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STARBOARD CARVE 99
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CARVE 99
Length: 255 cm Width: 60 cm
Volume: 99 ltrs Weight: 15/6.8kg
Upwind: 4.14 Planing: 3.71
Speed: 4.00 Handling: 4.71
Jibe: 4.71 Overall: 4.26
Price: $1,445
Includes: Straps, Pads, Fin
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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.
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