Special coverage presented by Vissla - Motorola - Subaru - Monster - ISDIN - Handyman  - Capi Bar - Lima Legacy 2019 - Cover photo Peter Troy, the discoverer, by Encyclopedia of Surfing - Brad Barrett 

Peter Troy was one of the greatest adventurers in the history of surfing. According to Surfing magazine in 1987, the Australian had visited 130 countries, including 38 in Africa, which he visited alone.

According to the Encyclopedia of Surfing, he was  one of the first to surf in Nias and JBay, he discovered Tamarin Bay in Mauritius and despite being Australian, he won the first European surfing championship.

Another of Troy's great discoveries was the legendary Punta Rocas.

According to the book 5000 years surfing waves and as Miguel Plaza recounted in the Punta Rocas Open Pro 2022 webcast, in those years Kontiki was surfed a lot, a break bordering the north of the wave of the aforementioned event.

They say that in the distance you could see these foamy waves crashing against the rocks, which was why they considered it sufficient to not go because the leash had not been invented and getting close to a break like that was synonymous with putting your board and skin in danger.

But on a warm summer afternoon when the waves were breaking at three metres, Troy asked what was there and everyone answered the basics: there is no surfing there. An answer that an adventurer like Troy did not accept as valid and he paddled with Rafael Navarro towards the point.

The show they gave, they say, was spectacular. With that swell, Punta Rocas was working perfectly and so much so that the course changed completely, the everyday surfing that was in Kontiki, was now in Punta Rocas and so was the world championship that a few months later was held there and ended up being won by Felipe Pomar.

"According to Héctor Velarde, there were dozens of people stationed on the Punta Rocas esplanade. Many were able to see Mota and Troy dominating the enormous waves, taking care not to fall off their boards and drawing elegant maneuvers on the backs of the mountains of water that opened the eyes of most of the witnesses of this feat," says the book 5000 years surfing waves about the history of Peruvian surfing.

And yes, until the early seventies, when the leash was invented, many boards ended up hitting the rocks.