Inside the 3 Bay 24hr Record Attempt by 3 Bay Shaper Patrice Remoiville

The Guinness world record attempt at the greatest distance paddled in 24 hours is about to take place. Five 3 bay riders  attempt to break the previous record or establish new records on Lake d’Aiguebelette, in the Savoie Region of France.

3 Bay is a brand created in Bretagne (Brittany) France in 2015 by Patrice Remoiville. Patrice Remoiville is a well known board shaper in mainland Europe, he has produced a wide range of customised boards for Downwind, Beach Race, Sup Surf, Flat water, surf rescue and prone board paddlers. It is clear that when talking with Patrice he has a passion for shaping, and paddling , often you can spot Patrice paddling in enduro competitions  throughout the continent.

The 3 bay boards are instantly recognisable on the water, in the past few years they have help riders notch up some great results and challenges in all water conditions including flat water, long distance, ocean races and beach race formats. TotalSUP takes a closer look at the boards that the SUP paddlers will use in the Guinness world record, with the help of the Patrice Remoiville.

Hi Patrice, five 3bay paddlers are set to create or challenge for the 24hr paddling Guinness world record. How did this plan come together?

Last year at the 24hr endurance race at Kilarney Spain we had a slight weather delay on the race. During this delay we had time to chat together, at that point one of our french endurance paddlers Florent Dode mentioned that he would like to attempt to break the Guinness  24 hr world record, and from then on I was completely on board with the idea.

Dutch paddle Janneke Smits was at the race too, and she was interested in getting involved in the attempt. Then fast forward a few months, During a visit to the French prone paddle Mathieu Chevalier home in the South West of France; we chatted about the attempt and from then on he was on board. The final piece of the puzzle came in June just before French tandem paddler Sebestien Le Meaux was about to depart for his Yukon trip, Sebastien called me up, said he was interested and then that was it, all 5 riders came together.

I told them all I was super happy to help them to attempt the record, so I started designing and shaping 2 boards. One for the tandem paddlers Sebastien Le Meaux and Stephane Le Blond and one for Florent Dode to be ready for the attempt. (Mathieu and Janneke will use their previous boards). Designing and shaping the 2 boards was actually a big challenge!

It has take a huge effort and alot of energy from the 3 bay team (thanks to my wife Kerry!)  to organise this attempt, especially in arranging the validation for the attempt. It is a complete team effort.

So why did you choose Lake d’Aiguebelette?

As soon as the record attepmt idea was conceived I started thinking of the perfect lake to do paddle on. I tried to think of lakes in the French Region of Bretagne (Brittany), and all over France. But, it is high season right now, all the lakes a full of boats, and we were looking for a river that had zero boat traffic. We needed a lake with no wake. That was when we thought of lake d’Aiguebelette in the Savoie region, south of France. Motor boats are banned.

Can you talk us through the design of the SUP boards? Starting with the Florents Dode board?

I designed Florents board specifically for this challenge. It measures 18′ x 22″. The nose has a design taken from a surfski template. This board has a real special glide to it, and a nice clean look. The rocker line is very typical to the ones we design here at 3 bay. It has a recessed deck, and the way I have shaped the board the water will be evacuated at the rear of the deck.  There is a strong reason for only having the water drainage exhaust at the back, as I believe that putting many evacuation points throughout the board increases the fragility of the SUP board.

The nose and tail is extremely pointy, this is on purpose to allow for a perfect glide over the water, this is in complete contrast to ocean going SUP boards.

Can you describe the tandem board design?

This board needed a bit more reflection in design, as this is a board for 2 people to stand on. The board measures 20′ x 28.75″, another challenge was that the sheer length of the board made it impossible to do it in one piece, I don’t own a machine capable of accommodating such a long board. So for the 1st time ever I made the board in 2 pieces and put them together.

We changed the design slightly from the previous boards. We had previously designed a tandem for Sébastien that measured 29.5″ and he found it was unstable. So his next tandem board we increased the width too 31″, but we found we had nailed the stability, and in doing so we had compromised the speed. So this time we actually decreased the width of the board to 28.75″.

You can see the board design has a wide tail this is because with 2 heavy men on the board it is necessary to compensate the width, and you have to have a wider board. Like the SUP board I designed for Florent there is a recess on the board, with the drainage being at the rear of the board, I really like this design to evacuate the water.

When and where can we watch the attempt?

We had our briefing on Tuesday 24th July for all the volunteers, it takes some organisation to get an event like this together. Then Wednesday we will test the course, and then the attempt will be on Thursday 25th July 2018. All the riders will leave at the same time from Soygey beach on Lake d’Aiguebelette.

The event will be covered on TotalSUP on Thursday 26th July and updates will be posted on the TotalSUP facebook page during the 24 hours!