Step in the right direction...

First of all I haven't tried one but these boards, but it sounds as if they are heading in at least the right direction.

It has been covered in the surfing press recently that the famous 'Clark Foam Factory' that produced around 90% of the worlds blanks used for shaping surfboards, closed down. Mainly due to the pressure that it was being put under by US environmental legislation. The long and the short of it is that producing these blanks is a very toxic process.

The second major problem with modern surfboard manufacture is the amount of fibre glass and resin used, again this stuff is extremely toxic and takes a long time to break down.

It looks from reading the article that these two areas are being improved on with these Bamboo boards. Polystyrene is used for the blank instead of polyurethane, which still takes along time to break down - but can be recycled and used for other things.

Using Bamboo for the deck - which for me makes sense as it is well known to be a incredibly versatile material which is flexible and strong - also reduced the amounts of resin used.

As far as performance goes - as I said I haven't tried one but frankly if they're good enough for Sunny Garcia, then they should be good enough for most mortal surfers...

These boards are not the ultimate solution - but as I said at the begining - a step in the right direction.

Share

On the same note maybe we should share our boards? Instead of letting them sit unused in the garage perhaps there is someone who would make good use of them. Especially if board prices are about to go up as Clark Foam is closing. Last trip to Indo my boyfriend gave away his tube suit to a local on a far flung island - turned out it was slightly premature as he got rubbed on the reef at Ulu's on the last surf before the flight home but the boy was stoked, so it's all good. Our mate left his board too.

Anyway, back to the bamboo...

balsa

they look cool; I've got a balsa single fin and that's lovely; wood rides very differently to foam; a much faster more floaty experience

balsa

ive had a go on a balsa and yeah it was smooth as butter, lovely to split your melon with too!
surfboards are very toxic in thier production but its changing as we speak so no worries, Nick