1984-1988: A custom workshop was a microcosm...

As soon as Farigoulette opened, there was a spontaneous generation: people from very different backgrounds co-opted each other in the same passion, and became close, like a blended family.

It was quite exhilarating to feel like the captain of this drunken ship, the guru of this joyful sect, open to many delusions.

It was very motivating to try every day to impress them, especially with the decorations, because it was not easy to imagine dozens of original pieces every month!

As you will see, many of the images are mediocre, but they capture the moods that nourished our youth.

 

Workshop

People

Fairs

 

1989-1991: An overhaul of the organisation

Everything that is told in this "Ambiences" section concerns the first period of Farigoulette, from 1984 to the end of 1988, in the Pioline workshop.

I lived in this workshop, which was very expensive, and the staff costs (I had up to 6 employees) made the whole business very unprofitable...

At the end of 1988, my daughter Alice was born, and there was no question of living there any longer, nor of continuing to screw up to this extent. So I moved to a new workshop and lodging on the chemin de la Blaque, a kilometre away as the crow flies, but in the middle of the countryside.

I took advantage of this to radically revise the organisation, I fired everyone and I was left alone with Didier Roy part-time, who helped me with the stratifications and the insertions of the boxes. The rest of the time, he sailed, analysed the behaviour of the boards and did the promotion.

Every three weeks, Olivier Schnerb came from Collioure. In one weekend, we did all the finishing together, on an average of thirty boards: straightening, glassing, surface finish, polishing, anti-skid. The cost was perfectly controlled as Olivier worked on a fixed price basis: 500 Frs per board.

Often, boards were added for Matos Paris, with Jimmy Lewis or Angulo shapes that travelled in special crates and left finished in 10 days!

An innovative commercial policy

This 3-week production cycle proved to be very efficient to produce unique pieces in small series, with a delivery time of 15 to 20 days.

With the dealers, I was pragmatic: at the Boat Show, I provided them with a schedule with all the delivery dates, which they completed with quantities that defined their margin level.

At the beginning of the cycle, I called them all to obtain the characteristics and usage schedules of the pre-ordered floats. The margins were readjusted according to whether or not the pre-order targets were met.

I then placed the supplier orders and started production from stock: shaping, decoration the first 2 weeks, laminations and insertions the third and finishing the last weekend.

On Monday, the boards were packed, and left by carrier the same evening in France and Europe thanks to the participations to the ISPO in Munich.

This is the end...

All this came to an end in 1991, the Gulf War, the passing of fashion, the production of high performance boards (thanks to Marco Copello, who killed the golden goose) and also a certain weariness...

All this self-taught journey gave me openings on the formidable potential of diversification that this technical ingenuity could allow, which I wanted to apply to other causes: design and artistic creation.

As a shaper, I had made thousands of boards, I had developed a network of European dealers, I had nothing more to say.

So I decided, for the second time, to change my life.

I have, paradoxically, no images from this second period, and I regret the focus I could have given on various technical advances.

Since then, I have been documenting much more thanks to digital technology and I publish the archive directly.