Word: foams
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...walls of water, but surfers are traditionalists by nature. For more than 40 years, as many as 9 out of 10 American wave riders have relied on one supplier of blank or unfinished boards: Gordon (Grubby) Clark. Last December when the old man slammed shut the doors of Clark Foam, in Laguna Niguel, Calif., he unleashed a tsunami. Some small businesses that had been shaping and finishing Clark's polyurethane (PU) boards simply wiped out; panic over supply swept the industry. But Clark's departure may turn out to be the best thing to happen to the sport. Surfers have...
Companies like California's Firewire Surfboards and France's Salomon have caught the attention of high-ranking pros by bringing innovative materials and construction methods to surfboards, some that had already worked wonders for skis, snowboards and the wings of Boeing Dreamliners. New designs using expanded polystyrene foam (EPS), epoxy resins and stiff sheets of carbon fiber add responsiveness and maneuverability to the boards. The buzzword: "flex memory"--or "flex"--the way a board snaps back into its original shape in a turn or maneuver. "The materials have a memory of the original curve, and they return to that curve...
Introduced to make polyurethane foam boards more rigid, the stringer (usually made of wood) has migrated to other parts of the board and to other materials. Full or tapered, sharp or rounded, rails (where the deck meets the bottom) are also taking a turn--for a better one on waves...
...core. No stringer. Aviso sandwiches 1/4 in. of honeycombed material or foam between sheets of unidirectional carbon fiber--for a strong matrix--then seals it with heat. The deck and bottom flex independently: the cavity gives the rocker room to straighten out, pulling the rails and allowing for more speed on turns. Caution: your wax job might melt on these black boards...
...FOAM STRINGERS...