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AMERICAN WINDSURFER MAGAZINE
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STARBOARD
To better understand the boards in this review, you might first read the profile of Svein Rasmussen, the force behind Starboard. It’s hard to find the space to explain all his innovations.
Footstraps, for example. Testers unanimously agreed that the exclusive Starboard straps were the easiest to adjust. One velcro strip, one yank. Rasmussen wanted straps that were so easy to adjust that a sailor could do it on the fly. Right. We’ll buy that it’s possible, but we don’t think we need to try it.
But there are bigger innovations than footstraps. Besides the wood inlay as described in the profile, Starboard introduces in some of its 2000 boards what it proclaims to be one of the world’s strongest fibers: Dyneema. It’s a Dutch discovery, a polyethelene, “produced by a unique gel-
spinning process where molecules are disentangled to enable parallel orientation,” according to the Starboard brochure (a thick, slick and costly one, highly informative in its clear explanation of the boards’ technical features). Dyneema is, “used by the U.S. Department of Defense as absorption of ballistic energy in bulletproof jackets,” the brochure adds.
Well. Our test boards weren’t built with Dyneema, only because they were pre-production, but it doesn’t matter because the fiber doesn’t affect sailing performance. It’s used in the rails to absorb flex upon impact from jumps, as that’s where buckling begins, often with tiny cracks over time. Rasmussen reports that Jean Louis Colmas (see profile) has been testing Dyneema for three years, and the first boards he built with Dyneema have yet show cracks, which is unheard-of for R&D boards. Rasmussen adds that there would be more Dyneema in the boards, if it weren’t for the fact that the fiber costs 50 percent more than carbon.
For the Starboard reviews, we’ll start with the most intriguing: the Starfish. It was the only board we broke in half. Mark Archer was the guilty party, not a guest tester. He looped, he landed, the board buckled. He weighs about 190. Would Dyneema have prevented this? We’ll never know.
Rasmussen couldn’t offer much in the way of an explanation. “They are production boards, but they are built by hand,” he said. “So the human factor is very big. There are days at the factory that the worker is feeling very good, and there are other days he may have a hangover, and he may not put in enough epoxy. That’s why we warranty boards. Our replacement rate is only about 1 percent.” He examined the broken board, and said he believed that might have been the case, as the laminate over the wood inlay felt dryer than it should have been, to him.
The Starfish was simply the Fish on Maui, but the name has since been changed. We like the new name better. A fish is floppy and smelly; a starfish is romantic and lovely. The board itself is… strange and endearing? But like the company itself, it’s original.
STARBOARD STARFISH
Most wave boards are designed for the perfect wave, but this one is made for mush. In other words, reality, says Rasmussen. “I’ve travelled the world, and 90 percent of the waves are crappy. This board is designed to perform in junky surf. So I would say it has a larger market than any wave board I know.”
Rasmussen had coaxed Jim Drake back into sailboard design to help with the Go and Formula, and then got more input with the Starfish; Rasmussen built the first prototype, and Drake re-shaped it. For research they went to surf shops and queried surfers around Santa Barbara for ideas. They were told that short and wide is the new wave, to get planing with less paddling and maintain speed through quick turns in the less-than-perfect local waves. Thruster fins and split tails are classic, so the Starfish has it all. Plus channels. We’re inclined to call it a wave/freestyle hybrid.
It’s a mere 242 cm long (8 feet), but 60 cm wide (23.6 inches) while wielding 90 liters. The vee is average, but there’s a lot of rocker and the rails are highly tucked. The idea is for the big volume and width to get you planing, the wide tail to keep you from sinking in jibes, the heavy rocker and tuck to turn you. So there’s no stalling in troughs, which makes an otherwise slow design actually quicker in the waves. With handling similar to a freestyle board, the Starfish tries to get you in the right spots at the right time. And its stubbiness makes it easier to loop.
Even though it’s intended to be a good entry-level wave board, it was a tough board to test, at least as we do with guest testers, because it seems to be a board that you have to learn how to sail—you have to understand it to draw out the performance. Still, testers used the word “fun” to describe the Starfish more times than with any other board, by a close margin over the RRD TwinTip freestyle. But if you count extra for all capital letters or underlining or exclamation points, the Starfish sails far away from the fun-fun-fun field. As one tester commented, “In a word: GREAT FUN!”
The big curiousity was upwind capability. It scored all over the chart: in 14 ratings, it got two 5’s and six 2’s. The sailors who gave it 5’s apparently got the technique, so Rasmussen isn’t lying when he says, “If you sail it correctly, you will point it very high.”
You also won’t spin it out, at least not now, he says. In the comments below you’ll see our testers did some tuning to correct that problem. Since the test, Rasmussen realized that the finbox was too far rearward for the deep 6 cm vee of the split tail, and if the fin weren’t placed forward—3 cm forward of center, to be exact—cavitation would occur, causing spinout. So the finbox on production models will be farther forward than it was on our test board.
SCORES: (14 ratings)
Upwind 3.07 Planing 4.07 Speed3.21 Handling 4.43 Jibe 4.57 Overall 3.87
COMMENTS: (and boy, were there a ton of them)
“Fun, but rides differently. Very forgiving. I like the thrusters.” [Russell]
“The maneuverability of this board is unreal,’’ said a non-Starboard dealer. “But it seemed underfinned with a 5.7, until I moved the center fin back. Then the balance problems went away.” [DeSilva]
“It was awful, spun out and everyone hated it, until we moved that fin back a couple of inches,” said another dealer, who added that it was Josh Stone who pointed out that the center fin didn’t appear to be in balanced triangulation with the thrusters. The dealer then sailed it successfully with a 6.0. “Shows how critical minor adjustments can be,’’ he added (although our women sailors might not agree that a couple of inches is a minor difference). Our testers moved the fin back to prevent spinout, Starboard has moved the finbox forward to prevent spinout. Go figure. [R Johnson]
“Seemed sluggish, but I was underpowered. Huge margin for error in the waves.” [Quarles]
“Fun. It may be faster with the thruster fins removed.” [Alford]
“I had to be talked into sailing it, because it seemed meant for a larger sailor,” said one woman. “But on the water, I soon discovered why everyone wants to sail it. It jibes like cruising on butter, even in the chop. The only drawback was it was too heavy to jump, with my lack of muscle to lift it. The fun factor is off the charts. Everyone can be a wave rider with this board.”
It wasn’t that heavy, so maybe the width and blunt nose just made it seem so. We weighed the board at 15.4 pounds, while Starboard’s specs say 15 even. Rasmussen said that all our test boards were slightly overweight, because they were pre-production and the construction process hadn’t been fine-tuned yet. [Butzen]
“This board does not look like it should work, but it was SO FUN to ride. Super quick to plane, fun to jump. Could be an excellent beginner shortboard, one they would keep because it’s so much fun.” [Taylor]
“Very user friendly. A great beginner to intermediate shortboard. Does not turn well in short radius turns, but phenomenal in the larger radius turns. You can’t mess up.” [Hughes]
“Planes through jibes more readily than any other. But requires constant foot pressure to keep it from heading upwind. This weather helm doesn’t go away. Easy to spin out, even marginally overpowered.” This comment came after the fin was moved back and the spinout problem appeared solved, although it’s possible someone moved the fin forward again. [Stone]
“Love the Fish. Fun Fun Fun!!” This tester is a major mutual fund manager in the real world. Aren’t they supposed to be dry and understated? He continues. “Made me feel like Josh Stone in the waves. Planes in no wind, and very stable in chop. A no-wind wonder, a great first wave board. The only negatives were it felt heavy in jumps and was a bit too loose—spins out a bit too early.”
[M. Stumpp]
STAFF:
Upwind 4.0, Planing 5.0, Speed 3.5, Handling 4.0, Jibe 5.0, Overall 4.3
“Lives up to all its claims. Jibes like a dream, but due to its length, is quite tricky to tack. And flat water is a big no-no,” said Mark Archer. Funny, he didn’t say anything about it being a no-no to snap a test board in half on landing after a loop.
Stein Erik Gabrielsen, our staff instructor, couldn’t stop raving about the Starfish. He seemed to have figured out how to use it better than anyone else. He was the only sailor who gave it a 5 in Speed (Mark gave it a 2, so go figure), putting that category in the context of waves, which he used to propel the board. “With a Simmer 4.2, it blew away everyone else on the water,” he said on a wavy day.” The big surprise for me was straight-line speed, passing everyone. Big jumps off the backs of small waves, and landing down the face of the next. Definitely the best new concept in boards this year!”
CARVE 99
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. We also have a sleeper. And it’s a shame that the winner was a sleeper. Our fault, for not bringing the board to the attention of our testers. Starboard’s fault, for semantic misdirection.
This is a classic case. And it’s significant, because it’s an example of how one tiny wrong turn can steer a person off the path toward windsurfing happiness, meaning the right board for him or her.
We got our Starboards in the second week of the test. The Carve 99 went on the rack. We read the information in the brochure. It begins, “Probably the world’s best freestyle board.” We grouped the board with our other freestylers: the RRD TwinTip, Kinetic El Nino 57 and El Nino 61.
For most sailors, freestyle means tricks.There aren’t many sailors who consider themselves tricksters, or who want to do tricks when there’s great Maui surf and open water beckoning. In addition, the TwinTip was enormously popular, and carried word-of-mouth momentum from the first week. So the Carve 99 and the El Ninos were under-utilized.
Then we talked to Svein Rasmussen. “Lately it’s completely confusing,” he lamented. “It’s completely impossible when you walk in a shop today. You never know what you’re getting, with all these different names.”
Oh, we agree, we agree!
Back to the Carve 99. We have a small problem. In a well-meaning attempt to make things simpler, Rasmussen has redefined freestyle for Starboard. “It’s all free,” he continued. “What we call freestyle is just improved freeride.”
Oh. Tell that to our testers who haven’t been experiencing the wonderful freeride range of the Carve 99, because it has FREESTYLE figuratively stamped all over it, and literally on the rack above the board.
Of course, had we disregarded or overruled the description in the brochure and simply classed it based on the shape of the board, acted intuitively instead of so damn literally, we might not have mis-labeled it. But the point is, would a consumer reading the brochure in a shop do that? The dealer would have to be there to basically tell him, “Don’t believe what Starboard says here.” Or, making even more room for error, the salesperson who works for the dealer would probably have to have sailed the board.
Anyhow, the shape of the Carve 99 puts it in a category of one. It is indeed an improved freeride board, a freeride/freestyle hybrid. But you really have to think freeride; no freestyle board has ever gone this fast or turned this responsively.
It is appropriately named, if not described. In its seven ratings, it had the highest score of any other board in the test in both Handling and Jibe: 4.71 in each. Credit the unique Carve edge on the rails. The rails aren’t consistently rounded, they are angled 45 degrees at the bottom, a neat
8-10mm-wide bevel for their full length.
It was also generally agreed that this was the best-looking board on the rack, with its gracefully curved blonde wood inlay running the full length of the deck, and cute little yellow Tiki logo on the nose. It’s the god of good winds, from the Melanesian culture where the Starboard development center in New Caledonia is located.
Rasmussen designed the Carve 99 himself. It has a lot of stuff, to do a lot of things. He walked a tightrope in the shaping room, because a lot could have gone wrong in the combining of extreme elements, to achieve performance that was intended to be extreme only in carving and range. What we have here is: light weight, short length (258 cm), broad width (60 cm) with proportional outline, big volume (99 liters), well-tucked and relatively thin rails with that unique edge, very light rocker, lightly upturned soft nose, channels under the nose for grip when sailing tail-first, and a reverse deep-vee bottom—more vee forward than aft. And six positions for each footstrap. It might be a little bit like your VCR, in that it’s capable of doing a whole lot more than you may ever ask it to do.
To add to the board’s versatility, it’s highly tunable. With Starboard’s 25 cm freestyle fin replacing the 28 cm fin that comes with the board, and by moving the mast track back, this wide board will turn real lively, says Rasmussen.
The essentials, according to Starboard, are quick acceleration, early planing, easy jibe, good control. Add range of use, and possibly no board in the test achieves a broader and better combination of the elements than the Carve 99.
SCORES: (7 ratings)
Upwind 4.14 Planing 3.71 Speed 4.0 Handling 4.71 Jibe 4.71 Overall 4.26
COMMENTS:
“Felt good with a 7.0 Sailworks Retro. Has some good acceleration, was super easy to maneuver. Beautiful with the wood inlay, really sporty looking when you look down! Scoop seemed about right.” [DeSilva]
“A very nice all-around board for anyone,” said the dealer who identified it as an AHD. [Coach]
“Jibing, it was like a great dog trying to please you, in the way it felt eager to to turn. My percentage in making them went way up because the turn was automatic and I could concentrate on the rest of the jibe.’’
“The more I sailed it, the quicker it got on a plane. I found that you could pump the board under your feet, without pumping the sail, and it would squirt itself onto a plane. It was very light and slippery feeling for that unusual move, but it still bit.”
“Flatten it out on the water, and you can really feel it rip—it’s surprisingly fast. I also sailed it fully powered with a 4.2, and it didn’t feel big despite its 99 liters.” Notice that testers sailed it slightly outside its recommended sail range of 4.5 to 6.8 meters, and it felt fine on both ends, at 4.2 and 7.0.
STAFF:
Upwind 4.0, Planing 4.0, Speed 4.0, Handling 4.5, Jibe 4.5, Overall 4.2
COMMENTS:
“Light and lively, a great combination of speed and balance,” said Mark Archer.
CARVE 140
Like the Carve 99, the Carve 140 is named for its volume rather than its length, because it was designed as a short 140-liter board, not a high-volume 9-0 (276 cm). A bulk of volume ahead of the mast track is provided for tacking and uphauling. Unlike the Carve 99, the vee is consistent, and shallower. The footstrap positions are inward, for the beginner/intermediate. Starboard calls it a good “first-time shortboard,” but, since meanings aren’t what they used to be in board measurement, we wonder if “shortboard” might not need to be redefined—or if a definition simply doesn’t apply in some cases. Like this one.
Of course, it’s certainly not a longboard. These new high- volume boards are making longboards extinct as they make the word “shortboard” meaningless. Maybe that’s why Starboard calls it a 140.
SCORES: (9 ratings)
Upwind 4.0 Planing 4.44 Speed 4.22 Handling 4.22 Jibe 4.11 Overall 4.20
COMMENTS:
“Quick to plane, especially with a Sailworks 6.0 Retro. The Bic Techno 283 was sluggish in comparison.” This sailor readily admitted he was still groping for comfort, and sailed the two boards with three Sailworks sails, 7.0 and 6.0 Retros and then plunging to a 4.0 Revo. [Young]
“Needs a lot of commitment when turning and jibing,” said a more accomplished sailor who used a cambered 7.5 Windwing Synthesis. “Took me a few times to start getting comfortable, whereas the HiFly 282 and Techno 283 were easy from the get-go.” [R Johnson]
“Fun, stable, responsive. Fast to plane, glided through the holes. Jumped and surfed small waves with ease.” [Burnight]
STAFF
Upwind 3.33, Planing 4.33, Speed 3.0, Handling 4.33, Jibe 4.33, Overall 3.87
COMMENTS:
“Slow, but what a great flyer, a great jumping board,” said John Chao. He noted that he was underpowered, so the 2 he gave it in Speed might not have been fair.
“An excellent blend of speed, acceleration and comfort in both tacking and jibing, which make this an ideal transitional board,” said Mark Archer.
WAVE 72, WAVE 77, WAVE 88
They are sisters, same bones, same basic shapes, similar personalites, different features, three sizes.
Same tails. The split fishtail, also called a swallow tail. Been around a long time. What is the purpose, again? Why is it good? Don’t ask Rasmussen. All he knows is that his R&D sailor/designer Scott McKercher won the 1999 Wave Production Board World Championship in Spain on a 253 Wave with a fishtail, and he likes them. The 253 Wave was refined into the Wave 77 by thinning the rails a bit, ‘’to please the acquired taste” of McKercher.
But if you do ask Rasmussen about the fishtail, his candid answer will pop your eyeballs. “It’s supposed to allow the tail to dig in deeper in jibing and riding waves, but I don’t know if it’s better,” he says. “It’s just what we’ve been doing. I cannot explain you any more physics behind it. I can’t say why it’s there, or if it makes a difference.”
One thing seems certain; it doesn’t slow the board down. Even with its big rocker, the Wave 72 tied for the highest score in Speed, with the RRD 266 at 4.33. How can a wave board be rated so highly in Speed? Relativity. We asked our testers to consider the form, to factor in the expectation, although the request probably complicated things, because they did so inconsistently. But evidently the six sailors who rated the Wave 72 felt it was faster for a wave board than other boards were for what they are.
The names in the Wave line relate to the volumes, and are proportionally consistent with shapes: they would be size 1, 2 and 4. The 72 and 77 have more vee than the 88 (with more forward than aft, like other Starboards), while the 72 has the most tuck in the rails. Both the 72 and 88 have more rocker than any of our other 20 wave boards: 12 mm, compared to 9 mm on the 77 (two boards had 11 mm, one 10 mm, the rest 9 or less). Even with the rocker, all three boards scored well in Planing, but they lagged in Upwind with a combined average of 3.56. Furthermore, the boards got all Upwind 3’s in five staff ratings. The 88, in particular, got nailed with three Upwind 2’s in 10 guest-tester ratings—although, at the same time, it got the only Upwind 5, so go figure. Its outline narrows less than the others from the mast track to front feet, its rails are naturally fuller (though thinned from last year), and its fishtail is relatively wider and softer.
Our testers liked the smallest the most, the largest the least. Interestingly, the same thing happened with the three RRD wave sisters, so we suspect that might indicate more about testers than boards.
WAVE 72
SCORES: (6 ratings)
Upwind 3.67 Planing 4.0 Speed 4.33 Handling4.5 Jibe 4.33 Overall 4.17
COMMENTS:
“Crispy, responsive, new school.” [Alford]
“Footstraps are too big and too far apart for me. However the 21 cm fin worked well with the 4.0 Sailworks Revo. I had a blast, leaping off waves like I had wings.” That’s Jackie Butzen, the girl who never met a wave board she didn’t want to fly away on.
Small mystery here. “The Wave 77 and Wave 66 [sic] are really nice, in particular the Wave 66 which was in the proper wind range with a Gaastra 4.7 Grind. Very maneuverable and still fast!” We think this dealer must mean the Wave 72. [Quarles]
Strangely, no one commented on the speed.
STAFF:
Upwind 3.0, Planing 3.5, Speed 4.0, Handling 4.5 Jibe5.0, Overall 4.0
WAVE 77
SCORES: (11 ratings)
Upwind 3.55 Planing 3.91 Speed 3.82 Handling 4.18 Jibe 4.18 Overall 3.93
COMMENTS:
“A fast, responsive, high-performance board, better for advanced sailors. Felt like a custom board.” [Taylor]
“Nice handling board in general, but a little squirrelly, very overpowered on a 4.2 Windwing. Also had a small spinout problem with the 22 cm fin, but I might have been overloading it. A great jumping board.” This dealer gave it a 3-plus in Speed and a 4 in Handling. Two days later, without commenting, he gave it a 2-plus in Speed and 3-minus in Handling, using a 4.7 Simmer. [Coach]
“In overpowering conditions, it bounced around in the chop.” [Butzen]
“With the Aerotech 4.75 Wave, it was my favorite complete rig. New school feeling.” [Alford]
“After moving the front straps forward, the board started performing a lot better, especially turning and going upwind.” [De Moraes]
“Excellent high-wind wave board. Wood construction seems very durable,” said a big guy. [Gottleib]
STAFF:
Upwind3.0, Planing 3.0, Speed3.0, Handling 4.5 Jibe 4.5, Overall 3.6
COMMENTS:
“An excellent wave board. The stronger the wind, the bigger the waves, the greater your skills, the better this board will perform,” said Mark Archer. He added that to improve the handling for his weight, he put on a larger fin. Did he put the stock fin back on when he was finished? Did testers continue to test and evaluate it with the oversize fin? Experience tells us… could go either way.
WAVE 88
SCORES: (10 ratings)
Upwind 3.50 Planing 3.80 Speed 3.90 Handling 3.90 Jibe 3.70 Overall 3.76
COMMENTS:
“Very stable and smooth in the turns, but a little sluggish and slow to plane. Big waves today. The board was good on wave faces.” [Coach]
“Nice and loose.” [Quarles]
STAFF:
Mark Archer gave it 3’s in Upwind, Planing and Speed, a 4 in Handling, and a 4 in Jibe entry, 3 in exit.
DIVA 69
Expert ladies, this board’s for you. It’s pink. It’s got big flowers on it. It’s a virtual carbon copy of the Wave 72, same 249 cm long but a whisker narrower, and 3 liters less volume because it’s thinner, especially in the rails. Jennifer Henderson dictated the shape, and a week after our test she won the Aloha Classic wave contest at Ho’okipa on it. So it must be good.
But as Rasmussen acknowledged during our test, that doesn’t mean it works best for most women. Give Starboard an E for sincere effort in attempting to fill a need, but our two best women sailors preferred the Wave 72 (they also slightly preferred the RRD 248 MPE over the Wave 72). For starters, it was one pound lighter, at 13.5 pounds versus 14.5 for the Diva. “We should have made the Diva lighter,” said Rasmussen, “and next year we will. But we wanted to get started.” Next time, it also might not be pink. “I don’t like it, but that’s what Jennifer wanted,” he said.
Apparently, no guys wanted to be seen on a pink board with flowers, and none of the smaller guys felt the need to challenge themselves with 69 liters, so only women tested it. (Except Andy Gurtner, who, as a staff tester, was only being dutiful. Of course, he also wore flowered shorts.) Nancy Johnson found the footstraps too big, Jackie Butzen found them too stiff and narrow, and Hedy Gurtner found them light and comfortable but noted that the exposed screws could hurt your toes. Except the screws aren’t exposed. Women! Just can’t make them happy.
Neither Nancy nor Jackie, both dealers, were crazy about the 20 cm fin. Nancy said it made the tail loose, and Jackie found it loose to the point of “releasing with the slightest provocation.”
Here, we’d like to interject a quote taken from a recent email we received from Bruce Peterson, Sailworks’ owner/designer. It was in reply to a general question about fin performance. “Too often I see riders blaming their fin for a spin-out problem when in fact it is a rig problem,” he wrote. “The list of rig imbalances is long: downhaul settings, outhaul settings, boom height, harness line position, mast step position, footstrap tension, mast compatibility.”
With that in mind, consider the following, as it may apply to their opinion of the fin. Jackie also found the Diva less comfortable to jibe than the Wave 72, which might have been due to the stance. On the Diva, the rear strap is just 1 cm closer to the tail, but the front straps are pulled back by 5 cm to narrow the stance. However the mast track is in the same position, so the balance points of the two boards are quite different. Jennifer must like to ride back there. Theoretically, curiously, women will need to rake the mast farther back on the Diva. It’s as if it’s built more for speed than waves, regardless of what Jennifer can do at Ho’okipa.
Rasmussen sighs, recognizing the problem—which is by no means gender specific. He’s got the same problem with the Wave 72, designed around Scott McKercher’s style and tastes. But with the Diva, it’s trickier.
You’re a guy. You may be clueless about what women want, but at least you’re trying. So you ask one. She tells you what she wants. And that’s all you end up knowing—what she wants.
When you build a signature board or sail, you usually build it to suit the style of your chosen expert (unless you’re clever, and simply buy their name; see the winning Bic Saxo 270 Robert Teritehau). In many cases, people buy the model simply to identify with the star’s name. But with the Diva, the purposes are mixed and crossed. A board for women needs to be a serious, technical, nuts-and-bolts endeavor. And it has to start with a definition of “women” sailors. Good luck, Svein.
SCORES: (4 ratings)
Upwind 3.5 Planing 4.25 Speed 4.0 Handling 4.0 Jibe 4.13 Overall 3.98
STAFF:
Upwind 2.5, Planing 3.5, Speed 3.5, Handling 4.0
Jibe 4.5, Overall 3.6
[Mark notes: nonskid good, pads good, fins good, straps good adjustability, but they twist.]
My note: The straps twisted because the screws weren’t kept tight. Svein took me over to one board and showed how loose the screws were. My Carve 99 straps do not twist in these strap-twisting conditions in Baja.
I don’t know why I’m even bothering including Mark’s notes. Maybe in the hope that when I get to sails, there will be some usable info—meaning something specific. If not, we have no
evaluation of ruggedness and ease of rigging.
SONIC W75 LARGE
How can you not love a board called The Large? This is the 1.5 cm (.6") thicker version of last year's successful W75, an AVS race board. It carries 146 liters in its 275 centimers, thanks to its 74 cm width. Consistent with Starboard innovation, it features a scooped-out deck for more leverage over the mast, and the option of a single rear footstrap position for a relaxed ride. It comes with wood as part of its structure, but not Dyneema, and weighs 17.5 pounds, which is not so Large at all. Its 54 cm fin was quite Large, however, and was mostly what kept it off the water in Maui. Sailors were afraid they would break it, because the reef is shallower than that in many places.
"Fast, with fair balance at speed," said Mark Archer, who sailed it overpowered in small swells (at high tide), conditions in which balance is truly tested.
FORMULA 155
So confusing. Now the name refers to the volume, not width—and in the Starboard pamphlet it's called the Formula 270, referring to the length. Whatever. But try on a width of 85 cm for size!
It's Starboard's attempt to make sailing fun and easy again. Svein Rasmussen recruited Jim Drake, whose original Windsurfer still draws sighs of nostalgia for the good old days when you went down to the water and sailed, period. Drake was invited to apply modern technology to his original concept of one board for all. Both wood and Dyneema are part of that technology in the Formula.
The result, according to Starboard, is an ultra-wide board that planes earlier, accelerates quicker, points higher, and is faster in light wind than any other board of its kind. It also tacks and jibes with ease, planes straight downwind, makes learning easy, and last but no way least, accepts sails from 4.0 to 12.0 meters! And now Rasmussen reports that it's winning races in Europe, in the Formula Windsurfing class.
Whew. Can it rig your sail for you, too?
No, but it can "warp your perception." At least that was John Chao's comment. "Amazing speed!" he said. Nevin Sayre was less impressed with its speed, or maybe his perception was less warped. He only rated it a 3 in Speed. Go figure.
In ratings by four sailors, it got higher marks in Upwind, Planing and Speed ((4.42 average) than in Handling and Jibe (3.19). An intermediate guest tester said that it "didn't like to turn." Yet Mark Archer found that it jibed very well for a board so wide. Both comments could be true. Once again, it only goes to show that it's all relative.
STARBOARD GO
Actually, at 190 liters and 83 cm wide, this is the board that should be named The Large. And believe it or not, nearly half of Starboard's international sales are from the Go and Formula 155. Like the Techno 283, it's been covered in these pages before. For 2000, the changes include red on the outside edges of the deck pad; it's not merely cosmetic, it's to make the centerline of the board easier to spot at a quick glance for more precise foot placement.
There are optional side fins for additional stability. But the big new thing is the optional wide and short fin ( GO 33). Designed by Jim Drake and foiled by Curtis, it solves the problem of the standard 57 cm fin hitting bottom in shallow water. Its low aspect ratio gives it more lateral resistance than a conventional fin, which, says Starboard, enables the board to stay upwind even when it's not planing. It's also easier to jibe. But it doesn't point as well as the long 57, and there's less lift in lighter wind.
Our Go was used exclusively by Stein Gabrielsen for teaching. He couldn't get enough of it; with its 190-liter volume and 83 cm width, sometimes he sailed on the board with them riding along on the deck. Because of the ease of sailing the Go, his students were happy from day one.
We are believers in the value and importance of the Go to windsurfing, and that the recreational world is a better place thanks to Svein Rasmussen, founder and owner of Starboard.
By the way, he says the Go can loop at Ho'okipa. Eyewitnesses who have seen it still can't believe it.
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