Imi Barneaud: “Hi Everybody and welcome to the Oceanriders Podcast. Conversations with creatives, entrepreneurs, thinkers and dreamers who also happen to be surfers. My name is Imi and I am your host. Thank you for checking in every 2 weeks and for being more and more every day to listen to the podcast. I really hope you enjoy it. If you do, don’t hesitate to share your feedback (actually if you don’t too for that matter). You can send me an email on hello@theocenariderspodcast.com or connect with me on social media. I’d love to hear from you and see how I can make this podcast better every episode.

If you enjoy this podcast, please support it. You can start by subscribing to it. Hit the subscribe button on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Deezer and your other favorite apps. You can also tell your family, friends and surf buddies about the podcast and even come and join me for a chat and make one yourself! The whole point of this podcast is to share the weird and windy paths of surfers from all walks of life. So if you’re interested, just DM me on social media or send an email to hello@theoceanriderspodcast.com Last but not least, you can help me pay for my awesome podcast editor Leng, and the hosting fees by purchasing some of my super merch. In fact, as I speak, I’m wearing the women’s organic sweatshirt which is so comfortable and stylish, I even wear it to official dos ! There are also some super organic t-shirts, organic wall art and some lovely greetings cards that you can pick-up online. Everything is limited edition and made to order, so skip over to theoceanridersshop.com. If you are a business and would like to advertise, just send me an email and we can see what we can arrange… In any case I’d love to hear from you.

Anyway, enough of the self promotion, and now for my guest… This week, I had the privilege of having a chat with one of pioneers of big wave surfing: he’s French and his name is Vincent Lartizien. Vincent started his career as a professional windsurfer. He traveled to Maui in the 80’s to follow his dream and ended up living there for the next 20 years. It turned out big wave surfing was something he loved doing, and during the time he spent in Hawaii, he learned and mastered the art of tow-in surfing just after it got invented by Laird Hamilton. He was, in fact, the first non hawaiian to be allowed to surf Jaws and spent the next 30 years pulling off incredible exploits in dangerous situations in Hawaii and the rest of the world.

Our conversation covers these early years and beyond, but turns into a more spiritual conversation about the flow of energy in the ocean, and how Vincent’s spiritual connection with the ocean has helped him see life differently. In fact, about 6 years ago, Vincent, against all odds decided to create a hemp t-shirt manufacturing business. 6 years later he is a successful soulpreneur with vertically integrated hemp manufacturing facility near Hossegor. It’s from the shores of the Atlantic that practices what he learned from the ocean to succeed in business. Vincent’s path is atypical but is also fascinating, so without further ado, please welcome Vincent Lartizien.

Hello Vincent, and welcome to The Oceanriders Podcast. How are you today?

Vincent Lartizien: And how are you?

Imi Barneaud: Fine, I’m fine. I’m really, really stoked to do this interview for the second time, and thank you very much for making this time to share your story. So do you think, to start with, you could introduce yourself to the listeners.

Vincent Lartizien: Okay. So my name is Vincent. I’ve been adding a few different things in my life. The first one was in Hawaii for 20 years, being a professional windsurfer first and then a professional software, and then other lives that, maybe it’s not the topic today.

Imi Barneaud: Well, we’ll see what we can actually fit in into this conversation, but I’m sure we will be able to talk about all your lives or some of them. Okay, so where abouts did you grow up?

Vincent Lartizien: So I grew up in the French Riviera by St Tropez because my dad was a surgeon there, and that’s where I spent my life from 0 to 17 until I left for Hawaii. So I was raised on the flat seat.

Imi Barneaud: And who introduced you to wind surfing and the ocean in the first place?

Vincent Lartizien: I lived by the ocean, so I was introduced right away to the ocean and we used to play, no matter what, we used to dive a lot and play with the birds, the same boat at the time. And in the 70’s, I don’t know exactly when I saw the first wind surfer, it was a German guy who brought it from, I don’t know where. And then we saw that guy coming in with this wind surfboard, and it was like, what is that? And I was 11 at the time, and we went to the guy, and I said: “I want to try, I want to try.” And the guy made me try, and after the second try, I just felt the wind and I started to glide, and I’m seeing a switch inside of my stomach. And from that time, that was it.

Imi Barneaud: That’s amazing because you did a trade with your dad about passing your exams, your final exams, and then going off to Hawaii. How did that work out?

Vincent Lartizien: That was a few years after I was hooked on windsurfing, and I saw some picture of Robbie Naish jumping on the waves and I say: “I just want to go there.” That was the other switch I had inside of me, it was a really physical stomach switch. I couldn’t explain it better, but something switched inside my stomach. The first time I climbed on a windsurf board, and the second time was when I saw in Wind magazine that I opened and I saw Hawaiian guys jumping, and I knew I had to go there. I was 16, and I turned to my dad and I say: “I just want to go there.” And he say: Well, when you get your baccalaureate, we will pay your ticket.” I was really bad in school so I never got my baccalaureate and I had to go on my own.

Imi Barneaud: So did you save up, or did you have sponsors by then that helped you pay for the ticket?

Vincent Lartizien: No, no, no, it was in 82 and at that time they were no sponsor on windsurfing so I had to make my own money. So I made some money and I skipped school. My dad’s think that I was still in school and I escaped schooling, I just flew to Hawaii.

Imi Barneaud: How did you actually fit into the environment in Hawaii? How did you meet the first friends and actually get to know the locals?

Vincent Lartizien: I was by myself and all windsurfing at the beginning was opening in Diamond Head and [inaudible], but when I got there in 82, it was the beginning of Ho‘okipa, so [inaudible] switched to Maui. And when I went to Hawaii, I went to Robbie’s store and I asked Robbie’s mom, where are the guys? I want to see them, and blah blah blah, like a French kid, and she says: “He’s not here anymore. You have to go to Maui.” So I got a ticket, I flew to Maui, and I go to Maui, and I work to the beach, and I met some guy and I say: “I’m French, I just arrived.” And at that time, it was so friendly, that the guy told me: “Okay, come to my house.” And from then on, I was just introduced slowly basically to the crew at Ho‘okipa. I went straight to Ho‘okipa, and passed the other beach where you usually go when you stop. And I got introduced to, and friend with all the best guys from there, I know [inaudible], all the big wind surfer guy, and I just made my little place there, then I got married and stuff.

Imi Barneaud: That’s so cool. So was that when you started to become a professional windsurfer?

Vincent Lartizien: The first year, I had my own money and I stayed for one year, always my own money. Then I went back to France, and just before I went, there was a contest, one of the big wind surfing contests where all French people came, all the European professionals came, and the press was there and nobody knew me, but I ended up the best French man at the contest. So from that day, everybody stopped talking about me because I was the French guy nobody knew, and I was good at windsurfing, and I was introduced to other Hawaiians. And from that time, my dad helped me. I went back to France and he gave me some money to go back again, and he helped me for one or two more years, and then the sponsor got it.

Imi Barneaud: They caught up, they rolled in. That’s really cool. And I guess windsurfing and surfing, obviously have something in common, but how did you actually catch the surfing bug coming from the Mediterranean?

Vincent Lartizien: On the not windy days, we had nothing else to do, and the waves, it was my passion there. I just started to love the waves more and more, and from windsurfing, I moved to surfing. When there was no wind, we’d surf all day long. And when there was no wave and no wind, we went fishing to catch our fish because we had no money, we had to eat. So that’s all we did, we windsurfed, surfed, and fished.

Imi Barneaud: So cool. Could you tell us the story when you surfed Jaws with Michel Larronde for the first time?

Vincent Lartizien: Yeah, so when Laird started to do the tow-in thing, we were out there because Laird was a windsurfer, lived on Maui, and Michel had the restaurant La Vie en Rose, so everybody was eating in his restaurant, so we were all just a big family there. And my wife, and Laird’s wife were best friends, every two days I was at his place eating there. So I saw when he first did those stuff, Gerry Lopez was there living on Maui, and he was telling us there is a wave in the sugarcane that nobody knows, in the pineapple field that nobody knows, and you cannot catch the wave paddleing. So he told Laird, and Laird started to go with the Zodiac, then they went with the jet ski, and we were watching from the cliff because Michel lives right above. And when we saw that for the first time, I told Michel: “Man, we gotta go. We gotta do that. That’s too fun.” And so I called my sponsor in France, he bought us a jet ski, and we were the first one to go behind Laird’s crew. The first day was a big adventure because we made the mistake to go like that, like for beginners. So we went with the ski, we arrived there, Laird’s crew was there, and they were already kind of shocked that it was us, it was the French guy that came right behind us, and it was a big swell, and we made a mistake. And Michel at a big swell, one of the biggest one they ever saw there at that time. And so everybody freaked, we couldn’t get him back into the white water, so the old station stop from that, and Laird say’s: “Okay, you guys get to come to the house tomorrow, we’ll talk.” And so we went, we were already stoked because we — for the first time even Michel wiped out. And the next day we went to Laird’s house and we knew all the guys, we knew them very well, and none of them wanted to look at us. And it was this big Hawaiian guy, BD was the kind of their buddy go out somehow, and it’s called us big time like they do in Hawaii, they didn’t punch us or anything, but big time is, they told us: “What you guys know, you did the biggest mistakes, and now you’re going to have to go to [inaudible]. (Which is a beach, lower beach down the coast.) So you’re going to go there for two years, and when we decide that you’ll be ready for Jaws, we’ll call you.” So we did that. We went to [inaudible] and we did our classes (faire ses classes in French), you going to do a class, to get approved–

Imi Barneaud: You earn your place kind of thing.

Vincent Lartizien: Exactly. So we did it, we did every time there was a big swell, we did all the mistakes that we could do, and we learned from them. And on the second year, one day, there was a big swell, and the morning Laird called us and he said: “Okay guys, come up.” And so that was it, we’re a part of the game.

Imi Barneaud: That was amazing. And is that where you also caught the big wave surfing bug like that because you are a renowned big wave surfer around the world. Could you tell us a bit more about your experience with big wave surfing?

Vincent Lartizien: It started with wind surfing. I always liked big waves, and wind surfing at Ho‘okipa to get your place on the lineup. Even windsurfing, you have to go big waves. And not very few guys went, even some of the best guys didn’t like the big waves. They are in smaller waves, in medium sized waves, but when it was really big, nobody was there. But me, somehow I liked it, I don’t know why, I felt good about it. So I was at every big session, I was there. So already, I earned my place with windsurfing. And from going to Jaws, and being the first one to go at Jaws, then again, I earned my place. And then when we came to Europe, and I saw the potential in Europe and nobody knew about that sport, the tow-in, and we brought the first jet ski, then we formed a few of our friends that like big waves, and we went to discover all the European waves. So we were the first one everywhere. So I guess naturally, I gain my reputation there.

Imi Barneaud: What’s the equipment for big wave surfing? Could you describe what your surfboard looks like?

Vincent Lartizien: At the beginning, they were kind of like medium-size big wave surfing boards, but then like 7′ 4”, something like that. And that was at the beginning, the real beginning. Then slowly by slowly, we went shorter, and shorter, and shorter. And at the end, Laird told us that the big wave boards should be our size. I’m 6 foot, so I should use a six foot. And we got narrower and narrower, and heavier and heavier. So we had a board that way, or like maybe 5’10”, 5’8″, but that way, that’s 20 kilos. The speed that you got on large waves, you’ve got it all there, light board, you will fly away. So the heavier the board, the better it was. And also we use straps, and windsurfing we knew about being straped, so it was easy for us to use straps, and we use front straps and back straps too. So that was the equipment back then.

Imi Barneaud: All right. So what do you have to fill the surfboard with to make it heavy? Do you put lead in it or something like that?

Vincent Lartizien: We used to put lead after we put sand. But at the beginning, we put lead. So we built a regular, very small surfboard, and we put lead, it was very special at the beginning, but you could order any speed. And we had very small fins, because the faster you get the less [inaudible]. It was like being on a snowboard, the way you move, the way you approached the wave, but that was 20 years ago. Things are changing.

Imi Barneaud: Yeah. In terms of safety and things like that, what kind of a life jacket did you have at the time? Did you wear one?

Vincent Lartizien: No, we surfed in shorts.

Imi Barneaud: Really.

Vincent Lartizien: Yeah. I have a picture at Jaws in 20 foot waves on shots, the safety was the pilot or ourself. We had to swim back up, and the pilot to get us. And only 10 years after we started, we started to think about life jackets, and we wear life jackets like 10 years after we started.

Imi Barneaud: Wow. So that was definitely taking your life in your hands every day.

Vincent Lartizien: Yeah. But we did a lot of diving. I used to dive at 30 meters depth and catch fish, and hold my breaths, and come back up, so I always used to go down. So far as there was the best training, now you know they go, they work with big rocks under water and stuff. But for us, we have to eat so we had to catch our fish, and so diving was almost, we had to go dive, but that was our best training, knowing it, so we did the best we could do. So we dive before we surf there, so I knew the bottom, I knew the rocks, I knew everything because we always go there to catch fish.

Imi Barneaud: That’s terrific. And you were the first person to surf the wave Belharra in 2002, do you think you could tell us what happened that 22nd of November, 2002.

Vincent Lartizien: Oh, yeah, that was a big day. First, when we went there, our friend didn’t know too much about the wave, so nobody knew about the wave, and nobody had surfed it before. So we went to see it one day, and it was far away at sea so we couldn’t tell if it was big, small, we didn’t know anything. So we went with a bunch of friends. We were like three or four jet skis. And I remember Michel and I were coming back from Hawaii, and I was feeling really good that day. We got there and it was scary looking because it was windy and huge, like 25, 30 foot. And all our friends say: “Okay, okay, we’ve seen the wave, now let’s go back.” And I was like: “What? No, we came here to surf, come on.” So Michel told me: “What? You want to go?” And I said: “Yeah, I’m good. I want to go.” So he stopped, tow-in me to the wave, so I didn’t let go of the rope because when you’re tow-in, when you let go the rope, you’re on your own. As long as you have the rope and you’re okay. So for the first wave to the bar, I wanted to see all the way from where to place myself, [inaudible]. And on the third one I felt good. So I let go the rope and I remember it was heavy wave, and when I got to the end of the wave, my friend where there with the jet-ski and they were looking at me with big eyes like this: “Okay, okay you got one, now we go back, we go back.”

Imi Barneaud: They were still terrified.

Vincent Lartizien: “No, it’s okay, now we got one, we got to get some more.” So I caught a few more and the wind died, and so the place started to come down and the wave looked more easy, and then they started to get the vibe, and slowly by slowly they started, and that was it, decision was on. Then the helicopter came because companies sent it, and they did a bunch of pictures, but that was like one hour after, and then they told our story. They saw the picture to all the press, Germany, everywhere was the wave–

Imi Barneaud: But they didn’t mention the surfer.

Vincent Lartizien: Our story, there was no picture of me at all because I had done it at the beginning. So I was frustrated, I was pissed, some guy came and took a picture of us and sold our story. We took the risk, we put the money, we also have research, but they sold it.

Imi Barneaud: So for the listeners just to say where Belharra is, it’s off the Northern Basque countryside, isn’t it?

Vincent Lartizien: Yeah, it’s on the Spain border, on the Spanish border, and it’s outside of St Jean de Luz, which is the very typical Basque — with a lot of fishermen. And the place Belharra is a big rock, like three kilometers off the coast. There is a rock that comes up, and Belharra means ‘the green grass’ because when you’re on a fishing boat, you see the big green place, because the seaweed on the rocks, they make it to green, and it’s a very good place to fish because it’s really deep around. And when you go there, the fish are there so the fisherman knows the place very well, and they know it for that, and they know it because they lost a lot of friends there, because the wave, sometimes you don’t see it, and all of a sudden it breaks. And for them, it’s a very dangerous place that they fear. And when they saw that, when we surfed there for the first time, they were out there, our board, because they are always there, and they saw us and they say: “Well, where are you going?” And saying: “Why are you going to the wave?” And they told us the name Belharra, we didn’t know, and they say: “You’re going to Belharra, you’re crazy.” And when we came back from that day, and we had the session, they were so pleased, they invited us to the bar and we drank with them. And it was a very special moment, from meeting the fisherman, and the fishermen are so happy because somewhere we eased some scene from them. The place where they lost friends, we went to play there. And the wave is not scary anymore, it was a playground that made a big switch with them, with the old fisherman community. That was important for us.

Imi Barneaud: And there was something very special about that day because I recall you looked at your watch and it was 11:11 in the morning, and all the planets aligned that day on the 22nd, two, two, one, one, one, one, one, one, all the numbers aligned.

Vincent Lartizien: Yeah. I have a special approach with the ocean, and the spirit of the ocean, and life, all together, and I study the energy a lot, and I did three years of really learning about how to play with energy, how people and stuff, how to work with the spirit. And I know that every time I have some middle sign that comes in front of me where I know I’m connected, there’s a special connection, and I feel good in Hawaii. They say that the other world that’s called Lokihi, which means that your physical ability, your mental ability and your spiritual connection, are all together. You have the three together. You are in the Lokihi state. And that day, I was feeling good physically, I had a good mindset. And just before I went in the water, I took my phone to turn it off, and it was 11:11. And for me that was, the little connection I needed to know that the spirit where watching me, and each wave is alive. Each place has a spirit, and every time we go to a new place, we connect to that spirit. We ask permission, we ask the authorization to play, and we come here to play. We don’t come here for no other reason. So we want to come back. We don’t want to die or whatever else. So it’s a game we play with the wave, and we want the spirit of the place, of the waves to guide us, to show us, because when you let go the rope, it’s not your mindset is going to tell you where you gotta go right, left, the wave is going to guide you. And if you let yourself be guided by the spirit of the wave, you cannot make mistakes. That’s where I felt really good and I could do that, that day where it was a scary day and very big waves and stuff like that. So for me, the really important part of the big wave surfing and my approach of the ocean is that special connection that I learned in Hawaii because the Hawaiian were this way,, they asked the authorization before they go into water each day, before they pick up the –, before the pickup fruits, they asked notarization to the land, to the ocean, to the spirits. And that connection makes you have a different approach and a different understanding of the element, and the wave and stuff. And for me, that’s what surfing is about. That’s our self was brought in the first place. For me, it’s not a sport, it’s more like a spiritual activity, spiritual connection, helps you stay connected to the planet, to the fossils, and you are playing with them. That’s all you do, just a game, and in that game, the spirits teach you, they teach you so much, you don’t realize it, but you realize it after that the lesson that has been given to you is so precious that you can apply to all of your life and anything you do in your life. If it goes with the same value, and the same respect, and connection will make no mistake, and you have no fear because it’s just a game and you are guided, but you gotta entertain that connection, and feed that connection. So that’s my approach.