Mère-Made Surfboards: board#048, #049, #051, #52: full competition quiver for Rudy Marechal

Dimensions: confidential :)
[completed in May 2014]
Model Vedette

The story: in the last episode I was shaping some performance short boards for French pro Surfer Rudy Marechal (see previous post here). After he tried them out, he ordered a full quiver for the QS contest season in Europe. Big deal!!!! The biggest so far.

The shapes: of course, the shapes were all derived from the model I created for him ("Vedette"). We worked a lot "on paper" to make sure I get it right with all the little differences for each of them. Of course, length was a variable. But also one had a round tail and others had subtile changes in the squash tail. All of them had the Vedette signature: some volume on the nose for front foot rider with very spread stand, deep single to deeper double concave, and the (now famous) round rails! Rudy and I decided it would make more sense to shape them in parallel, step by step, in order to stay consistent throughout the whole quiver. Basically, I would remember better what I did if I was doing the same step for all of them at once. No need to say that that was very stressful and tiring physically and mentally. I dedicated a full month to this project.

The glassing was done by Global Glassing (Oceanside). The whole team, including the big boss, Jeff, made sure the boards were perfectly glassed ultra light. They did a wonderful job in a record time. Thank you Johnny for the hard/awesome work!!

The artwork: Rudy was very specific about what he wanted. He drew sketches of the blue/black/white designs he wanted and I could not change his mind!! As usual, he was pretty damn right about the finish look of his quiver. I like the thematic with different flavors from board to board. The artwork was intentionally simple in order to accommodate for all the sponsor stickers.

The breaking news!!!!: Rudy was set to travel to France for his contest season last week. The day before he was supposed to leave, he was told by a US governmental agency that he could not travel outside the US for an undetermined time. To make a long story short, Rudy had to miss his flight and he is not going to participate to the European QS tour.

As the shaper of his quiver, I am, or course, very disappointed by the news. But I am even more saddened that he can't get to see his family and friends (I know he missed them so much and Capbreton!). I wish him the best of luck in his private life as well as on the waves!