To complete the understanding of the windsurfing boards shape, from a few months we have decided to equip ourselves with a freestyle board: the Fanatic Skate TE 93 2014, also used by the world champion Gollito Estredo. The freestyle board has many peculiarities, which in this article we try to highlight.

Windsurf, board shape: the freestyle board

Let us first examine the peculiarities of this shape design; then, we will consider the performance and behavior in the water.

The board design

Looking at the board from above (from the deck), it is clear, compared to the other shapes, that it has a more uniform distribution of the volumes (not unlike the freeride boards), with a good width in the bow and stern zone; that is achieved with subparallel rails (side edges) for most of the board length. As we will see later, this feature guarantees an early planing, and offers an excellent support surface, that is, a good stability in the water. Even the slalom boards have subparallel rails, but they tend to be longer and narrower, for the same board volume, to achieve the goal of higher top speed.

Furthermore, the rails of freestyle boards are very sharp (that is, not rounded like in freewave and above all waves boards), particularly towards the board tail. This characteristic produces a lot of resistance in the water (the board bites the water surface very well), and is responsible for most of the lateral resistance to the hull drift, to which instead the fin (with a reduced surface) and hull (definitely flat) contribute little. As you will see, this prevents the freestyle boards from "turning tight", that is, from performing carving jibes with a tight radius, but allow them to slide on the water both longitudinally and transversely.

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