Thierry Delbourg Surfboards, kitesurf craftsman in Tamesna

Thierry Delbourg is Morocco's most decorated shaper. Born in Casablanca in 1963, he got his first board at fifteen and was shaping by sixteen, at a time when the country had neither a surf shop nor a magazine and a leash was a length of rope. It was there, in 1979, that he put together a four-fin board — the first quad ever built, according to the Australian shaper Andrew Mactavich, whom the Moroccan press cites as its authority on the claim. His father, a ship's captain who specialised in how bodies move through water, helped him draw the fins.

At twenty-five he left for Réunion, where he shaped for twenty-eight years and made more than five thousand boards, short and long, for riders including Tom Curren, Jérémy Flores, Didier Piter, Frédéric Robin, Nathan Edge and Jordan Couzinet. He returned to Morocco in 2018 and opened his workshop: hand-shaped boards, one at a time, cut to each customer's ability and build, from beginner to competitor. He also sponsors young Moroccan surfers. One commission sums up his relationship with the craft: eleven boards tracing the evolution of surfboard design since the 1950s, for which he rebuilt the templates and fins era by era.

His workshop was filmed for « The Shape », the first part of the documentary « Hand Shaped » directed by Nabil Blilich for Surf Report Maroc, shot among his foam blanks. Boards are ordered directly from him; they have also been sold through the Rip Curl store in Maarif, Casablanca. The workshop is currently listed at Tamesna, south of Rabat, about an hour from the waves of Plage David and Bouznika where he surfs.

No opening hours are published. This is a shaping workshop, not a shop: call or send a message before going.