![]() ![]() Eventually, he put the board on ice and in 2015 sold it to collector Spencer Croul for US$16,500 at an auction. He describes it as an absolute miracle that it never broke in all those sessions. Maurice took the 7’8” back to the Basque Country, and used it for years as his Mundaka gun. To the eyes of a surfing community trained by the archetypal 1980s vision of Curren with Op logo, it was an actual shock.” “To any eye at a pro event today, this might seem odd. “On the 7’8”, no graphic drew the eye away from those razor sleek lines and the slightly jagged pinline and simple yellow rail,” wrote Carroll. The bigger board led to the legendary Curren cutback image at Backdoor Pipeline, the photo nobody who’s seen it will forget - a turn so completely pure it defies comparison. ![]() Photos: Jeff Hornbaker (stickerless action at Haleiwa) and Vince Sky (portrait + board). With no sponsor decals available in France, and with Tom having none in Hawaii, he rode the boards sticker-less. The boards were shipped separately to Hawaii and were hilariously lost in transit, and only showed up on the day before the event. ![]() In 1991 Cole had provided Curren with a quiver for Hawaii, including a 7’3″ and 7’8″. Later, the pair turned convention on its head with MC’s reverse vee rocker design, which helped open the door to the high-performance magic of the ‘90s and beyond. By late 1990, Cole’s boards had helped power Curren to a unique feat: winning the World Title from the trials round, without a main event seed. Tom and Maurice began their friendship in the late 1980s, when the two-time World Champion had dropped off tour and was living in nearby Anglet with his wife Marie-Pascale, who was pregnant with their first daughter Lee-Anne. “Maurice gave the French scene a new level of surfing. “Maurice gave an impetus to French surfing, in the way of his knowledge of surfing, and the way he did it in that ‘70s spirit,” said surfer/writer Gibus de Soultrait in Nick Carroll’s book The Reverse V Project - the tale of how both MC and TC ended up in SW France at the same time, and together made a couple of dozen surfboards that changed both their lives. In those years, the couple had their children, Marine and Damien, and Maurice left an indelible print on what is now the surf industry capital of Europe. It was a return to the place he’d lived with his wife Anne for over 15 years, from 1982 to 1997. ![]() A few weeks earlier, Maurice had arrived in Hossegor to shape out of the Surf Odyssey factory. This board will be introduced into our 2010 catalog as one of our most versatile designs yet.Tom Curren rides the fabled 7’3″ on the North Shore, 1991. We also tested it as a quad in addition to the tri set up, and had great feed back on the all around performance of the board with both fin configurations. To make the board even more versatile, and to loosen it up a bit in smaller surf, we ended up increased the tail width and put a bit more kick in the tail. Soon after, some of our team riders began experimenting with the board in small to medium surf, and found the board to be very drivey and fast. We originally designed this board as a step up board for bigger surf, and the results were great. This X10 was inspired by Kelly Slater’s short, full nose, step up, that he rode in this years Pipe masters. ![]()
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