Wing Review - Starboard / Airush Free Wing Version 3 / N-Team

Wing Brand: Starboard / Airush
Wing Model: Free Wing Version 3 / N-Team
Riding Conditions: Ocean & Flat Water
Sizes tested: 4, 5 + 6

I have been riding the Airush / Starboard wings for approx 2.5 yrs. now and have always found them to be nice wings.I did find the Freewing Version 2 to be better than Version 1 but not by a huge amount.

However, after riding with the recent Version 3's I have found a huge increase in performance, and in my mind, it sits at around a + 50% hence why I am writing this review

After a number of sessions, these are my flying notes;

With the new Fabric, they are using in the leading edge and the strut (Hookipa Fabric) the decrease in weight is really quite noticeable, especially when riding swells as it is almost like the wing it is not there and far more manageable

Impressive how much harder you can inflate the leading edge as I used to put around 5 or 6 psi in the V2 and now the new versions take around 10 psi

And this means when pumping with the wing on to foil it comes up much quicker than previous and I have noticed I can use smaller wings and foils in the same winds compared to what I used to use

The wings are definably more efficient and therefore a bit more powerful, this does mean that the bottom end is better but the top end maybe not and they could get overpowered a bit easier

Though I have been told not to inflate them as hard when potentially going out in stronger winds so then the wings will spill a bit more wind, but I have not tried this yet

The handles are larger now & there and there is only two of them so it is much quicker to locate them after transitions meaning the more difficult backhand tacks are much easier to ride out of on foil

Being lighter and now not having any windows they pack up much easier into a smaller neat looking backpacker-style bag. I thought I would miss the window but did not even notice this until my 2nd session

So, all in all very impressed with these new wings and it feels like it is having a positive effect on my riding.

Disclosure - I have been an underground team rider for a number of years now but still I am genuinely impressed by how good this range of wings is and it is great to see the sport progressing so rapidly

Video freewing.star-board.com/freewing-n-team/

Thanks neat little review and cool photo. V1 - great all round, well made, easy to use, handles good well placed, some people had issues with the little rubber valve plug breaking long term, it's heavy and flappy and soft (especially if you come from high psi wings) the windows are useful but heavy and can develop little cracks, the leash isn't elasticated which is not so good, but I have used it in all conditions and had fun - really great to hear the V3 is a step up, all this wing improvement and competition makes the foiling more fun, thanks for sharing

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Ioz said..
I think Airush / Starboard made nice wings straight away as they had the experience from all of those years designing and manufacturing kite surfing kites.

I am pretty sure they use the same designer for the wings as they do the kites and probably the same factory.

Thanks for the review loz. sounds very interesting. I'd like to geek-out a bit on the specifics:
Could you break down the aspects of the wing where you saw performance leaps other the the power delivery?
Any measured upwind tacks, Speed runs? Wave/bump riding behavior?

Also, it would be nice to have point of reference for weight. I don't know the specs for either current and previous models so that would help put thing in context. Much appreciated.