Once again congratulations to Boardseeker on a very thorough and
professional test, the extra effort put in is not only a benefit to
readers, but also valuable input for our R&D department.
Having the Worlds top two Freestylers in our team is not only a major
benefit for our marketing and image; our products also improve year by
year due to their input. Just last week, 2007 PWA Freestyle World
Champion Marcilio Browne was in Portugal to pick up 2 new Freestyle
prototypes. Double World Champion Gollito Estredo has been riding
Sebastian Wenzel´s shapes for five years now and has won more events
than any other rider the last three years. The input these guys and
our big National team give is critical for us to develop the best
Freestyle board possible.
This is also a reason that ALL Fanatic riders are riding only Fanatic
prototypes or production boards. We want our shaper to be the most
competitive possible, one of the best ways to do this is to make sure
our riders work with him and keep him up to date on all the latest
developments in the sport.
On the other hand, our Skate is by no means a "new school only"
Freestyler, as Boardseeker has found during their test. We sell a lot
of Skates every year, to average sailors looking to improve their
maneuvers, planing and other basic skills. So during the R&D process,
we make sure both the pro riders and normal customer's needs are being
addressed, by testing with a variety of riders, from our World
Champions, right down to old school carvers like myself and
Sebastian! :-)
At the end of the day, Gollito/Brawzinho etc, need boards that plane
early, jump easily, have a decent top end speed and are easy to
control overpowered. Your average customer has virtually exactly the
same needs, perhaps not as much sliding/jumping, but the basics are
the same.
Re fin choice, we do provide a relatively "big" fin with the board, as
Boardseeker mentions, new school Freestylers can benefit from a
smaller fin, whilst anyone looking to improve the Freeride performance
can easily put a 28-32cm more upright Freeride fin in the Skate.
Other boards to consider:
FreeWave range 77/86/95/104/113: Gollito Estredo actually won his
first world title riding a FreeWave 86 2007 model, which is the same
board in our 2009 range. The FreeWaves offer excellent Freestyle
performance, especially for medium to higher winds. With their
narrower nose/tail outlines and wave rockers, they are better oriented
to choppy water/waves, or for lighter riders than the Skates. Will of
course not plane or accelerate/slide quite as well as the Skates
though, which are also usable in smaller waves.
Hawk 93/108/123/135: on the other side of the range is our Hawk, a
Freecarve/Freemove shape. Narrower than the Skates, these shapes were
first influenced by the SuperX discipline, which was a combination of
Freestyle and Slalom. The basic performance of these boards is still
pretty relevant to these 2 disciplines - speed and maneuvers being the
most noticeable characteristic when sailing these boards. So all the
basic Freestyle maneuvers are possible with a Hawk, also some of the
new school moves. Interesting enough is that the Skate 98 on test is
an evolution of getting our Freestyle team to ride the Hawk 108, once
they had experienced the great speed/maneuver qualities of the Hawk,
it was obvious we had to incorporate some features of the Hawk into
our Skates. All possible using Sebastian Wenzel´s vast CAD database.
For any more questions on any of the Fanatic shapes, feel free to
visit our forum on fanatic.com.
Craig Gertenbach
Fanatic Brand Manager/Head of R&D.