The Starboard Freeride foil was introduced in 2018 has remained unchanged until 2020. Due to the short fuselage of 75 cm, this foil had already had a lot of difficulty to keep up with the competition when it comes to being able to foil early. Therefore, the Starboard Freeride foil is now upgraded with the 95 cm plus fuselage and the 75 cm long mast has been replaced by the well-known 85 cm mast. We had already slightly upgraded our freeride in 2019 with the regular 95 cm fuselage and we were super enthusiastic about that. We are curious what the 95cm plus fuselage adds to this.
Starboard Freeride alu plus foil specs
Mast aluminium 85 cm | Fuselage aluminium 95 cm plus | Front wing 1,100 cm2| Back wing 500 cm2 | Price € 1,199,-
The Starboard Freeride plus foil is available directly from stock
More lift and better stability
We’ve been a big fan of the Starboard Freeride wind foil for years. A very relaxed cruiser that is very forgiving and can still be used in a lot of wind. However, due to the relatively short fuselage, the wind foil needed just a bit more wind and with little wind it takes just a bit more effort to keep it tight in the air.
With the longer fuselage, this foil rises much earlier. With a knot or 8 to 9 you can already foil with the foil and with a wind dip you can also fly much longer. The longer fuselage has made the foil even more stable. So stable windfoiling becomes even easier. And despite the longer fuselage, the foil also continues to be used with a lot of wind (up to about 5 beaufort). The easy-going and forgiving qualities are happily preserved.
We like to use the Starboard Freeride plus for our windfoil lessons and we see that people learn to windfoil very quickly and easily with the windfoil. At the same time, this wind foil is still very nice for the experienced freeride oriented wind foiler. The big wings make jibes much easier and a mistake is not punished immediately
The properties are closer to the Starboard GT-R, but there are still clear differences;
- The Freeride runs finer/relaxer half wind than the GT-R with a lot of wind
- The GT-R runs a lot higher upwind than the Freeride
- The Freeride is clearly less fast than the GT-R
- The Freeride is much more forgiving and feels more stable than the GT-R
- Foiling jibe is easier with the Freeride than with the GT-R
What spacer to use?
From 2021, Starboard will only supply foils with a fuselage from which you can trim the back wing. By simply replacing a spacer under the back wing, you simply change the angle of the back wing. This allows you to control the level of lift. By default, Starboard delivers 6 spacers.
We use this foil with the 0 degrees or -0.5 degrees spacer. On average, we think this is the best setting. A good balance between and enough lift to get up and with more wind/high speed sufficient control.
Conclusion
Our conclusion is brief but powerful. The Starboard Freeride foil is back on track. We are convinced that this is one of the best if not the best freeride foil on sale.