Bonjour from France

General Discussion
1

Dear Swaylockians,

 

My name is Stéphane GARNIER and after being reading post for months, I finally decided to register. Since English is not my mother tongue, forgive me for the mistakes I may make in my writing.

So, first of all, let me introduce myself, I am 40 years old, married with 1 little girl, I use to be really involve in freestyle and racing BMX in the 80's, then I travel from place to place including Charleston SC, Bermuda and England for work, we left Paris 5 years ago in order to live closer to the ocean in the south west of France near Biarritz. This is where I discover the joy of riding waves in my late 30's, then I had the chance to meet Guilhem "aka" Balsa, from who I order a longboard, that was a true revelation. I don't pretend to be a good surfer, I just try to enjoy myself on waves around 3 to 5 feets and not getting hurt !! I shaped one board under Balsa's coaching in is shop and that was a really great experience, my favorite part was the glassing.

I also had the chance to meet Paul Jensen when came over at Balsa's place for is workshop, as well as Bob Green and is wife when they came for holliday in Guéthary.

I probably won't be of great help in the different threads due to my very small experience in shaping, but I will definitly follow all your work.

I now own 2 Balsa's longboards, soon to be 3 when the "Zebra" will be done, they all have been shown here, but I can't resist to refresh your memories with a few pictures and link to shaperoom.net where they are all described.

The 1st  9'  single fin:

[IMG]http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w110/stef64/stephane23.jpg[/IMG]

http://www.shaperoom.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2947

The 2nd, 6'6 single fin (has been sold 2 years ago)

The one I made 8'4 bonzer 5 :

[IMG]http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w110/stef64/129.jpg[/IMG]

http://www.shaperoom.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4002

 

"One of a kind" for my 40th birthday 9'6 single fin :

http://vimeo.com/6067564

http://www.shaperoom.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=5173

 

Stephane.

2

Good job, Steph! I’m sending your commission check right now. Lol. Welcome aboard, BTW.

3

Bonjour Stephane:

Beinvenue nous somme content vous trouvais Swaylocks!

Sorry my French is a bit rusty. Guilhem is an outstanding craftman and you are very fortunate to have the honor to have shaped under him.

You are off to a great start in the surfing world. Next summer I will be in the South of France for a Month with my family and hopefully Guilhem's wife will find a place on or near the surf. Hopefully we can get a surf in and break some bagettes together.

 

Kind regards and welcome to Swaylocks,

 

Surfding

 

4

welcome to Swaylocks Stephane!

i really like the stencil on the first board you posted above.

5

Welcome to sways!

So you're the lucky guy who's been getting balsa to do all those special projects.

And your english is fine, those of you who post in a second (or third, or fourth) language amaze the hell out of me. I feel like an American dumbass.

6

Thanks all for the warm welcome and kinds comments.

Surfding, I sure hope to meet you next summer and share a few one.

MikeDaniel, you said it right I am a really lucky guy, those boards are beatiful to look at and surf's great, it's always hard to choose one when I go in the water !!

7

heya stephane, that self-made bonzer looks interesting, how does it ride? care to share its rail profiles as well? pics would help.

welcome to sways!

cheers,

8

You live in heaven.

 

9

[quote="$1"]

You live in heaven.

 

[/quote]

 

Ah le "Moulin de Bassilour" great place for bread and gateaux Basque !! really nice to have a drink as well at the restaurant nearby.

 

[quote="$1"]

heya stephane, that self-made bonzer looks interesting, how does it ride? care to share its rail profiles as well? pics would help.

welcome to sways!

cheers,

[/quote]

 

Beside the pride of having made it myself, I must say its ride pretty well, unfortunatelly it can handle bigger waves than I usally ride so I don't use it as much as I should. Anyway it goes very well in small waves as well thanks to the volume, it is more like an 8'4 longboard than a short one.

The rails are boxy, become almost square just on the back of the 2 runners and "pinchy"? on the tail, but since a picture worth a thousand words I made a little vidéo this morning hope its help.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbfbk7_bonzer-5

Stéphane. 

10

[quote="$1"]

You live in heaven.

 

[/quote]

 

Ah le "Moulin de Bassilour" great place for bread and gateaux Basque !! really nice to have a drink as well at the restaurant nearby.

 

[quote="$1"]

heya stephane, that self-made bonzer looks interesting, how does it ride? care to share its rail profiles as well? pics would help.

welcome to sways!

cheers,

[/quote]

 

Beside the pride of having made it myself, I must say its ride pretty well, unfortunatelly for me it can handle bigger waves than I usally ride so I don't use it as much as I should. Anyway it goes very well in small waves as well thanks to the volume, it is more like an 8'4 longboard than a short one.

The rails are boxy, become almost square just on the back of the 2 runners and "pinchy"? on the tail, but since a picture worth a thousand words I made a little vidéo this morning hope it helps.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbfbk7_bonzer-5

Stéphane. 

11

Sorry Ipost it twice and I don't know how to erase it, if someone can help, thanks

12

Ne probleme pas, et...

some things are worth saying twice.

Now- how are the oysters around there? I might have to come and visit and best of all, have someone else paying for it.

doc... English is also my second language...

13

hey doc

we have great oysters too, did you know?

if you come over, to amsterdam, ill pay for ur oysters!

and we can surf 6 degree water in 5 mill suits, with hoodies and booties

and gloves of course

then, you can go to france and surf macking guethary, and have balsa pay your oysters, again!

or go to france only, which is more reasonable… but going through amsterdam is a good idea!

 

 

 

14

Salut de Maui.Alors c’etait pour toi la planche bleue avec les figure 8 en bois,super. Nice Bonzer.J’ai une bonne histoire a propos de bonzer,I was surfing the other day,it was pretty big hawaiian waves, maybe 6 ft(12 foot faces)occasional 7-8 footer,a real rocky coastline.This dude paddles out,I couldn’t believe it,the guy doesn’t know how to surf,you can tell just the way he paddles.then I see his board.Hey,is that a Campbell Brothers Bonzer?I ask him.I don’t know,I just bought in Yakima he says.I take a look at the board,it’s a Campbell Bros.Bonzer speed egg,looks like 7.8,7.10,brand spanking new.Hey,you want to sell it before you go back to Yakima?No.Okay.Watch out,the waves are pretty big today.Yeah,okay,I am just learning,I thought this place would be good.(You gotta be kidding me!)…Then a set comes,I keep on surfing all morning,never saw the dude again.Next morning,I am walking down the path,here is the dude.I look at his board and I am so sick(j’en suis malade!)The nose is all busted,the bottom has holes,one fin is busted.What a waste.And get this,the guy is gonna paddle out AGAIN,with the board all busted.Hey,sell me the board,don’t paddle out with it like that,it’s gonna get all fucked up worse.Nothing doing.It was a sweet board.End of story.Don’t ya just love tourists?Ta  maison est chouette!Aloha

15

Bonjour à vous dans le Pays Basque

Stephane good to hear from you and thanks again for meeting us at the airport. The highlight of my trip was 1 hour on the last day - la parlementia. I thought about those waves for months and still check the cam. A really great part of the world with nice people. My wife and I both have it on our list of places we want to go to.

Catch a few of your waves for me.

Bob


16

 

Doc, you’re welcome any time. And although oysters are found a bit north from here (the Arcachon area is famous for those, that’s about 180 Km from Guéthary/Biarritz), we will manage to get you some. Champagne is on ice waiting for you.

17

Doc and Balsa, oysters are right down the road from where we’re at, and we have friends that farm them on the Ferret.  I’ll be happy to make a delivery of a few dozen or so!

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Hmmm...this is beginning to sound like the 2010 Doc World Tour in the making.

You see, I'm ( in real life, now that I'm not running a surf shop) an oyster and clam grower, with an interest in mussels and a few other shellfish species. It's not the same, but it's a life on the water and in time with the tides - something that fits me.

And lately, I've gotten involved in aquaculture research and development stuff, how to grow 'em better, faster and cheaper, what new markets and marketing metods are out there or can be developed to sell more of them at better prices, what sort of technology can be used to make the work easier and so on.

And yes, there's research and development money available for that. Including travel money for people like me to go and see how it's done in other places. One grower from this area was sent to Australia last year to see how they grow oysters there. France has some really superb oysters...and a very good marketing system for them. The Netherlands have good oysters too, along with some very innovative things that are being done with mussels - in fact, the basic tech that's used for growing mussels commercially all over the world has its roots in both places. Some of the systems being used now would be a big step up for the aquaculture industry in the US.

So, I'll have to do fill out some forms, write some grant applications, that sort of thing. For instance, writing justifications for shipping my boards and wetsuits ( useful for inspecting in-water growout systems up close, no?) and similar. And planning how to write it up, with lots and lots of pictures. Not as well as, say, Paul Jensen has been doing, but we all do what we can.

6 degree water? Sounds like home, here. And I happen to have a 6/5/4 suit and thick boots and gloves that rather need an airing. Along with some others. Heh- with a year to plan  all this, maybe you guys could put together a list of things I could bring that you'd like or things you could use? Drums of resin might be a bit difficult to get on the airplane.....

doc...