Photos by Isis Petroni 

Legendary Argentine shaper Renato Tiribelli passed away today while surfing in Chapadmalal, according to DUKE, surfing journalist and Mar del Plata local, Sebastián Chacón, in charge of Surfpress.

Tiribelli was one of the first shapers in Argentina. He was 70 years old and had been in the shaping room for approximately 50 years. He was a mentor to several of the following generations of shapers in the country.

“Today, Argentine surfing lost one of its true alchemists,” wrote Chacón of Surfpress. “A shaper by vocation, a stubborn pursuer of details, a surfer at heart, a true rebel with a cause. His boards were, are and will be, as he himself defined them, instruments of freedom,” he added.

“With great human warmth and a keen power of observation, Renato Tiribelli is one of those who are unique… One of those who were forged in the heat of passion, curiosity and nonconformity with the established order. Renato’s story is an important part of our surfing. His unconditional love for the manual trade, his tireless search in times past and his skill in manipulating the elements, made him a true master in the art of forms,” he says.

“Thank you for your art and your gifts to people... You will be missed, maestro,” Chacón concludes.

An article published by the newspaper La Nación, in which it spoke about Argentine shapers, had the following headline: “Renato Tiribelli’s hands, tanned by almost half a century between sun and resins, contrast with the surface as flat and even as a mirror that he has just achieved. Yes, one more. One of those that in solitude and at the beginning of the decade began to test and discard, like the luthier who builds his musical instrument, this true school of sea craftsmen that the city generated to produce thousands of surfboards per year.”