My new foils have arrived - I went for the Team Set which includes the following ( all packaged nicely in a large soft case);
Wings:
Front - Large 800cm2, Medium 550cm2,
Stabiliser - Large 330cm2, Medium 255cm2
Fuselages : Race 115cm, Slalom 75cm
Mast : Carbon 95cm
The beauty of the Starboard kit is that all wings fit all fuselages and all fuselages fit all masts, so there are a lot of combinations to try!
However, Starboard recommend certain combinations and my first test was with the Race combo - Large front wing + Medium Stab + Race fuselage.
My first thought was that the fuselage is huge! Certainly a lot longer than all the foils I have seen. The quality of the wing mouldings, mast and the aluminium fuselage is first class. There are certainly a lot of Torx bolts to tighten up but in the end the construction is very stiff, which is important.
For the first test the conditions were quite patchy with the wind 5 - 12 knots, so I rigged the 8.6m sail and that got me flying for about 75% of the time. Takeoff is very progressive with no sudden lurching out of the water and once flying the foil is very stable both longitudinally and laterally. The balance position is a lot further forward than what I was used to on the Manta and that took me a while to get comfortable with. A few obvious things;-
- speed : wow, this thing goes! Probably about 5 knots faster than the Manta.
- glide : goes through the lulls very well.
- tilt : it is easy to tilt the board over to windward and feel comfortable when going up wind - it was always a fight on the Manta.
- noise : very quiet - there is a noise, not really a hum but not annoying.
- stiffness: the oscillations I was used to on the Manta are not present, although I did feel the occasional side slipping.
I didn't get a good idea of height, depth or gybing ability because of the patchy wind.
Overall first impressions are very positive. I'll report back more when I do more testing.
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