Christian,Trestles punt. Photo: Flame/A-Frame

Legendary Californian hotdogger and early Hawaii pioneer, Herbie Fletcher, Christian was ordained for greatness. Born on oahu, he grew up in surf shacks surrounded by his dad’s friends who were also some of the most influential surfing and pop culture icons of the day, including Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead. But carrying the Fletcher name also brought with it a lot of pressure. “I’ve never been able to do anything that’s totally mine,” he says now. “Being ‘the son of’ is cool in some ways, but it’s terrible in others.”

Initially, the surfing world did not take kindly to the tatoo’d anti-hero throwing down aerials and getting paid well for it. When he racked up covers in both Surfing and Surfer magazine in 1988, the ASP top 16 wrote and signed a petition demanding such an openly undesirable character as Fletcher not be given the amount of publicity he was getting. The reception was no less glowering in the competitive arena. Long before Dane Reynolds, Jadson Andre and Josh Kerr were getting ripped by the judges for progressive aerial surfing, it was Christian Fletcher who was smashing his head against the brick wall. He didn’t go quietly though. After getting ripped off for a punt in a Bud Surf Tour event in 1990, Christian blew up, giving the judges the bird and nailing one in the head with a blueberry muffin. He walked away from conventional competing and instead helped set up a breakaway aerial tour comprising of team of punt freaks with cartoon names – Christian, Archy, Shawn ‘Barney’ Barron, Jason ‘Ratboy’ Collins, Randy ‘Goose’ Welch and later Ozzie Wright.

“At the first one I entered in California I was in a heat with Christian Fletcher,” recalls ozzie, “and he dropped in on me and did an air. And then on the next wave, I was paddling out and he did an air straight over the top of me. They were such punks.”

Christian too faded into heavy drug use and barely escaped with his life. These days his offspring, Greyson Fletcher, is rated among the world’s most promising skaters. And while Christian might have legitimised aerial surfing, that don’t mean he’s lost his edge when it comes to critiquing the modern style. “Learn how to surf before you start trying to launch airs,” he says to today’s aerial prone surfers. – JS