Mike Hynson (born 1942), is a pioneer surfer and shaper. Raised as a Navy brat, his family traveled back and forth between Pacific Beach, California and Schofield Base in Hawaii during his formative years.
Hynson is not only celebrated for his role in The Endless Summer, but he rapidly rose through the ranks to become one of the world's finest surfers.
Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, Hynson’s timing and innovation kept him at the forefront of the industry—one of the first Haoles to ride the Banzai Pipeline in 1961, planting the seed in Tom Morey’s head for the Boogie Board in 1965, and transforming an idea for a surf demo into cult-film, Rainbow Bridge in the Summer of Love.
Along with the lost Endless Summer board he took on the quintessential surfing safari, Hynson later created the infamous Red Fin surfboard for Gordon & Smith; both are rare collectibles today. However, neither compares with the down rail Hynson carved in the 1960’s; a surfboard that revolutionized surfing forever.
Hynson is now a celebrated and world-renown surfboard shaper/designer, working from his beachside studio in San Diego, California.