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RRD
As Ferrari is to automobiles, or Ducati is to motorcycles, RRD is to sailboards. They are Italian. Many of them are red. They are racy: among the fastest and sleekest boards on the water—and if you want fast and sleek, you should see the slalom boards (which aren’t among the 10 tested here, because there’s no flat-water room for them to roam at our test site on Maui). It’s no accident that there’s a little yellow badge on some of the boards that closely resembles the Ferrari prancing horse logo.
RRD stands for Roberto Ricci Designs. The man behind the boards is realistic and intelligent (as well as passionate; see the profile at the end of the review). So these are not merely go-fast boards for experts. Oh, maybe they started out that way, six or seven years ago when RRD began, but it was not long at all until, Ricci says, he “started to study and understand what the real world needed.” The answer, in a word: control.
Of course, Ricci’s real world was still into high performance. So RRD was a leader in the movement to lightweight carbon sandwich production boards, a technology that had been custom only. Even among the many brands made at Cobra in Bangkok, as RRDs are, virtually every manufacturer uses some different materials or different amounts in different places on their boards. But light weight is a primary goal with RRD. For example, the beautifully controllable Freeride 266 weighs just 14 pounds, and the blazing fast and steady 286 weighs 15.
The other thing that drives RRD is breadth. Ricci is enormously ambitious in his intent to design and produce “a board for everybody,” as he says. Not one board for everything (although there is one of those), but one board for every thing. As he result, he says, “What RRD has in its 2000 line is probably the biggest range of sandwich boards on the market.”
As designer and tester of them all, as well as CEO of the company, he’s spread as thin as a basil leaf. What’s more, he also builds beautiful wooden surfboards. Is this a mad Italian? No, he’s far from mad—even the insane graphics on the MPE wave boards have a carefully thought-out purpose, although that purpose is a bit beyond most of us mature North Americans. He must be some kind of genius, then. We probably should reserve that description for those who have figured out how to make encyclopedias fit on the head of a pin or fly through space at the speed of light, but we certainly can say he is gifted. And energetic. Mostly, he’s just putting it all together very carefully, very personally, very thoroughly, and very right.
Of course, not every freeride sailor wants a lightweight, fast board, even if it is easy to control. Ricci gets it. “Ultimately what matters is the balance between the board, the sail and the sailor,” he says. “To look at just one parameter is wrong.”
Amen. You can apply those words generically, to all the reviews in this test issue.
Freeride 266, 276, 286 & 296
These are not outwardly innovative boards, because Ricci believes that “the market demands more of a classic freeride design.” But in a sense, they are, because they are subtly unique (there’s that snowflake factor again). How can they be so controllable while being so light and fast? It’s in the nearly flat rocker lines and almost-flat-to-vee bottoms, countered by highly tucked rails (the 266 and 276 more than 286 and 296) and relatively thin tails, which allow slightly smaller fins. Simple ingredients, but the zingy taste comes only with the secret recipe, that highly elusive ideal and precise combination of those design elements.
In addition to speed and control, another goal of the shape, mostly in the minimal rocker—about the same as on the hyperfast slalom boards—was to keep the boards on the water in gusts. The nose kick is quite small as well, mostly to protect the nose against being cracked by the boom during a fall.
Testers made a number of negative comments on the difficult adjustment of the footstraps, and later in the test on their lack of durability, although there were also comments saying how soft and comfortable they were. A few sailors also pointed out that the plastic fins may limit the flexibility of the boards.
FREERIDE 266
SCORE: (15 ratings)
Upwind 3.93 Planing 4.33 Speed 4.33 Handling 4.33 Jibe 4.27 Overall 4.24
COMMENTS:
“Real maneuverable and good all around. A bit better than the HiFly 262 in maneuverability and generally easier to handle in waves and chop, but it seems more fragile.” [Stewart]
“Jibes well tight or wide, onto a small wave or even a screaming overpowered jibe in small chop.” [Sollner]
“A handful to jibe in chop or overpowered conditions,” said another guy in the same group, who was not quite as good of a sailor. [Boring]
“New to me, and I was duly impressed. A high quality product.” [Watson]
“Very smooth in chop. Good all around. Light construction. Footstraps poor to mushy, falling apart.” [Coach]
“Overall excellent. Comfortable in extreme conditions. Better than comparable F2. A bit unstable during jumps.” [Stella]
“Enjoyable, but lacks top speed compared to some others in this test,” said a dealer who gave the 266 its only 3 in Speed. But we’re looking at just one parameter here, so read on.
“I sailed with a Pryde 6.2 SuperNova, but think it will really show its giddyup with a smaller sail. Maneuvers nice, and the sailing position is comfortable. Rides low in the water. A lack of nose scoop makes it more dicey landing jumps.” [DeSilva]
“Digs in at the wide point when jibing on a wave.” [N Johnson]
“Great range. Great control. Smooth ride. Easy to sail. Fine board.” [Cicale]
“Very easy to sail, with no bad traits.” [Gottleib]
“A winner.” [M Stumpp]
FREERIDE 276
SCORE:
Upwind 4.07 Planing 4.21 Speed 4.14 Handling 3.93 Jibe 4.14 Overall 4.10
COMMENTS:
“Great all-around board. Lacks maneuverability when surfing the waves.” Which would be expected. [Stewart]
“Great in 5.0 to 6.0 conditions, but not as loose as the 266.” Which would be expected. With those sails, maybe he should have been on the 266. [Watson]
“Could not get tuned in. Board felt just awful. Maybe something wasn’t set right for me.” [Wang] This sailor was using the Bump and Jump 6.0 sail that was universally disliked. We suspect that’s what made the board feel just awful. There’s a moral to this short story. It’s in the final line of the intro above.
Said Mad Dog Mulder, our 6’7” 240-pounder (check the American Windsufer website archives, Postcards from the Water’s Edge, “A Test Writer’s Nightmare’’), “I sailed the three biggest freerides together, and they were all great! The 276 was a rocket for me, but more difficult to get going than the 286 or 296.” His comments on those two boards will follow.
“Planes early. Less responsive than the 266.” [Cicale]
“Very fun, stable, loose, quick.” [Burnight]
“Awesome board. Quick to plane, turns on a dime, very very versatile. Handles well overpowered. Fun to ride, easy to jump on and get in a groove.” [Taylor …an RRD dealer?]
STAFF: Nevin Sayre gave it 4’s in Upwind, Planing and Jibe, and 3’s in Speed and Handling. He said its performance may be hampered by the fin.
FREERIDE 286
The 286 got some special attention in the shaping room for 2000. It was built for speed. Ricci is especially pleased with it; he said that one of his reps races a 286 rather than a race or slalom board (out of convenience; because of its versatility he only needs to travel with one board), and wins amateur events all over Europe.
It’s the same light 15 pounds as the 276 and only 1 cm wider, with the wide point coming slightly farther back; meanwhile, the nose is 1.5 cm narrower. It also has sharper rails than the 276, and a mere 1.5 mm of rocker versus 5 mm.
SCORE:
Upwind 3.67 Planing 4.45 Speed 4.23 Handling 4.23 Jibe 3.67 Overall 4.20
COMMENTS:
Continued Mad Dog Mulder, “The 117-liter 286 was the most versatile board for me, giving the most range of fun for Maui conditions. Smooth through the turns, and capable of handling my 240 pounds mashing on its tail.”
“Responsive and smooth.” [Champion]
“Easily the fastest in the RRD freeride fleet. I want one for just one sail, my 6.7, my biggest. Late afternoons in the Gorge, when the wind is dying and everyone else is struggling to stay powered on 5.7’s and 6.0’s, I’ll pull out this rig and blow their minds.”
“No spunk, sluggish, most likely because of the plastic fin.” [Coach]
Here we must set aside our basic blanket acceptance of testers’ comments. This dealer, whose crosstown rival sells RRDs, gave the 286 one 3 and four 2’s, including a 2-minus in speed. We could have rejected the score because it was so far out of line, but we rejected no others simply because we didn’t agree, so it stands and was counted. But if that 2 in Speed had been even a 3, the 286 would have tied the RRD 266 and Starboard Wave 72 as the fastest boards in the test. Had it been a 4, still merely “good,” the 286 would have won the category.
Anyone is entitled to dislike a board; we resist the temptation to suggest this dealer was either out to lunch or has ulterior motives. We didn’t challenge or even query him on the rating. All we know is that he’s too good of a sailor not to notice speed when it’s trying to yank him by the teeth to the Aleutian Islands.
Maybe there was seaweed stuck to that plastic fin.
STAFF: Upwind 4.0, Planing 4.5, Speed 4.75 Handling 4.0, Jibe 4.0, Overall 4.25
COMMENTS:
“Very fast yet controllable,” said Mark Archer, speaking from our echo chamber.
FREERIDE 296
SCORE:
Upwind 4.2 Planing 4.4 Speed 3.6 Handling 3.8 Jibe 3.8 Overall 3.96
COMMENTS:
“Although easy to plane and resistant to spinout when overpowered, it wouldn’t go fast enough to get the full top end out of my 7.5 Pryde V8 StreetRacer. It seems to have too much surface tension.” [Boring]
“Jumped surprisingly well, with an Aerotech 7.5” Indeed, surprisingly. [Stewart]
Mad Dog finishes his trilogy. “The big RRD got me planing all the time.”
STAFF: Mark Archer gave it 3.5’s in Upwind, Planing and Jibe, and 4’s in Speed and Handling. He said it did everything well, but had no great standout features.
MPE WAVE 248, 254, 258
MPE stands for Millennium Pro Edition. And the RR here could stand for “real ripper,” to use Ricci’s own words describing these boards, designed for advanced wave sailors. Again, the emphasis is on speed, because, “on a wave you really want to have all the speed you can.” In the mind of this fast Italian, is there ever a time that you don’t want all the speed you can get?
In pursuit of speed, the boards feature reduced rocker and a second, smaller fin. There are channels near the tail for better grip in tight turns. The angle of the footstrap position can be changed, and the straps have a wide position for wave maneuvers: different setups for sideshore or onshore conditions, bottom turns and bump-and-jump sailing. The noses have square tips to protect the sailor against injury. The rails are wafer thin on edges of the pintails, and round as the sides of a donut farther forward. The shapes of the boards are virtually identical, growing evenly; put the 63-liter 248 in a reproduction machine, blow up its volume by 16 and 32 percent, and you have the 254 and 258.
But graphics steal the attention, if not the show. None of our testers could figure them out, everyone agreed they were bizarre, the vast majority either hated them or thought they were simply silly to the point of being absurd, and we only heard one say she liked them, that they were “cool.”
When Roberto Ricci arrived, he explained and deciphered the hieroglyphic graphics—rows of numbers… reverse script… Real Board Juice! Great Fruit Taste! … and our personal, um, favorite: “For pool, bathtub or lake.”
They were his idea, of course. They are a hit in Europe, he said—that land where cool comes in peculiar strains (Jerry Lewis is huge in France; go figure). And the meaning of FRUIT CHEWS FRUIT CHEWS on the nose is…
Parody. Amateur advanced sailors, tweaking the pros and all their sponsorship. We don’t need no stinkin’ sponsorship, to have a good time.
Says Ricci, “For me today, is really important to communicate to the people that windsurfing is a lot of fun.”
Ahhh. Now we see. We still don’t get it, but we see.
MPE WAVE 248
SCORE: (9 ratings)
Upwind 3.78 Planing 4.0 Speed 4.11 Handling 4.33 Jibe 4.33 Overall 4.11
COMMENTS
“This board was great,” said the same dealer who was so unimpressed with the Freeride 286, which offers some comfort about his motives. “I was extremely overpowered, but it stuck to the water well. Handled great.” [Coach]
“Very light, felt very active and crisp turning in the waves. Easy to jump and loop.” [Alford]
“I loved this board,” said Nancy Johnson. “It held on the water so well, especially coming into a turn in chop, so tight. The deck was slippery between the straps.” She sailed with a Windwing 4.2 Catalyst, which is the middle of the range, and noted that the board had a 23 cm fin. The two fins that come with the board are 20 cm and 22 cm. [N Johnson]
Jackie Butzen never said she loved it, but she sailed it five days in a row. She rated it higher each day, finally giving it straight 5’s.
“I want to sail it more,” she said on the first day. “The chop disturbed the speed,” she said on the second. “With a 4.0 Windwing, it’s perfect in winds over 25 mph,” she said on the third. “Nobody smiled back at me on the water today,” she wrote on the fourth, the gnarliest day of the test, “but Nancy Johnson waved and said hello.”
On the fifth day, her final day before heading back home to her shop in Chicago, Windward Sports, she noted that there were big waves but the water was like glass inside the reef. Her farewell session was on the 248 with a Gaastra Manic 4.0.
“Cruising, jibing, jumping, and never falling off a plane until I limped in when the wind died at dusk. It felt as if it were my own equipment that I’d been sailing on forever. Thank you all, including the sail designers and boardmakers, for one of the best weeks of windsurfing I’ve ever had.”
STAFF: Upwind 3.67, Planing 4.33, Speed 4.33 Handling 4.67, Jibe 4.83, Overall 4.37
MPE WAVE 254
SCORE:
Upwind 3.67 Planing 3.67 Speed 3.67 Handling 4.67 Jibe 4.67 Overall 4.07
COMMENTS:
“Light and lively, just plain fun to be on in the waves,” said a woman who included the 248 in this comment. [Parkmann]
“Slower than the bigger 258, oriented more toward handling.” [Jardini]
“Slippery between the footstraps.” [N Johnson]
STAFF: Upwind 3.0, Planing 3.5, Speed 3.0 Handling 4.0, Jibe 4.0, Overall 3.5
MPE WAVE 258
SCORE:
Upwind 3.22 Planing 3.44 Speed 3.78 Handling 4.0 Jibe 4.0 Overall 3.67
COMMENTS:
“Bravo Roberto! Excellent design!” [Jardini]
“Worked well for me with a Pryde 5.0 Zone, but it needs to be fully powered.” [Hirshberg]
“Very loose in waves, turns quick, responsive, but sluggish upwind. For advanced wave sailors.” [Taylor]
“Too much volume for my 150 pounds,” said one of our most efficient sailors, who likes really small stuff. He sailed with a 4.8 Sailworks Revo, but thinks the board would work better for him with a bigger sail in lighter wind. [Cicale]
“Great jumping bean of a board. But the fin is too small for my liking, and the non-skid is extremely slippery. The channels in the bottom contribute to great tracking.” This sailor also pointed out what many others suggested, that the graphics were “hideously ugly.” [Coach]
STAFF:
Upwind 3.67, Planing 3.33, Speed 3.33 Handling 4.0, Jibe 4.0, Overall 3.73
COMMENTS:
“I was disappointed with its acceleration and surprised that it was very sluggish to get on a plane, compared to other RRD boards,” said Nevin Sayre.
Maybe he and Mark Archer, who weigh about the same, should talk. “It planes up very easy,” said Mark. He added, “It’s very stable in a straight line, yet it turns with no problem, whatever the condition. I like this board a lot.”
WAVE CULT 250
The board itself it not new for 2000, although the shape has been changed and the name is new. Ricci named it Wave Cult because it has such a following in Europe. It’s been heralded as the first production board to win a pro event, as Josh Angulo took the ‘99 DaKine Pro-Am at Ho’okipa on a 250. Although we had only this 250 to test, the line also includes a 255, 260 and 265.
Designed primarily by Josh Angulo and Robby Seeger, the Wave Cult sails very differently than the MPE Wave, although the basic specs don’t indicate many differences. It features an exclusive construction element, a special polyester-Kevlar fabric woven in Italy, and it has a teensy
little dimple of a split in the small square tail, but the outline and bottom shape of the Wave Cult 250 and MPE 248 are almost the same. The 250’s rails are scarcely more rounded, and it’s only half a pound heavier, 14 vs. 13.5.
But it’s thicker, with 72 liters of volume vs. 63, so it’s preferred by bigger sailors who can’t make the slick little MPE’s work. The rails are also thicker, but still thin enough for good carving. It was designed to handle gusts, chop and conditions where it’s difficult to get going. It’s a wave board that’s well suited to the Gorge. Andy and Hedy Gurtner own and operate a rental shop in Hood River, called Swiss Swell, and the Wave Cult 255 is one of their most popular boards. On Maui, the 250 was one of the most popular boards in our test.
SCORE:
Upwind 3.47 Planing 3.84 Speed 3.84 Handling 4.05 Jibe 3.95 Overall 3.83
COMMENTS:
“Roberto! Roberto! Roberto! The 250 transforms this mere mortal into an invincible windsurfing god.” [Jardini]
“Well balanced, improved my jumps a lot. A super fun board in waves. Turns fast but easy to stay on top of.” [Sollner]
“Very easy to ride for a wave board. Planes easily, good speed and handling, but upwind ability is lacking. A larger fin might help that.” [Boring]
“The best board I’ve tried so far,” said a dealer who tried a lot of them. “Quick to plane, lively and snappy in waves, fast, very loose. Felt like a custom board. Good for high wind and waves, but still easy to ride.” [Taylor]
“Basic bump-and-jump 4.0-5.0 conditions today. Board spun out with the smallest amount of rear foot pressure. The fin seemed too small and too soft, which also hampered going hard upwind. In my view the board’s strongest feature is its excellent control in all conditions. Easy to get comfortable with.” [Cicale] A surprising comment about the spinout, as this sailor’s technique is impeccable.
“It hardly takes anything to get it going, and once powered up, it flies. Super fast. Jibed great.” [Quarles]
“Jumps great, but a little squirrelly. Feels light in construction. Don’t think it would work well in Gorge-type conditions,” said a dealer in the Gorge who doesn’t sell RRDs. He also said the board was “crisp” and “tracks great,” presenting a puzzle over how a board can be crisp, track great and be squirrelly all at the same time. [Coach]
STAFF:
Upwind 3.33, Planing 4.0, Speed 4.33 Handling 4.O, Jibe 4.33, Overall 4.0
COMMENTS:
“It’s hampered by a fin that’s too flexible for my size,” said Nevin Sayre.
AVANTRIDE 70
Ricci loves all his children, but this one might be his special baby, so named because he sees it as avantgarde. The RRD brochure calls it “the concept of the new millennium.” It’s the board for everything. It’s nothing like the Starboard Carve 99 in shape, and not much like it in performance, but its direction is similar because it’s RRD’s version of the freeride/freestyle hybrid (and like the Carve 99, wasn’t sailed a lot because that hybrid notion appears to be concept needing more press). And it too is a category of one.
“There’s a little bit of everything inside this board,” says Ricci. “To me, it represents real innovation.”
Yes, and the same could be said of Frankenstein, which is what we started calling this board—purely for its chemistry, mind you, not its behavior. It never threw any little girls in the water, at least not that we know of.
The Avantride 70 is wide and floaty for its length of 270 centimeters (8’ 10”), but at 70 cm wide and 120 liters, it’s not hugely so. It’s not as thick as it might be. It weighs 16.3 pounds (16.0 claimed), so it’s not as light as the other RRDs, as the heavier-duty construction is something called Duraglass, not carbon-sandwich under epoxy. Its outline resembles that of the Freeride 296, squeezed in from the ends so it expands in the middle. Its rails are tucked almost exactly the same as the Wave Cult 250. Its rocker is identical to the rapid Freeride 266. It doesn’t have much nose kick. It has nine rear and six front positions for each strap, a pretty clear indication of its confidence and willingness to handle most anything.
It planes very quickly—its average score of 4.75 in Planing was tops among boards with at least 5 ratings. It moves upwind like a bull. It jumps. It works in the waves. It’s a big steady platform in a jibe. It’s the kind of board that can grow on you, especially as you learn to turn it. Turning takes a conscious commitment.
It’s not a shapely board, not very exciting to look at, so maybe this one shouldn’t be wearing red. But as Ricci says, “It’s really hard to judge a board by look. A lot of boards are looking good on land, but what matters is in the water.”
SCORE:
Upwind 4.5 Planing 4.75 Speed 3.75 Handling 4.13 Jibe 4.0 Overall 4.28
COMMENTS:
“Planes early but a very bouncy ride.” [Miller]
“Great, easy planing, easy jibing board in light conditions.” [Watson]
“A VERY fun light wind board.” [Burnight]
“A great board. It’s the board for me,” said Rutledje Young, who sailed it in gentle waves, and found the Kinetic El Nino 61 “too loose” on the same day. Rutledje was a very important sailor to our test—and this is a valuable comment—because he may have been struggling the most. But he always came back smiling.
“A sluggish board, not lively at all. Most likely because of the plastic fin. Very stable, though. Good long carving jibes. Poor straps.” That’s our dealer who had a hard time liking RRD’s in general, with an exception or two. We might suggest that the Avantride is not lively because of 70 things: centimeters in its width. And that it’s a tradeoff.
“This board would be great in our Midwest conditions,” said one intermediate. “Easy to jibe for such a wide board. It worked great with a 6.5 Tushingham, so quick to plane in marginal
conditions that I bet it would work up to 9.5 sail size.”
STAFF: Mark Archer gave it straight 4’s with a 3.5 in Planing. And we think he’s a master at the art of planing. At least he teaches people how to plane quickly. Go figure. He said the ride felt nice and light, but it needed more wind than other boards of its class. But… what is that class?
TWINTIP 65
It’s King of the Lake. That’s the biggest and most important freestyle event in the world, held each year on Lake Garda in Italy, won in ‘99 by Robby Seeger, RRD’s powerful freestyle ace. Like many other stars, from Josh Stone to Jason Polakow, Seeger was a frequent visitor at our test site. One light-wind afternoon he put on a special show, a display of tricks that boggled the mind. It was as if he could make the board levitate, although it never stood still. Five feet of air on invisible ramps just 20 feet from the beach, landing tail-first and scooting the board the rest of the way to the sand before gently dismounting with a wide smile and a bow.
Designing the TwinTip was easy, says Ricci, because he only had to do half a board. It’s 265 centimeters long and 65 wide, and its name comes from the unique symmetrical outline; the back half matches the front. The well-tucked rails and very flat scoop/rocker line aren’t the same, of course, nor is the distribution of volume, but it’s still evenly balanced, which was the objective—and one result is steady tacking, even on just 108 liters.
Never has a board been designed with so much emphasis on sailing tail-first. For example, there are four channels on the concave bottom, under the nose as well as the tail, to bite like a fin and give directionality.
It must be this balance that makes the TwinTip plane so well. Weigh its volume of 108 liters against its recommended sail size of 6.0 to 7.5 meters, and no way should its planing be exceptional. Especially since its construction, though lighter than the Avantride 70, is heavier than the epoxy sandwich freeride boards, with a mat coating on the blue paint.
Of course, there is another explanation here. Rarely did our testers sail the TwinTip in that recommended range. Because of conditions, it was mostly sailed with 5.0 to 6.0 sails. But this also proves that it performs well with smaller sails than those it was designed for, which is something you can’t say about a lot of boards. However, there’s a TwinTip 60 of 96 liters for that range. We wish the 60 had been in the test instead of the 65. We suspect our testers would have raved a blue streak (pun intended) over it.
The bottom line of the TwinTip is that it takes much of the challenge out of basic execution. It may be short on speed and excitement, but it’s also very short on frustration. Which means high on fun, as the comments made clear.
“I think the TwinTip is going to be the future for freeride designs,” says Ricci. Did he say freeride? Actually, we thought he thought the Avantride would be the direction of freeride. But no matter. The TwinTip was very popular with our guest testers, who were hardly freestylers. We’re not sure whether or not that says something about the desires and likes of intermediate freeride sailors in general, but it does indicate one thing: our testers, which we believe to be broadly representative, like their time on the water to be easy.
SCORE:
Upwind 3.86 Planing 4.36 Speed 3.79 Handling 4.43 Jibe 4.43 Overall 4.24
COMMENTS:
“Really fun, planes up quickly, very maneuverable, very forgiving in the jibes,” said Clem Wang, whom we couldn’t get off the board, even after dark. He sailed it four days. “It’s really good for trying out new stuff,” he added. “Clew first waterstart was a cinch. Once I even sailed fin first, and it was easy on this board. I have a lot of confidence sailing it. I can tack it, and almost got a couple of duck jibes.”
“Very easy, good for a first-time short board.”
“A great board to learn planing jibes on. Plenty of room for tricks. Really fun with a 5.0 or 5.5 in small waves. It turns on a dime for a wide board, and jumps well. Plows over chop and smoothes it out. A breakthrough design.”
“Awesome with the 5.4 Pryde Soul wave sail, particularly if you want to plane on a sneeze.”
Jim DeSilva, a dealer (not RRD) who offered a wealth of insight on many other boards and sails, was the only tester whose comments here came from sailing within the recommended sail range. Using a Hot Sails Maui 6.0 Stealth, he said, “The powerful sail made for huge air. I’m sure the board would be excellent over 7.0. It’s stiff, light, and even its low nose accentuates the lift. Good pads, straps and sailing position.”
And apparently he agrees with Ricci about the direction of freeride. “These boards are the future because they make sense for normal people in normal conditions,” he added. “They are easy, quick to plane, work in lighter winds and feel small.”
“Fast to plane, very smooth, easy to jump, easy to jibe. Should be fun for any intermediate or better, between 4.5 and 6.5.”
“Love the TwinTip; quick to plane, stable, goes upwind well and doesn’t bounce in the chop,” said a woman who sailed it with a 4.5 Loft wave sail. Next day, same sail, she added, “Easy to handle, but feels bigger than the 8-11 French.”
“The TwinTip is the board I liked the best,” said an intermediate who used a Hot Sails Maui 4.3 wave. “Very stable and controllable in high wind, despite its volume. I’ll probably buy one.” This is a significant comment, again because of the source. The board highly pleased a sailor of very intermediate skills who basically sailed it wrong.
STAFF:
Upwind4.0, Planing 4.5, Speed3.0, Handling 4.0, Jibe 4.75, Overall 4.15
COMMENTS:
“Fun fun fun,” said Mark Archer, until daddy took his T-bird away. “Has something to offer everyone from beginning shortboarder to advanced freestyler.” He added that it’s best suited for 5.0 to 6.5 sails, which is the recommended range of the TwinTip 60.
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