Burns, Ronnie

Quiet, unpretentious pro surfer from the North Shore of Oahu; best remembered as a Pipeline sharpshooter throughout the 1980s.

Burns was born (1963) in Newport Beach, California, the son of ace surfboard laminator Boscoe Burns; he began surfing in 1969 at age five, not long after moving with his family to Hawaii, and by his late teenage years, the tall (6' 2"), blond, slightly bow-legged Burns had earned a reputation across the North Shore as a versatile and powerful waverider, able to set the pace in gentle three-footers at Rocky Point or 25-foot monster surf at Waimea Bay. Burns' line at Pipeline was simple but well plotted, and his success rate in big barrels was untouchable; a 1989 peer poll named him the world's second-best Pipeline surfer, behind Derek Ho and ahead of Tom Carroll.

Burns won the 1982 Peru International and the 1987 XCEL Pro, and was Pipeline Masters runner-up in 1985 and 1987, but he had neither the temperament nor the flash required for a successful pro career. "Ronnie Burns doesn't have an image problem," Surfer magazine wrote of the media-shy goofyfooter in 1987, "because Ronnie Burns doesn't have an image."

In the summer of 1990, the 27-year-old surfer died of hypothermia following an off-road motorcycle accident not far from his home. The Ronnie Burns Memorial, a top juniors-level contest, was held on Oahu from 2001-2003. Burns appeared in more than a dozen surf movies and videos, including Ticket to Ride (1986), Filthy Habits (1987) and Pump! (1990).