I got to demo this board for about 6 weeks, and I decided to buy it a fortnihgt ago so it obviously passed the test.
It's 98 litres, Shortish about 230cm, 64cm wide, Double concaves to v bottom, 5.9kgs and designed as a slalom/race board.
My first impressions were difficult to interpret as it was mostly in marginal conditions, so I left the jury out. As I got to ride it more in optimal conditions it was again difficult as the board rides so smoothly on those double concaves, I was wanting more feedback and was thinking is the board slow? My gps was telling me for the conditions it was fast. At first it felt "too easy" which I thought meant or misinterpreted as slow? But no it's not slow, you can probably go faster coz it is so easy. So once my mindset was sorted the board felt great. Then I finally got to do some planing gybes and that was it I was sold, and paid for it with my own money and for a stingy bastard like me that says something.
It has a great range having it out yesterday with a 7m and 35cm weed in 10 to 18 kts, the 64 would plane early and then stay on the plane, I was impressed. Once the wind is up, the board Boogies w/o having the feel or speed of a proper speed board. This is gonna be my all-rounder, will be magic for the 1 hr category of the GTC hopefully up the 1hrPB , and looking fwd to upping my PB's in the Alpha category, and I also reckon will do great NM's.
The dimensions of the board means it needs a fair bit of tweaking with mastfoot position and footsraps, a bit of work in that area improved performance and feel as well.
Highly Recommended.
I own the older Manta 67 100ltr 67 wide 229 long and my thoughts were the same as yours on what i thought of the board the first few times i sailed it.
Having used the Fanatic slalom boards and going to the 67 the ride was super smoothmy knees loved it and jibes unreal after some playing around with fins and tuning i found the best fin size is 37cm(although Matt Pritchard recomended 40-44cm) i have used fins as small as 29cm on it as well,best sail sizes 7.5m-6.8m in this range it cranks.
Also a fan of double concaves. Got a Tabou Rocket 64. I think deep double concaves got a reputation for being slow in the days before gps. They feel slower but the gps doesn't lie.
For a given board trim I suppose you do have to have more wetted area for the same lift, but if you go through the geometry there's probably not much reason to say there's much in it.
A curved line following a 32cm wide by 1 cm deep concave (port to starboard direction) is only 0.26% longer than the straight line bridging the concave.
Haven't got the Rocket handy to measure at the moment, but they are pretty deep, probably deeper than on the Manta - but maybe not 1cm. Just used 1 cm for the calculations to say I don't think even deep concaves add much wetted area over flat. They certainly give an easier ride so is any speed disadvantage real or imagined? I can't make a flat board (naish hybrid 110) go any faster, maybe elite sailors can?
even though you havent had alot of wind
