Former professional surfer Tom Carroll has remembered Bernard "Midget" Farrelly as "brilliant, a master who just understood the ocean so well”.
Australian surfing champion Bernard "Midget" Farrelly died overnight at the age of 71 after battling stomach cancer.
Farrelly, born in 1944 in Sydney, began making his name at the age of 18 when he won the Makaha International Surfing Championships in Hawaii and was received as a national sports hero on his return to Australia.
In 1964, he won the first official world surfing championship at Manly Beach, Sydney, and became widely regarded as the best competitive surfer in the world.
Barry "Cholly" Cardiff, who founded Australia's oldest surfboard riders club, the Dee Why Surfing Fraternity with Farrelly in 1961, praised his talent.
"[Midget] had a certain aura about his skills and the way he executed them, and he was admired greatly for that.”
Australian professional surfer Tom Carroll likened Midget's style to dancing upon his surfboard, which was said to have been inspired by his sister who practised ballet.
“He stepped on one foot and walked along the board as a graceful dancer,” Mr Carroll said.
He also appeared in over a dozen surf movies including The Young Wave Hunters (1964), To Ride a White Horse (1968), and Pacific Vibrations (1970).
By 1965, he had founded surfboard designer Farrelly Surfboards and, in the following years, created some of the most progressive boards of the time.
In 1972 he founded the Sydney-based Surfblanks manufacturing company, which was closed on Monday as a sign of respect.
He is survived by his wife and children.
