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Last year, after a two-year hiatus. Starboard reintroduces the Carve to its faithful fans, having found a whole new group of people flocking to this impressive shape along the way. For a board that’s supposed to be user–friendly, there is a lot that advanced riders will like as well.
With the footstraps placed inboard, the rider position, smoothness across chop and the ability to handle smaller sized sails provide all the user-friendliness an intermediate sailor could ever want. But with the straps in the outboard position, the speed increases noticeably, and you’ll find an efficiency that’s rarely seen in a freeride shape.
Extracting top speeds from the Carve does take a refined ability to trim the board and get it up on the fin, but the board is eager to do as it’s told. The fin provided is perfect for most, but riders looking for more speed or to increase its sail range will have to find a tuttlebox fin of their liking.
As impressive as the Carve is in providing performance for both intermediates and advanced riders in a straight line, it’s actually in the corners that it really shines. Once again, with the straps inboard, there’s all the security, stability and smoothness that an intermediate learning to jibe could ask for. Yet, an advanced rider will not only appreciate these traits but will also find it carves like a much smaller board. It’s one of the few big boards that willingly turns off both the nose and tail, allowing you to either rip through high-speed slalom style jibes or get in the back seat and crank a much tighter turn. For those who are “not interested in sailing bigger boards because they don’t jibe”, you will have to give the Carve a go before making that claim again.!
Click here to go to the Carve product page.
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