PETER PAN

If you walk into any surf shop in New England and mention the name Peter Pan, get ready for an earful. The 50-year-old Rhode Islander is best known for his signature board, the Peter Pan Slug, and he’s been directing and surfing local ESA contests for nearly three decades. During that time, he has made his share of friends and enemies, as well as run his own successful surf shop, The Watershed. Pan (his real name is Panagiotis) is famous for his sharp tongue, blue humor, maniacal laugh, and his prowess in knee-high waves. Love the guy or hate the guy, everyone knows he’s a character, and the New England surf scene wouldn’t be the same without him.

ESM: So Peter, were you born in Rhode Island?
PP: I wasn’t born; I was spawned in New York City. That’s New Yawk City. My family moved to Rhode Island when I was a kid. I was just a punk living in Cranston. Everybody in my high school was listening to the Beach Boys, so all of us wanted to go surfing. I couldn’t swim that good, but I went anyway.

ESM: A punk, eh?
PP: Yeah, I was just a punk standing about 5’4” or 5’5”. I’ve grown at least an inch since then.

ESM: Did you get beat up a lot?
PP: I’ve been getting beat up my whole life. I’ve taken Tae Kwon Do for 20 years now, so I don’t mind it anymore, as long as I get the chance to beat back. People always ask me what the best karate is, and I tell them a 9-millimeter. Use martial arts only as a last resort, but if you do, try grabbing the genitals; that works real good [psychotic laughter].

ESM: So you started surfing before you could swim?
PP: Well, I’ve learned to swim since then. I got halfway drowned once in Cape Hatteras, so after that, I learned quick.

ESM: So back to surfing...
PP: Oh yeah... we rented boards for a while, then me and a couple of my buddies split the cost of an old pop-out Hansen. We paid $100 for it. We surfed in these disgusting Parkway dive suits that always had us itching. You couldn’t paddle in them at all. But we surfed all winter long anyway. It was like an addiction. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. In the early ‘60s, surfing was huge. It seemed like half the school was doing it. New England is a popular area for surfers because we have lots of good reefbreaks.

ESM: When you graduated high school, did you travel to exotic locations in search of waves?
PP: No, I had no money. I went to the University of Rhode Island since it was only six miles from the beach. I studied art and ran track—indoor two mile and cross country five mile. I ran varsity all four years and graduated in 1971.

ESM: What about Vietnam? Did you get drafted?
PP: No, they had the lottery back then. My number was like 299. But I had no money and needed a job. My teacher told me that if you are a good artist, you hop on a bus and go to New York City, so I did. I worked as an art director for a couple of magazines: Car & Driver and Travel & Leisure. I had a car, so every day after work, I would hop in it and go surfing at Rockaway on Long Island.

ESM: What kind of board were you surfing then?
PP: Every kind you can think of. I went from longboard to longboard then to a wicked
shortboard. That was during the shortboard revolution. During the summers, I managed Narragansett Surf Shop and would pull board after board from the shelf, christen them demos, and try them all [laughs]. It seemed like everybody was coming out with a new shape each week. It was a joke. I remember Greg Noll came out with 10 boards in 10 months. I tried every single one.

ESM: Is that how you developed the Slug?
PP: No, the Slug was spawned from hell.

ESM: You like that word “spawn” don’t you?
PP: Yeah [maniacal laughter], the slug was spawned from the hell of contests. We were all riding really short boards—5’6” to 5’10”—and I even went down to a 5’2”. Then one day in a contest on Cape Cod back in 1970, a guy took out this old longboard—a 10-footer—because the waves were really disgusting. That was the beginning of the Slug. We were in a death heat: six men with one going to the final. The guy on a longboard won the heat on the 10-foot board, and we all went berserk. Doc (Couture), who was the ESA director at the time said, “Too bad. There’s no rule that says you can’t ride a longboard.” So after that, all hell broke loose. I went out and found the longest stinkin’ board I could.

ESM: So how did longboards eventually become banned from shortboard heats?
PP: Things were getting out of control. When the waves were small, everybody was riding these big planks and running people over. By that time, I was a director of the ESA, so we made this rule that a shortboard had to be no more than two feet over your head. We were also the first district to start having a separate longboard division. Since the surf was junk, and since the longboard was banned, I wanted to get all the advantage I could, and that’s when the Slug was spawned.

ESM: From hell...
PP: Yeah, from contest hell [laughs]. I had surfed for Hobie since 1967, so I called Mickey Munoz, the head shaper at the time, and said, “Look, I want a really fat mutant.” So he made me a big, fat, thick egg which became the first Slug. It was a contest machine. The Slug is the first longboard/ shortboard. It was the first cheater. In fact, that’s what they called it back in 1974, “The Cheater.” It’s a legal shortboard that rides, trims, and floats like a longboard, but when you need to, you can ride it like a shortboard. If you can master a Slug, you can torture everybody.

ESM: Torture, spawn, hell...
PP: [Psychotic laughter] Yeah, torture everybody. The Slug is a tormentor. You just go and catch all the good waves on a bad day, and on a good day, you can still win. It was the primitive Cro Magnon shape of the ‘70s—round tail and single fin—and still the best formula on the East Coast. It’s proven. They have sold thousands of these boards. People made fun of it, they ridiculed it, but now they’re all trying to copy it. It might be a primitive, dumb shape, but it’s Hobie’s best-selling board.

ESM: So you must be a rich guy?
PP: They never gave me a cent. That’s the surf biz for ya.

ESM: No money? That sucks.
PP: Yeah. I’m just stupid. I never signed a contract or anything, so I don’t get to see any money.

ESM: So how do you pay the bills?
PP: Well, I went from New York City to Providence, Rhode Island, which is like going into the Outback in terms of creativity. They’re living in the Stone Age here. I worked for a couple of ad agencies and hated it. I couldn’t stand it, but we had a surf shop in Wakefield called Watershed, and that worked out.

ESM: When did Watershed start?
PP: I started it in my parents’ garage in ‘75. At that time, there were no surf shops around here. I used to work for John Spicer at Narragansett Surf Shop, but when that shut down, there wasn’t anybody selling surf equipment, so I started selling boards for Hobie out of the garage. Pretty soon, I was selling skateboards and T-shirts too, but my father got fed up with all the kids swarming around the house and told me to get my own space. Me and Dave Levy each put up one thousand dollars to start Watershed. Don’t be fooled, the retail business sucks. You don’t make any money with a surf shop unless you’re a businessman with capital to invest. I mean, I still don’t have a thousand dollars in my bank account.

ESM: At least you’re famous.
PP: Famous? People who buy the Peter Pan Slug don’t even know that there is a real Peter Pan. They think it’s a joke! The only company that’s finally making me any money is Bic. I do East Coast promotions for them and ride their boards. The Bic shapes are doing great. They’re cheap, they work well, and people like them. The boards are spreading everywhere like a disease. I love Bic. I kiss their feet.

ESM: Your parents must have had a sick sense of humor naming you Peter Pan.
PP: No, my real name is Panagiotis, pronounced pan•a•jotis. The Pan thing started at a surf contest in Newport. The announcer tried to pronounce my name and couldn’t, so he just said Peter Pan, and that was it. Once he said it, I was “Peter Pan”.

ESM: It seems like people either love you or hate you. What’s up with that?
PP: Remember Muhammed Ali? They booed the guy, they hated him, but they also loved him. It’s the same thing with surfing, just on a smaller scale. I surf a lot of contests, and I win a lot of contests. If you beat somebody popular, then they don’t like you. But of course, if you beat somebody that people don’t like, then they love you. If you talk to Bill Stewart, he hates me, but if you talk to Greg Noll, he loves me.

ESM: All the photos I’ve seen show you surfing small waves, and a lot of people have said that you can’t surf when it gets big. Is that true?
PP: I’m afraid of big waves. I don’t go out unless it’s under two-foot [laughs]. I don’t have any excuses. The best surfers are the ones who can surf good in crappy stuff. Anybody can surf when the waves are good, but the ones who do well in shitty surf are the best. Besides, a few years ago at the Easterns in Hatteras, we had a hurricane swell that was huge, and I made it to the finals. If I can’t surf big waves, then how did I make it to the finals? All those people who say I can’t surf big waves can suck my dick [laughs].

ESM: Didn’t you have to be rescued during a Hatteras contest when there was large surf?
PP: Oh yeah... it was gigantic, around ten-foot and really sucking out. I had no leash on, so when I wiped out, I had trouble getting back in. I couldn’t swim too well, so Mario Frade had to dive in and save me. I definitely practiced up on my swimming after that.

ESM: You’re the oldest district director in the ESA, and you’ve been running contests since 1971. What is the secret to your longevity?
PP: My attitude. Surfing is supposed to be fun. If you don’t have fun at the contests, why have them? Fun is what it’s all about. I like to have fun [maniacal laughter].

ESM: What’s your take on the state of amateur surfing today?
PP: I’m disgusted by people’s attitudes. I’m sick of everyone trying to beat you on technicalities. All the kids today are trying to win by paddling around you and getting you disqualified for interference. That’s bullshit. The rule on priority is asinine. At Easterns the other year, people were taking off in the whitewater next to the groin and not even making the wave just to get the other guy disqualified. That’s bullshit. In my district, the rule is, the first guy up has priority, and if you do something unsportsmanlike, we kick you out of the competition. To win, you should go out and surf good, not cheat.

ESM: We’ve heard several people claim that you’ve pulled a few tricks in your day...
PP: No way! I’ve never used any dirty tactics in contests. I’ve used equipment to gain an advantage, but my boards are all perfectly legal. I’ve only been disqualified once in all my years of surfing contests, and that was for dropping in on someone by accident. Using dirty tactics in contests is low class. That kind of unsportsmanlike conduct is intolerable.

ESM: You’re known to be one of the most hardcore surfers around. You go out in the dead of winter to surf one-foot, onshore slop. How do you keep such an incredible drive to surf when its cold and shitty?
PP: It’s how I get high. If you can’t enjoy yourself when it’s cold and half-a-foot, then you really don’t like surfing. People ask me how to stay stoked, and I tell them to not even check it, just put on your wetsuit and go out. My favorite time to surf is when it’s small, windy, and there’s a blizzard on the beach. When it’s like that there’s no kooks out and no attitudes. The only thing that ruins waves are humans.



People on Pan

“He’s brilliant, but talk about controversial. Think of Bill Clinton, Mike Tyson: everybody knows their names. Our best waves are in the winter, and he’s sick enough to go out all winter long. There are only a select few who do because you know no one in their right mind would, but Peter does.” –Lee “Gidget’’ Ferrera, top women’s ESA competitor.

“He’s a classic... hardcore... you’ve gotta chisel the ice out of his eyes. He’s the greatest cold water surfer on the face of the earth. He’s got so much energy, a real spark plug. I know he stirs the pot a little, but what would life be without people like Peter. He’s got a little bit of Micki Dora in him—same twinkle in his eye—just without the dark side. He’s one of those guys who can’t resist pinching somebody’s ass just to see them jump." –Greg Noll, shaper, big wave surfing legend

“A lot of people only know the myth of Peter Pan... that he’s ruthless. But he has a heart of gold. He loves the sport, and he’s the master of publicity. He always draws 30 or 40 entries to his mid-winter championships where the rule is the more snow on the ground the better. But when you are around Peter, don’t be a whiner because the guy is a fanatic. It doesn’t matter what time of year it is or what the conditions are, if he is out, then everybody should be out.” –Kathy Phillips, Executive Director of the ESA

“Peter Pan? He gets no credit. I don’t want to get too personal, but just because you say you’re a legend doesn’t mean you are one. Peter lives an illusion of himself. When you run your own surf contests and you never ride a wave more than 3-feet high, that says it all.” –Bill Stewart, Owner/ Shaper Stewart Surfboards

“He is learning to be more of a diplomat. I’ve known Peter for over 35 years, and all I can say is that he’s a realist. He won’t tell people a bunch of bullshit they want to hear. He confronts them with the truth, and people have a tendency to try and run from the truth.” –Mario Frade, ESA Competition Director

“I have to admit, as much as it makes me squirm, the guy was my master in this sport. We had to learn all his silly tricks, and we all learned a lot. He’s not a strong surfer in big waves, but that’s not his forte. He excels in small to non-existent waves. Good ole’ Pete. How many district directors do you know who’ve had to be saved from drowning in the middle of a contest?” –Kevin Grondin , New Hampshire surfer, US Team Head Coach