Price € 1,199,-. | Mast aluminium 75 cm | Fuselage aluminium 75 cm | Front wing carbon 1.100 cm2 | Back wing carbon 500 cm2
Starboard is currently making one of the most competitive wind foils in the market. Many race surfers, also in the PWA sailing with the Starboard Carbon Windfoil, so too Jordy Vonk. However, the cheapest model already costs €2,000,-. A solid amount if you’ve never foiled before and don’t know if you’re going to like it. Neil Pryde already has a favourably priced entry-level model, which starboard now also comes with the Starboard 2 aluminium wind foils. Available in 2 variants; the Starboard GT aluminum foil and Starboard Freeride aluminum foil. Both for a price of € 1,119,- Okay, the price is still about € 400,- higher than Neil Pryde’s entry-level variant. But we consider this a highly considered option because of the modular design and use of carbon wings.
Modular setup wind foils
What Starboard (for the time being is the only one) doing well is that it is modularly built up its Windfoils modular. This means that later, you can replace the wings, the fuselage and also the mast. This allows gradual upgrading or experimenting with larger or smaller wings. Frankly, we hope that more manufacturers will do this, this keeps it affordable for many people.
Mix of aluminium and carbon
As described above, Starboard’s wind foils are modularly constructed. For the Starboard GT aluminum foil, this means that the fuselage and wings are exactly the same as that of the GT carbon. The mast is at the Starboard GT of aluminium and with 75 cm 10 centimeters shorter than its more expensive brother. And the wings are carbon and the fuselage of aluminum (shape and surface is also equal to the Carbon GT). The Neil Pryde RS flight has no carbon wings, which makes a big difference
We see this foil as a cheaper alternative to the very good GT carbon. We are curious what the real difference is between the aluminium and carbon mast. Unfortunately, these foils are not available until spring 2018.
Starboard Freeride aluminum foil for even earlier flying
The starboard freeride alumium foil is derived from the GT, but has a larger front and back wing (both also carbon). The front wing is 1,100 cm2 instead of 800 cm2 and the back wing 500 cm2 instead of 330 cm2. Starboard itself claims that foiling with 7-8 knots should be possible.
We do think that with this foil you go up in the air earlier but this foil will be less fast and rather at its limit, precisely because of the large surface. Unfortunately, these foils are not available until spring 2018.