Michael Peterson - Telegraph Michael Peterson was born on September 24 1952 and brought up at Coolangatta on Queensland's Gold Coast, where he began surfing as a child. Money was tight, so his first boards were ones which had been abandoned by their owners after being broken on the rocks. Peterson and his brothers would take them home, make rough repairs and head back out in the water. He joined the surfing club at Kirra Beach, where he developed his tube riding techniques, becoming known as the "King of Kirra." One of Peterson's secrets for tube riding was the underside curvature on his boards - known as the "rocker." Instead of the nose of the board lifting from close to the front of the board, he moved the apex back to near the middle of the board and would ride it with one foot either side. By shifting his weight on to his back foot, he could slow the board down and get deeper into the tube. By shifting his weight on to the front foot, he could make the board shoot forward. He would protect "his" waves fiercely, warning off interlopers with a shrill whistle from inside the tube. But by the time he became dominant in the sport, Peterson was already a heavy user of marijuana. In 1972 he was found guilty of possession and supply and fined 500 Australian dollars. By 1976, by which time he had moved on to heroin, his behaviour was becoming increasingly erratic. He heard voices and imagined his friends were plotting against him. In 1983, while sleeping in his car on the side of the road between the Gold Coast and Brisbane, he was woken by police sirens heading in the opposite direction. Thinking they were after him, he panicked and drove off as fast as he could. The police car turned round and began a high-speed chase that eventually involved some 15 police vehicles and nearly caused the deaths of two pedestrians when, at one point, Peterson mounted the pavement. The chase continued for about 100 miles all the way to Brisbane, where a roadblock finally forced Peterson to a stop. The story made national news, but Peterson ended up in jail, where a few months later he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Eventually he returned to the Gold Coast, living either in care homes or with his mother, seldom seeing former friends. Partly due to his medication, his weight ballooned to the point where those who had known him in his youth could barely recognise him. Michael Peterson, born September 24 1952, died March 29 2012