Surfing on good vibrations

Published Jul 23, 2009

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America has Big Surf on the Pacific, but when the French want to surf, they take their boards to the rugged Atlantic coast to compete in the Lacanau Pro.

Surfing in France is riding a crest of a wave with around 100 000 regular practitioners, including 35 000 who have been through various training schools around the coasts.

An example of the crop of French youngsters making the grade is 18-year-old Alizee Arnaud, who won the junior Buondi title at the Cordoama event in Portugal this summer.

"The conditions were hard for me, with only left-handers while I am easier with right-handers," she said of the waves.

"But the victory will help me get to the target I set myself of going to the Billabong junior in Australia."

The surge in surfing in France has led to a boom in sales of equipment.

France's trade association estimates the market, including surf, windsurf, bodyboard, wakeboard, kiteboard and skimboard, is worth almost €500-million a year and is developing at the rate of four percent annually.

Youngsters are being drawn to the sport which boasts attractive year-round conditions especially on the shores of Brittany and Normandy in the north, and on the Atlantic southwest coast.

Michel Boye, the founder of Ocean Surf Report, is delighted with the huge interest among girls in surfing.

"France is becoming a surf nation," says the man who set up Ocean Surf Report to provide 'live' data on surfing conditions around the country.

For the most part, the watchers, who Boye terms "surf reporters," are people working in surf gear shops or teachers at sail and surf schools.

These individuals have unique knowledge about local conditions.

As in skiing, the sport is heavily dependent on the conditions at the location where a competition is taking place and the increasingly fanatical tribe of French surfers is desperate for knowledge about the best beaches.

Veteran surfer Stephane Arquetil from Bordeaux, 40, said: "Normally I leave home around 6am to go surfing before work and it's vital to know the best place to go."

The information network founded 18 years ago now relies on 40 coast watchers who communicate wave conditions, including photographs, to a central website located at this coastal resort which will be the scene of the Lacanau Pro, a major event in the European surf calendar, on August 13-23.

Ocean Surf Report employs three full-time staff who provide the daily real-time information service on the web and by telephone, a service which is in demand to the tune of 20 000 Internet hits per day.

"We are often asked for advice because in winter many of the beaches are unsupervised," says Boye. - Sapa-AFP

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