A few weeks ago, the image that appears in this article appeared on social media, the search for the gringo who gave his name to the South American Pipeline.

As Rodrigo Farías Moreno tells in the following interview, many incredible stories have been told about the gringo, who rowed from the continent to the then Alacrán Island and surfed alone one of the best and heaviest waves on the planet.

They told him he was crazy, that there were people who knew him and countless other rumors that will now have a story told in the strict and entertaining way of someone who already made Viejo Perro, the documentary about the history of surfing in Chile.

In the following paragraphs Farías Moreno talks about what is coming, which undoubtedly sounds very exciting.

What motivated you to make this documentary?
When I made “Viejo Perro”, the pioneers of Chilean surfing told how they reached Arica and met El Gringo. When they told me the story I couldn’t believe it and every time I traveled to Arica everyone talked about El Gringo.

There were many myths that he was a person, that his name was this or that, so I really wanted to see if the story that the pioneers had told me was true or a myth. To see who the gringo was because if he existed, we had to look for him.

It is part of this whole project that I have of uniting the missing links of Chilean surfing that grew so big, to be able to look for an origin of the stories and how they developed and until what it is today.

How did you finally find him?
The story is crazy because El Gringo even made the front pages of newspapers, investigating a grandson or brother-in-law who had stayed at the hostel, with a name that I searched everywhere and tried to find in the most organic way possible without publishing it on social media.

For five years I searched for the names I had and newspaper clippings, but I never found it, it never existed. About a month ago I posted a poster made by the artist Lamolicha with the description that the pioneers made.

I uploaded it to Instagram and a week later a Chilean who had been his neighbor in California sent me a message. He said: “Dude, I’m sure this is the gringo you’re looking for.” We stayed connected by email and magic happened.

What do you know about him?
I know that he is still surfing, that he is 60 years old, that he has many children, that he travels to Indonesia, that he continues to surf very well, that he is in California and that he is very happy that someone has contacted him to do some kind of report, documentary or interview.

And what do you know about those sessions he had at El Gringo?
Along with the emails, I received many photos from two trips he made. I have the photos of him and his brother surfing the serious gringo, 3 or 4 meters left and right, good tubes, nobody in the water, I have the photos, I have the story of the times they came. There is content and there are some very, very good photos.

What is the shooting schedule?
The filming plan is not only to show the story of the gringo but also to show how important he is for a city like Arica, to be able to find this missing link.

To show all the development that surfing has had in a city thanks to a wave, is a documentary about the wave as well. Everything that this wave has brought to Chilean surfing. Now we hope to do the interviews soon, this year in California, to find material, stories from surfers who have ridden the gringo so that they can tell what the wave is like and to premiere it next year at the QS in Arica, with a story and why not also invite the gringo to go to Arica so that people can get to know him.

How excited are you about the project?
I am very excited to make a new documentary, I think that with Viejo Perro I have delayed too much in airing it, although we cannot yet. I think that in Viejo Perro there is a lot of history that I would love to tell each one in their own way and I am already very excited to have found the gringo, to be in communication with him, to meet him, to see the photos, he was a myth that everyone believed was already dead… I am very excited to be able to make a new documentary, I really like documentaries, I really like stories and I am happy to be able to share it with all the people after almost 40 or 50 years since that wave was surfed.

That social media can help you find a myth is incredible. I always wonder how no one did it before. Happy to be the first to find him, to be able to be with him, thank you very much to everyone who helped find him, even if it's just reposting the photo, it's always welcome.