Shane Herring, the Australian surfing legend who briefly rivaled Kelly Slater and played a key role in the sport’s early 1990s evolution, passed away peacefully in his sleep on Sunday. He was 53.
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Herring’s sudden passing followed a fall down the stairs of his West Tweed apartment in the early hours of Sunday morning. After complaining of a sore head and grabbing a late-night snack, he went to sleep and never woke up.
Hailing from Sydney’s northern beaches, Herring was a prodigious talent whose career burned bright but briefly. He shot to fame in 1992 after defeating a young Kelly Slater in the final of the Coke Classic at Narrabeen—Slater’s first-ever professional final. The win propelled Herring to the top of the world rankings for half the season and cemented his reputation as a powerful and innovative surfer.
In celebration of his victory, he famously bought 55 jugs of beer—44 of them spiked with Sambuca—for the entire bar, a testament to his larger-than-life personality.
At his peak, Herring rode revolutionary “banana boards” shaped by Greg Webber, featuring deep concaves and extreme curves that allowed for radical turns in tight, hollow waves. These designs would go on to influence modern surfboard shaping.
With lucrative contracts from sponsors like O’Neill and Insight, Herring enjoyed global recognition and was known for his charisma and raw talent. However, the pressures of professional surfing quickly took their toll. By 1994, just three years after turning pro, he had retired from the World Championship Tour at the age of 23.
His struggles with Hawaii’s famed Pipeline—a crucial battleground for world title contenders—hindered his championship ambitions. He later admitted that the wave “scared the shit out of me,” though he excelled at other Hawaiian breaks like Sunset Beach.
Off the water, Herring battled addiction for over a decade, retreating into a reclusive lifestyle on the Northern Beaches. He lost his health, his friendships, and even his teeth.
“You had no supervision. You had opportunity. It wasn’t like today. No coaches, no team managers. You’d race from place to place, sometimes sleep in the contest tent, grab a baguette in the morning, and do what you had to do to get by,” Herring once recalled.
“If there were drugs there, you took them. Coke, acid, whatever. You just didn’t think about it.”
In 2010, he entered rehab and spent nearly a year in recovery. In the years that followed, he found solace in surfboard shaping, working as a ding repairer in Byron Bay before reuniting with Greg Webber in the 2020s to launch a line of Shane Herring-branded surfboards.
A complex and beloved figure, Herring was a force in surfing—a cautionary tale, yet also a source of joy and laughter for those who knew him.
His longtime friend Justin Crawford described him as a “classic little leprechaun” who “never had a bad word for anyone… except for concaves.”
Shane Herring will be remembered for his raw talent, his influence on modern surfing, and the colorful, unpredictable life he lived.
