Tiki Documentary 7 of 8 – Carbon or Wood? Custom or Production?

Developed by Jean Louis Colmas in 1984, Wood Technology became Starboard’s trademark construction since 1995. A sheet of 0.6 mm Australian plantation pine wood forms the full outer shell of the board. Wood’s unique properties are its natural rigidity, superior resistance to compression and higher energy absorption compared to carbon. The advantages of wood in a board are rigid flex and more impact resistant than Carbon. In choppy conditions a Wood board is maybe more forgiving than a carbon construction. The Carbon construction has advantages on the light wind racing models or bigger wave boards where the key criteria are acceleration efficiency, weight and maximum hull stiffness (slalom, speed). Starboard offers the wood technology on almost all models (wave boards, free ride boards and Slalom boards). During the last years also other companies, like JP, Fanatic or Tabou have discovered the wood technology but offer it only for selected models and mostly for beginners or advanced sailors.