From the North Shore to Fletcher Films
Herbie Fletcher was born in Pasadena in 1948 and started surfing at nine. He grew up in San Clemente, and at 16 he moved to the North Shore of Oahu. By 1966 he was a semifinalist at the World Surfing Championships.
In 1969 he married Dibi Hoffman, daughter of surf pioneer Walter Hoffman and sister of champion Joyce Hoffman. Their sons Christian and Nathan grew up in front of the camera, and the family became known as surfing’s first family.
Herbie founded Herbie Fletcher Surfboards in Dana Point and turned Astrodeck into the traction pad found on boards around the world. He helped lead the longboard comeback of the late 1970s, and he was one of the first to bring jet skis into big-wave surfing, riding Waimea in 1985 and towing surfers into Pipeline in 1987, years before tow-in surfing took off.
In 1985 he started making films. Wave Warriors began a winter tradition of premieres at Pipeline, followed by the Adrenaline Surf Series, a long run of longboard films, and the Talks Cheap snowboard films. In all, Fletcher Films produced more than 50 films.
Herbie was inducted into the Surfers’ Hall of Fame in 2018. Today he makes art, including his Wrecktangle sculptures built from broken boards collected over the years at his Pipeline house.
