Wing Swallowtail - 7'4" - Ecuadorian Balsa - Single Fin

This 7'4" balsa wood board was made in Ecuador.

Gary’s story: “I was traveling. I was living in Brazil with my wife, trying to get my residence papers. They finally came through, but there was a catch. You had to make a deposit in a Brazilian bank of $1,000 per person to travel. So it would have been $3,000. My wife was pregnant and we were going to have a baby, and the airfare was another $3,000. It would have virtually wiped me out. We would not have been able to go home. I did not care, but my wife wanted to go show the baby to her parents. So we declined the residence after working on it for two years. We had eight days to pack up and leave. We had built a house, had a piece of land, everything.

I asked her for permission, ‘Can we stop in Peru on the way back?’ Because I figured I did not have a job, I was going to be a father, and once I got back, I probably was not going to be out living that life much longer. So we stopped in Peru. There was an Ecuadorian guy there who needed a shaper to come shape balsa wood. That was my dream. So I said, ‘I’ll come do it if you can convince my wife to have the baby here in Ecuador.’ Somehow, I did it. I shaped 100 balsa boards in Ecuador.

And this is one of them. There are not too many more like this. It is a wing swallow with a glass-on fin, and 7'4", I believe.”

Design: Semi Gun
Size: 7'4"
Construction Material: Ecuadorian Balsa
Fin Configuration: Single Fin
Surfboard: 26_28