Cork Surfboards

Cork Board with Tribal Design

Cork Surfboards contacted us a few weeks back and I was blown away at what the have been able to achieve with cork. The boards aren’t all cork, they are a composite of materials allowing for sustainability, functionality, and beauty—all the right elements for surfboard design and riding (which is what matters most).

We like cork, as you know we created the world’s first cork deckpad a few years back and we think it’s a fine material to incorporate in sustainable design and surf technology.

In 2010 we assisted Sector 9 and Arbor with their development of cork traction technology for skateboards. Arbor released their cork traction board in 2011 and it has been a great success and Wave Tribe was proud to help push yet another industry towards cork.

In Spring 2011 we visited the cork forests of Portugal to deepen our understanding of the virgin materials and to learn more about cork cultivation—we even got to see some cork trees up close (see the video here).

So yea, we know a think or two about cork.

Cork Surfboards is using compressed mold technology, slamming two fiberglass molds together wrapped in layers of Kevlar, diolen, and cork and then stuffing those arranged elements into a vacuum bag creating a tight seal (melding the layers together). The two halfs are then glued, stinger and fin box installed, and then the whole cork sandwich is laminated and polished. (see image below for more info).

We like what these South Africans are doing and we hope to help them bring their technology into the market.

Check them out at Surf Cork for more info.

The Method