Starboard is currently living the Olympic pension dream and has little initiative to fight for the crumbs that are PWA sales. From what I heard they are trying to carve up a piece of the larger wingfoil market.

Their performance at Torbole by the 21 year old Benoit Merceur on the SLR gear actually impressed me. He held up against Iachino, Vonk, Maciek and his fellow countrymen Bordes and Mathis on the 8th heat of 2nd elimination at 3:02:43 :
He ended this elimination with a 2nd place in the runners up final, not bad for a new guy.


I think the brands have hit a plateau and the advancements are less noticeable, just look at the Phantom Infinite of 5000eur. I'm sure it's a terrific product but it won't fly itself. With any of these foils time on water is your best investment.

Dishpet said..
Starboard is currently living the Olympic pension dream and has little initiative to fight for the crumbs that are PWA sales. From what I heard they are trying to carve up a piece of the larger wingfoil market.

the second part is correct, they are certainly working hard (as all brands are) to get a bigger slice of the wingding pie (which appears to not be growing as fast as before).

the first is not quite on point. Starboard has actually invested a fair amount of time and effort in improving their PWA foil lineup, if not for the sales, for the bragging rights and perceived prestige that come from doing well in the PWA. they just haven't had much success there. The SLR wings (introduced last year to the public, and registered along with the Mk 2 mast and Evo Mk2 fuses publicly unveiled this year) were not found to be particularly competitive by the top pros; so as result, they were barely used in Sylt/Japan, and only by riders that were not in the top tiers as i recall.

for this year, they developed and registered with the PWA *two* lines of wings (the SLR mk2s, and another developed by Martin Fischer who has experience with America's Cup foilboats) along with a new "Jumbo" fuselage. Alas, no one of note registered or raced this kit at Torbole. possible reasons (not mutually exclusive) for that can be:

a) SB was not able to finish and deliver the kit in time to more interested riders (there quite a number or stories being told of competitors getting their kit as late as two days before the event);
b) some riders that would/may be riding these foils were at the iQFoil competition in Greece;
c) riders who had the chance to try them found other foils to be more competitive/comfortable/suited to their style, etc. (i have no idea which riders worked with SB during the development phase).

Dishpet said..

Their performance at Torbole by the 21 year old Benoit Merceur on the SLR gear actually impressed me. He held up against Iachino, Vonk, Maciek and his fellow countrymen Bordes and Mathis on the 8th heat of 2nd elimination at

He ended this elimination with a 2nd place in the runners up final, not bad for a new guy.

that is indeed a remarkable performance; his overall 16th and two appearances in the (loser's) final is much better than the 37th of Koen Hessels (NED 88) who did register the SLR Mk2 wings and was only able to advance into the quarterfinals in the first elimination.

XavierFerrer said..

In the other hand, I can't understand why Blanca Alabau amb Matteo Iachino, part of Starboard team don't use Starboard foils, and both use Zfinsfoils

That reminds me. When Nico was here, still working for SB, he was using Neil Pryde foils. I didn't know this, just knowing he had NP sails and SB boards, and I asked him if he was using the SLR wings. Nope. Neil Pryde.