bamboo surfboards

The strength of bamboo, the miraculous grass lies in bundles of fibers running the length of the culm held in a matrix of pith, precisely as in the new "strong materials". These consist of man-made fibers embedded in a matrix that holds them in parallel bundles, called composite materials. Fiberglass has been known for a longtime and recently, man-grown fibers of boron, carbon, and other elements have produced materials with amazing stiffness and strength to weight ratios. Engineers involved in the work call it the "new science of strong materials". Here again, nature anticipated man. And now there are the bamboo surf boards.