Rell Sunn

Few people ever touch their particular corner of the world — culturally, geographically, or spiritually — like Hawaii’s Rell Sunn. She was, still is really, the undisputed Queen of Hawaiian surfing. Sunn shone in testosterone-heavy Hawaiian breaks, paddled out into fearsome surf surrounded by fearsome characters, with a smile and a flower tucked behind her ear. She inspired decades of Hawaiian girls to surf bigger waves and grow more in touch with the sea. She fought to bring a measure of equality to surfing, both in the water and in the early professional days of the sport. She survived and even thrived with breast cancer for fifteen years, continuing to surf at a high level while inspiring joy and stoke throughout the surf world even as her health faded. If you were to carve surfing’s version of Mount Rushmore into a mountaintop somewhere on Oahu, you’d begin by chiseling two faces into the rock: the great Duke Kahanamoku, who spread surfing from Hawaii to the entire world, and Rell Sunn, the human embodiment of aloha and one of history’s greatest all-around waterwomen.