who until three days ago was touring his seminal documentary Blue Horizon around Australia alongside Dave Rastovich, has died, aged seventy-six.

Los Angeles born McCoy, who had been in rough health with an unspecified illness the past few years, and knowing his time on this mortal coil was running down, had toured the Occumentary last year, and Blue Horizon in 2025.

As you’d expect, tributes have flowed from surfers, photographers, filmmakers and fans.

Surf historian Matt Warshaw wrote, “Jack McCoy’s work existed on a different artistic plane altogether.”

 

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Jack famously got Occ, who ballooned out to three hundred pounds, off the couch in 1995 and back in training and, four years later, into a long deserved world title.

Famously, Jack and Billabong’s Gordon Merchant created the Billabong Challenge series as a way of testing Occ against seven of the world’s best. The one-day format, two one-hour heats and a one-hour final, created a template that should’ve been adopted by the ASP.

“And the judges didn’t even have a pen and paper,” Jack told me last year. “At the end, they came to a consensus as to who was the winner. When good surfers watch a heat, even if it’s close, they can tell you in what order who the best guys were.”

Jack said it was a system that worked better than the usual way of scoring heats in the pro game.

“The general public doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. Oh, he needs a three point two to combo a five point six, this and that. The guy rides a wave and you can’t tell the difference. I had an event that took care of those things. The Billabong Challenge was as good a templet for a contest as there ever was.”

McCoy reminded me of his and Derek Hynd’s rebel tour in 2001 that included Kelly Slater and Andy Irons.

“We had a tour that was ready to go and then 9/11 came and it closed down all sport and it had a major impact on economies around the world,” said Jack.

“It was a limited number of surfers who would be the upper echelon with the ASP kept as a feeding ground. The art of surfing instead of the sport of surfing. It wasn’t like we were trying to take over the ASP (now the WSL). We were trying to set a different course for surfing that wasn’t… (Jack took a long theatrical yawn)… let me yawn here, typical event.”

A little under two weeks ago, I saw McCoy and Rasta at Sydney’s Randwick Ritz cinema for the Blue Horizon show. It was a reminder that no one has come close to McCoy for his ability to shoot epic wide-angle water at big Teahupoo or wherever and, ultimately, create an epic surf movie narrative.

At the Q and A after the film, McCoy reminded surf fans, most of ’em over fifty, that it was he who fed Mark Foo the famous line, Eddie Would Go, and wrapped up half an hour of questions with a plea to go easy in the lineup, share waves, love your brothers and sisters.

It’ll forever be a barb in my heart I didn’t stick around to thank the big guy post-show, had to race home for what was, in hindsight, a frivolous matter.

From Tubular Swells to Storm Riders to Bunyip Dreaming, Sons of Fun, the Challenges, to Blue Horizon and the Occumentary, Jack McCoy was the king.