FABIEN SHAPES

Fabien Vollenweider is one of windsurfing’s most respected shapers. As the man behind Tabou’s board designs he is known for his high-performance shapes, but did you know he designed the BIC Techno and has been shaping since he was 14 years old. Fabien gives us a revealing insight into his work.

- Fabien Vollenweider

EARLY DAYS I started shaping when I was 14 years old! At that time you could buy a shaping kit in the shop with a blank, the resin and all the elements you need to make your own board. That was way back in 1980 after I started windsurfing in 1979. This was in Nice in France, after that I started working in a shaper’s shop, fixing boards, laminating, sanding and shaping some surfboards.

I came to Maui in the late eighties and I met Jimmy Lewis. He let me use his workshop and I started making boards in Hawaii. I learned a lot from watching how he worked. I decided when I came back home that I would make my own shaping factory in France. That was when Tabou started in March 1990. So it will be thirty years next year I have had Tabou Boards. I also was doing a lot of shaping for BIC for ten years. I designed the BIC Techno, which was a very popular board in its day! It was one of the biggest selling windsurfing boards ever made I think, aside from the original windsurfer back in the day.

TYPICAL DAY

I have a lot of emails to deal with from Cobra to follow up with the production in Thailand. (Editor’s note – Cobra is a Thailand based composites manufacturer with its core business in the watersports market, making boards for a lot of the major brands). I design my board on the computer and when I am happy with a shape I send the file to the factory. A month later I go over there and do the fine shaping, when they are finished I bring them back for testing. I am usually there for about two weeks. I go many times a year, maybe eight to ten trips. I bring back between 10 and 20 boards. The range has about 45 models with all the different sizes in each category and we change about one third of the shapes every year. It is impossible to change every model every year. It would not even make sense.

TECHNOLOGY