Surfing My Life Away: Speedsurfing with Freeracestuff ? Part1

I started Speedsurfing with a mix of Freemove- and Slalomstuff and orientated my quiver more and more to Slalom- and Speedsurfing. For a lot people who like to go fast and thinking about starting Speedsurfing it is a tough question if it makes sense to buy pure Slalommaterial or to start with something like Freeraceboards and -sails. Especially during the last few years some brands introduced Freeracematerial which should be nearly as fast as pure Slalomstuff, but easier to handle.
I have checked the GP3S database and tried to analyze the potential of this Freeracestuff. Okay you get much more information about Slalomboards and -sails, but in my opinion there was enough information to get a trend. The first part of the article contains my results and in the second one I will tell something about possible reasons.

The usual (slalom) iSonic
+ fullrace sail

Let's start with the easier chapter, the sails. Are Freeracesails only the little brothers of full Racesails? Okay, no Freeracesail reached 50knots until now, but most notably the Neilpryde RS:Slalom, Northsails Ram and Severne Overdrive scored a lot of sessions with 40knots+ averages. 40knots+ average is a really fast session for nearly everyone and the best sessions with these sails are around 42,5knots which mean you are close to the top 50 in the GP3S Overallranking. In my opinion there are definitely competitive Freeracesails on the market!

To analyze the potential of the Freeraceboards is much more difficult, because you have to consider that more sessions were done with Slalomboards and furthermore the trend is not as clear at it is with the Freeracesails. Obviously you have to compare the Freeraceboards with the Slalomboards and not with the smaller Speedboards on which most of the highspeeds were done.

VERSUS (freerace) Futura 93
+ fullrace sail

I have heard the rumor that the Starboard Futura is maybe faster than the iSonic. Well, the GP3S database doesn't really confirm this all up, but average speeds around 36,5knots done on a Futura 93 demonstrate the potential of this board. The best speeds on iSonics with the same width are around 38,5knots and on JP Slaloms or Fanatic Falcons even faster speeds were set, up to 40knots. It is hard to evaluate this speeds because, as I said, more sessions were done on Slalomboards, but in my opinion 2knots or more are a bit too much to say the Futura has the same potential as the iSonic or another pure Slalomboard, on the other hand 36,5knots is really fast and with a bit more comfort the Futura is definitely an option. Beside the Starboard Futura the JP SuperSport/Cross 96 had also great results with speeds around 36,5knots average.
Viewing the next two sizes verifies this impression. With a margin of around 2knots+ the Slalomboards stay ahead of the Freeraceboards. Moreover the treatment of the real big boards is very interesting, now the advantage of the Slalomboards decrease notedly. Many Freeraceboards like Starboard Futura 122/133, JP Supersport 74 or Fanatic Ray 125 scored really good results. As a matter of fact the fastest session on a Futura 122 was 34,36knots and therefore it is slightly faster than the one on an iSonic 122 which was 34,29knots...

All in all many Freeraceboards have a good potential for going fast even though the pure Slalomboards seem to be a bit faster, especially the smaller sizes. For starting Speedsurfing some Freeraceboards are an intersting option, you get some comfort like more volume and you can go really fast. Maybe you can beat your friend on his Slalomstuff :)