A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Worldly, well-educated French surfing pioneer. De Rosnay was born (1937) in Mauritius, moved with his family to the coastal resort town of Biarritz, France, at age two, and to Paris at seven. He began bellyboarding at 10, during family vacations in Biarritz. In the summer of 1957, American screenwriter Peter Viertel, while in France to shoot 

 for 20th Century Fox, wired to California and had his Hobie balsa surfboard freighted over. Viertel rode the warm beachbreak waves in Biarritz, then gave de Rosnay a surfing lesson; the teenage Frenchman, a member of the Paris University ski team, thus became one of the country's first native surfers.

Two years later de Rosnay cofounded the Waikiki Surf Club of Biarritz; in 1960 he won the first French Surfing Championships; in 1964 he regained the national title and became France's sole representative in the first World Surfing Championships, held in Sydney, Australia. Later that year, the dark-haired regularfooter was the first Frenchman profiled in 

 magazine. De Rosnay also competed in the 1965 and 1966 World Championships. He was 

 original French-based photographer and a masthead-listed "foreign representative" from 1962 to 1966; he was also the top French vote-getter in the 1966 International Surfing Hall of Fame Awards.

De Rosnay received an M.S. in organic chemistry from the University of Paris in 1962 and a Ph.D. from the Pasteur Institute in 1966, and worked as a research associate at MIT from 1967 to 1971. He returned to the Pasteur Institute and served as director of applied research from 1976 to 1985, by which time he'd published six science books; he then served as director of forecasting and assessment at the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie in Paris until 2002.

, de Rosnay's 2012 book, uses wave-riding as a metaphor for the changing dynamics of society.

Daughter Tatiana de Rosnay is a critically-acclaimed journalist, novelist and screenwriter.

de Rosnay, Joel

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