Mercedes-Benz Portugal delivered a brand new surfboard to Garrett McNamara, made from Portuguese cork, a project in partnership with Corticeira Amorim, a Portuguese company, part of the Amorim Group that claims to be the world leader in cork industry.
It was designed for the professional surfer Garrett McNamara and it was created as part of the MBoard project which has already seen the creation of four other surfboards named “The Silver Arrow of the Seas.”
In 2014, Mercedes-Benz takes this challenge to a whole new level by designing a surfboard entirely manufactured of a local material, obviously, the Portuguese cork.
Garrett McNamara currently holds the record for the biggest wave ever surfed, securing its place in the Guinness Book of Records. What’s more, Garrett used Mercedes-Benz surfboards in 2013 when he surfed the big waves in Nazaré at 62.4 km/h, an unbelievable speed that was measured with a telemetry system developed by Mercedes-Benz for the MBoard project.
Jorge Aguiar, Marketing Manager at Mercedes-Benz, agreed that “The MBoard project 1.0 developed in 2013 with the support of Daimler Group Design Center, resulted in the production of the first board, specifically designed to surf the big waves in Nazaré. In 2014 we intend to develop 2 more surfboards, (MBoard 2.0 and MBoard 3.0) based on the results achieved by Garrett with MBoard 1.0.”
In addition to the development of the new surfboards, rumors say that there is an increasingly close relationship between Mercedes-Benz and the surfing world. Furthermore, this month, Mercedes-Benz will be presenting a new project, developed in partnership with Beachcam.pt for the development of new features on this website, daily accessed by thousands of surfers looking for news. What’s more, users will be able to access an exclusive Mercedes-Benz news channel with information targeted at the surfing community.