If you’re a little tired of reading those boring, overly-technical product brochures that talk about stand up paddle board design in some foreign language, you might appreciate this new clip from Starboard.

Instead of using those standard old cross cut diagrams that show what’s inside a board, this year Starboard decided to parody Iron Chef (I think?) in order to show you exactly how their “carbon sandwich” boards are made.

Bonus points for creativity.

On the left is Mathieu Rauzier, Starboard’s resident design guru. Mat is the guy responsible for inventing the Sprint, reinventing the All Star and fine-tuning the Ace to produce one of the fastest quivers of boards on the market. I’ve interviewed this guy quite a few times about board design & construction (and I’ve also demo’d pretty much every Starboard prototype and production board on the market), so I can safely say that Mat knows his stuff.

While I’m not going to get in to the endless debate about exactly which brand makes the best/fastest/lightest boards (short answer: whichever board best suits you best is the best board for you), it’s generally agreed that Starboard make some of the finest race boards in the world. Not only do they have the world’s winningest ace team to provide feedback, they also (probably) have the most thorough and exhaustive R&D department in the sport.

So while the video above is all a bit of fun, don’t let it fool you: Starboard takes their board design very seriously.

 
Full disclosure: Starboard advertises on SUP Racer, though I would have posted this video even if they didn’t