Foil Design

Designing foils is throwing up fresh challenges to the windsurf industry. Starboard’s head of brand and design, Tiesda You, gives us an insight into the innovation and process of foil R&D.

- Tiesda You

“Foiling really appealed to me when I saw the America’s Cup guys flying around up in the air at 40 knots. With foils, I knew there would be a lot of room to innovate in terms of design. With regular boards, you are mostly refining details and it’s only once in a while that you find a significant breakthrough: lighter technologies, thinner boards, inflatable planing boards, cut-away designs. After a while, everybody has something similar and we’re refining in terms of millimetres. This is when I get a bit bored. We need to put in a lot of energy and resources to get smaller returns. This is Remi Vila’s strength. He loves that kind of challenge, to find those advancements that give us the edge. I enjoy hashing out new things like foils so naturally, I jumped on the opportunity.

STARTING POINT