Oahu native and pioneer competitive surfer Derek Ho, who became Hawaii’s first professional world surfing champion in 1993, died Friday at the age of 55.

Ho suffered a sudden heart attack and was taken to Wahiawa General Hospital, where he died after going into a coma, said family friend Darrick Doerner.

Shaken with shock and grief, sometimes describing him in the present tense as if he were still alive, family members and close friends remembered Ho as an ambassador of the islands who carried aloha worldwide in the spirit and tradition of Duke Kahanamoku and a devoted family man and phenomenal athlete who enjoyed the ocean and being alive.

“It’s a big loss to Hawaii surfing,” said Gerry Lopez, famed for his breathtaking tube rides at Banzai Pipeline on Oahu’s North Shore, where he mentored members of the Ho ohana and others in the 1970s and ’80s.

“Derek was still surfing Pipeline this winter. He was young, in shape, still out there taking waves with the best of ’em and doing it very well,” said Lopez, 71, of Ho, a fellow slender, goofy-foot (right-foot-forward stance) surfer who charged the left-breaking barrels of Pipeline with a similar relaxed, laid-back air.

As Ho, also a four-time winner of the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing on Oahu’s North Shore (1984, ’86, ’88 and ’90), told the Honolulu Advertiser in 2007, “It’s not like I got big and fat and can’t surf anymore.”

He added, “I guess it’s just a love for the ocean. I love being out there and I still feel like I have a drive to compete.”

The son of waterman and Waikiki beachboy Edmund “Chico” Ho and younger brother of champion surfer Michael Ho, Derek Ho built on that legacy, Lopez said.

“Derek was following closely in Michael’s footsteps. Michael was really the first of us Hawaiian surfers that started to be seriously competitive with the Australians in those early pro surfing events, and he passed everything on to Derek. So when Derek started his career he ended up being the first Hawaiian world champ on the pro circuit.

“No Hawaiians could crack that top spot until Derek.”

With his historic victory, Ho became the inspiration not only for young aspiring Hawaii surfers such as Sunny Garcia and Andy Irons, but for those of all ages, Lopez said.

“That was really something for all the surfers of Hawaii, that this local boy could make it, compete at that top level and dominate in that one year.”

Surfer and former lifeguard Brian Keaulana, son of waterman Buffalo Keaulana, said his family was close with the Ho clan, who used to come and visit them at Makaha Beach.

“Family was everything to all of us surfing families — the Downings, the Hos, the Aikaus — we were all connected through our parents and grandparents and stuff,” Keaulana said. “We were raised with the same values that both Michael and Derek spread around the world.”

Keaulana remembered Michael and Derek Ho competing in the Makaha International Surf Championship. “When Derek broke through he was just like his brother. Wherever the surf was great, that’s where they would be.”

Lopez added that the Hos’ breakthroughs were also based on their ability to perform in the not-so-great surf in which the world championship tour was often held in the 1980s and ’90s.

“Part of the reason the Australians won was they were able to surf crummy waves a lot better than Hawaiians,” he said. “If the surf was crummy, we didn’t go out. But Michael and Derek surfed every day; they went out and found the crappiest surf and got seriously competitive in it.”

Lopez and Doerner, a friend since childhood, stressed the closeknit relationship of the Ho brothers.

“Derek was under the school of Michael Ho, the best surfer that ever came out of Waimanalo and the North Shore,” Doerner said. “Michael had so many tricks up his sleeve he dominated everywhere, then all of a sudden Derek came out of nowhere at Sandy Beach and started blowing everybody’s minds.”

Lopez, who lives in Oregon, said he had spoken by phone with Michael Ho from the hospital when his brother was still on life support. “So devastating. They were so close. Michael was the big brother. It’s not supposed to go like that,” he said.

Despite the tragedy, however, memories of Derek Ho brought joy to his friends.

“He always had a smile and he was so happy,” Doerner said. “Derek — he was the smallest guy in the lineup that got all the waves except Gerry Lopez or Mike Ho.”

“I always think of Derek and laugh because he just challenged and sought perfection,” Keaulana said. “I seen him surf the best in Tahiti, the best at Pipe, the West Side — just pure enjoyment when he’s in the water. When he’s in the ocean, he’s just enjoying life.”

That’s how he’ll remember Ho, Keaulana added.

“I knew Derek as a little (one), way younger than me,” said Keone Downing, 66, whose father, big-wave pioneer George Downing, assigned him to look after Michael Ho, at 13 the youngest member of the Hawaii team at the 1972 IPS world championship contest in San Diego, which was won by Hawaii surfer Jimmy Blears.

“Michael and Derek were both invited to surf in the Duke Kahanamoku Surfing Classic and the Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau (at Waimea Bay),” said Downing. “Derek basically was first the Hawaiian world champion in the modern competition structure, under the Association of Professional Surfing (now the World Surf League).” He noted the IPS competition was “really just an amateur contest because professionalism was in its infancy and it was more about teams representing countries, like the Olympics, basically.”

Downing celebrated Ho as continuing and handing down a tradition and legacy that had shaped him.

“The heritage and the lineage he came from was that of a true Hawaiian waterman, from his father, his brother, his sisters, the waterman aspect has run deep within their family and now continues with his niece Coco Ho and nephew Mason Ho (Michael’s children and professional surfers).”

“He was ‘Uncle’, but he was extraordinary,” Coco Ho said of Derek Ho. “He competed and walked through life with a super strong soul.”

Her uncle’s love and admiration for her father, his older brother, was reciprocal, she added.

“Dad coached me with examples of Uncle Derek,” said the young North Shore native and veteran of the women’s world championship tour. “When I look at photos of him I see our family’s rock, I see a hero.”

“Every time I saw my Uncle Derek it would light up my day like nobody else,” said her brother Mason Ho. “He always has this really comforting and empowering energy that would make me smile and feel like a super hero.”

Favorite memories of his uncle, Ho said, included days at Pipeline “where all us young men are waiting for the perfect time to paddle out, thinking it’s too big or not perfect. Uncle Derek would walk right past everybody with a smile and paddle out no matter what.

“After that we’d follow him out because everybody knows he’s the master. We’d all end up getting the best waves of our lives.”

Reflecting on his family’s tradition of excellence in ocean sports, “We appreciate it, and we don’t take it for granted,” Derek Ho said in the 2007 Advertiser interview.

Lopez lauded his friend’s “Hawaiian local boy heritage and sensibility” and said the word that most signified Derek Ho was “enduring.”

Services are pending. In addition to his brother, Michael, Derek Ho is survived by his mother, Joeine; his wife, Tanya Ho; children Kiana and Makoa Ho; sisters Debra, Maryann and Kuumomi Ho; and grandchildren, nephews and nieces.