Professional surfer and local artist Larry Bertlemann has died at 71 after heart attack complications in Honolulu, a pioneer whose family says his legacy will live on.

Hawaii News Now reported that Bertlemann died Saturday following complications from a heart attack.

His family said he passed away on October 10, 2026, at The Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu. He was 71.

Bertlemann was known as “Rubberman,” a nickname tied to the low, fast, radical style he brought to the water in the 1970s. The family called him a pioneer of modern surfing and a local artist, and noted his place as a skateboarding hall of famer.

In a statement confirming his death, the family mourned both the athlete and the man at the center of a large ohana.

"It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of legendary professional surfer and local artist Larry Bertlemann. He passed away on October 10, 2026, at the age of 71, following complications from a heart attack at The Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Beyond his accomplishments in surfing and art, Larry was a beloved son, brother, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. He is survived by his loving mother, five sisters, three children, eight grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. His legacy, both in and out of the water, will continue to live on through his family, the surfing community, and the many lives he touched."

That roll call of survivors tells its own story. A mother. Five sisters. Three children. Eight grandchildren. Nine great-grandchildren. Bertlemann left behind the kind of multigenerational family that once defined ordinary American life and still does in places that keep score by more than trophies.

Public goodbyes for cultural figures often arrive in clusters, as with the recent loss of steel guitar legend Tommy Detamore, another craftsman whose work outlived the headlines.

Bertlemann’s mark was made in an era when surfing still ran on nerve, balance, and invention rather than corporate branding. The 1970s style credited to him, low to the board, fast across the face, radical for its time, helped push the sport toward the modern free-form approach later riders took for granted.

He was not only a water man. The family also pointed to his work as a local artist and to recognition in skateboarding’s hall of fame, a reminder that the same board culture that reworked the wave also reworked the street.

Readers who follow farewells to public figures may likewise recall tributes after Sam Neill’s death at 78, another career measured in craft and durability more than noise.

No time of death was released beyond the family’s October 10 date. The medical timeline between the heart attack and his passing was not detailed in the initial report. Service arrangements were left for later announcement.

What was clear was the setting: Honolulu, at The Queen’s Medical Center, with the family speaking in one voice about a man they described first as son, brother, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and only then as the surfer and artist the public knew.

Grief of that kind needs little decoration. Other families have had to do the same hard public accounting, including the Chad Lowe family mourning their daughter in language built on love rather than spin.

Bertlemann’s death closes a chapter on a Hawaiian rider who helped change how a generation read a wave. It also leaves a crowded living room of people who called him family, which is the ledger that lasts after the contests end and the boards are racked.

In a culture quick to crown influencers and slow to honor builders, men who reshaped a craft with their own hands and then showed up for a long family line still deserve a straight accounting, and a debt of thanks.