Peter Pan (Panagiotis)

Born Peter Panagiotis (1950) in New York, New York, Pan moved with his family to Narragansett as a child and, although he never learned to swim, began surfing at age 13. He started competing in 1967 and has over the decades amassed hundreds of regional titles, while entering every possible division, including longboard, bodyboard, shortboard, and kneeboard. Pan has directed contests in New England for the Eastern Surfing Association from 1972 to present; from 1976 to 2000 he owned and operated Watershed Surf Shop in Wakefield, Rhode Island; since 2000 he's owned Narragansett Surf and Skate.

In 1980, Hobie Surfboards introduced the Peter Pan Slug signature model, a wide, thick, blunt-nosed, easy-to-ride hybrid, and an estimated 10,000 Slugs sold over the next 30 years, mostly in New England and Florida. The small and wiry Pan holds a B.A. in fine arts from the University of Rhode Island, and has long styled himself a surf world gadfly. "My favorite time to surf," he told Eastern Surf Magazine in 2000, "is when it's small, windy and there's a blizzard. When it's like that there's no kooks out and no attitudes. The only things that ruins waves are humans."

Pete Surfing