Longtime Seal Beach resident and hall of fame surfer Sean Collins, 59, died on Monday, Dec. 26, after he suffered a heart attack while playing tennis. He was taken to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian shortly afterward.
In 1999, Surfer magazine named Collins one of the 25 most influential surfers of the century. He was inducted into the Surfers’ Hall of Fame in Huntington Beach in 2008.
Collins’Surfline.com, is a Web site with free surf reports from around the country. Through it Collins had live webcams at ocean locations around the world that gave online viewers real-time views of surfing conditions.
Collins who first picked up a surfboard at age of 8, graduated from Wilson High School in Long Beach, attended Long Beach City College and also worked as a photographer, waiter and bartender.
Along the way, he developed a passion to complement his surfing: poring through the National Weather Service library and studying faxes from around the world to predict swells. In 1984, he joined a fledgling company called Surfline, which offered surf forecasts by phone, then left to start a rival company called Wavetrak.
Collins is survived by his wife, Daren, and sons, Tyler and A.J.
