Freeride vs Freerace vs Race Sails: I Tested All Three

Freeride, freerace or a full race sail: which one is the right sail for you? To find out, I took all three out on the same day in Langebaan, South Africa. The conditions were absolutely perfect: flat water and 20 knots. Same board, same fin, GPS on every run. And because I also wanted to know why these sails feel the way they do, I asked the person who designed all three of them.

By the end of this guide you'll know what really changes from one sail type to the next, how each one felt on the water, and which one fits the way you sail. You can also watch the whole test on my YouTube channel.

Freeride vs freerace vs race sails: where they sit

Imagine a line from easy and slower to difficult and faster. On the far left you have an IKEA bag, on the far right an America's Cup sail. In between, starting on the left, there's a beginner sail, then the wave sails, and then we're in the freeride section.

• Freeride sail: a sail with little twist, so it powers up even with not a lot of wind in the sail. No cams, a small mast sleeve and a moderate luff curve. That makes for a light feel and ease of use.
• What a freeride sail doesn't give you, at least not compared with the cambered sails further to the right, is a rock-solid feeling with a very defined pressure point.
• Race sail: that rock-solid feel, combined with a lot of twist and luff curve and therefore plenty of top-end speed potential, is what you find in the slightly heavier racing sails.
• Freerace sail: something nice in the middle, between a sail without cams and a full-on race sail.

What cams do in a windsurf sail

The dividing line is mostly the cams, or cambers: little spacers at the mast that hold the sail's shape for power and stability, at the cost of weight and easy handling.

Here's how the designer of the three sails I tested explained it. The freeride sail is designed to be as fast and as high-performance as possible without using cams. As I put it to him: basically a race sail without cambers. He agreed: in the end it has a very, very similar shape in the profile to the freerace sail, and the two share the same batten configuration. Because it doesn't have a cam, it can depower and become much flatter when the wind isn't in the sail, and then it becomes fuller and gets its profile when the wind comes in.

Apart from the cams, the two are pretty much the same: the materials are the same too. Where the differences start: the sleeve width and the luff curve. With cams, the luff curve has to be adjusted a little to regulate the pressure, compared with the sail without cams. So those are small differences. The same concept, just worked around cams and no cams.

Where the cams sit

The freerace sail has two cams: one below the boom and one above it. That's the deepest area of the profile, plus the two longest battens. The idea is to keep the number of cams down, to keep the weight down and the rotation soft.

That's also why there's no cam on the foot batten of a freerace sail. A cam on the foot batten gives you a fuller profile in the bottom, which is nice, but it really influences the rotation in a negative way. It's something you put into racing sails, but you don't want it on a freerace sail.

My test: same board, same fin, three sails

To make the test as comparable and accurate as possible, I used the same board on all three sails: a 111-litre, 70 cm wide board that sits right between a pure race board and a freeride board. It makes racing a little more comfortable: almost as fast as a slalom board, but more effortless. Under it, the 40 cm G10 fin that comes with the board.

The sails: the Speedster 7.2 as the freeride sail, the V8 7.2 as the freerace sail and the RS:Racing Evo 7.4 as the race sail, all from the same brand and the same designer. And the spot is incredible: you go down the flat water piste and then you carve into the jibe, no chop. Here's what the GPS said.

Freeride sail: effortless

The freeride sail I tested is definitely on the racy side, with a lot of luff curve and eight battens. That makes it very stable, a very stable profile, yet you don't have all the hassle of a pure race sail. You don't have a massive mast sleeve that sucks full of water. You have better handling, basically.

On the water I had 30.8 knots max speed, my benchmark for the other two. I was on the 7.2, and the wind actually dropped right before I went out, to about 15 knots. A freeride sail like this really creates a lot of power. You get a lot of it in your back hand, and that really keeps you going. I could easily have used the 6.7, so you can use smaller sails than, for example, with a race sail. That's what makes it effortless in the end, and that's what the sail is made for. Also in the jibes: you don't lose the centre of gravity so easily. Controllability on point.

I asked the designer if that's why you can use a freeride sail in a smaller size. In his opinion, you wouldn't use it smaller than the freerace sail, but definitely smaller than a racing sail. He'd normally expect the freeride and the freerace sail to start planing at the same size, and if anything, the freerace sail might even get planing slightly earlier because of the extra profile.

Freerace sail: two cams, extra power

First things first: of course I went faster with it. How much? 0.7 knots, 31.5 knots max speed with the two cams, one below and one above the boom.

What that does in terms of feeling: it gives you stability when the gust hits you, so you don't get overwhelmed as easily, and a bit more acceleration. It just goes when the gust hits, and you don't really have to deal with a lot. The stable profile helps with that, and of course brings you to a higher top-end speed.

On the other hand, it's a little heavier than the sail without cams. So in the jibes you struggle a little more. It depends on your level of course, but it definitely doesn't make it easier. Same in the rotation: when you take the sail onto the new side, you really get a bam, and you have to hold on to it so it doesn't pull you over, because the cams rotate a bit harder than just the battens.

Otherwise I had good fun out there. It's something nice in the middle, between a sail without cams and a full-on race sail. And that's exactly the designer's idea behind it: if you just want something that gives you extra power and a little wider wind range, you choose the freerace sail.

Race sail: maximum speed, maximum effort

From the freerace to the race sail is the really big step in the design concept. The design brief here is basically completely open: make it as fast as you can, with as big a wind range as you can.

The first thing you see is the luff sleeve: five, six times wider or something. That's not acceptable for normal riders, because the waterstart, taking the sail out of the water, everything is really compromised. But it's all designed to get the maximum performance. A totally different philosophy, not designed around cost at all. It has pure carbon battens, and to give you an idea: for the cost of one carbon tube you get about five normal fibreglass tubes. The whole upper film, the upper body, is 25% thinner, which the designer doesn't want on the freeride and freerace sails because it makes the sail much more fragile. But the people who are after performance really look after their sails. Same with the carbon tubes: they're not only expensive, they also break more easily. All things you risk and sacrifice to get the maximum performance.

On the water I had 32.6 knots. That's quite a difference to the freerace sail. If you look at the sail, it's just such a different concept, with a majorly bigger mast sleeve. You really get an aerodynamic shape and a lot of pull in the gust. It really keeps accelerating, and that's something you have to be used to. Otherwise you can really get scared. You have to know how to deal with it, and how to fly over the chop at such a speed.

It takes a lot more effort. In fact, this was the only sail of the three that kept my heart rate over 135 beats per minute for quite some time. In the jibe you feel like you have something heavier. I might make it look easy, but that doesn't mean it will be easy for you: it's really hard to keep the mast straight in the jibe and to bring it back into the right position. And especially if you fall and the mast sleeve fills with water, it gets more difficult. (How to keep the mast upright through the jibe is in my power jibe tutorial.)

But it also gives you that extra bit of speed, which you might want to have, or might not. I definitely want to have it.

Why race sails keep accelerating

With a freerace sail you feel that at some point there's a point of resistance, and you can't go faster. With the race sail it feels like endless acceleration. So I asked the designer why.

The big difference: he designs each sail for a certain speed. Where we're sailing, there's a lot of turbulence, and the wind is much cleaner and kind of faster towards the top of the sail. If you're sailing really fast, the shift in the apparent wind angle is much bigger than on the slower sails. That's actually the reason why the faster the sails are, the more release they have.

On a slower sail, the top starts overloading because of this shift. It can't release, and it can't accelerate over a certain speed.

Match the sail to your board

Freeride gear is easy but slow, slalom gear is technical but fast. So what if you go half half? In another test in Bonaire, in 15 to 18 knots, I went to the extremes on purpose. Not a freerace sail, but a really freeridey sail, the Ryde 7.7, on a full-power slalom board. And the other way around: my race sail, the RS:Racing Evo 8.2, on a really easy freeride board with 119 litres, not a freerace board. GPS on both runs.

• Freeride sail on the slalom board: out of sync the whole time. The slalom board is very reactive and stiff. You feel every single chop, you take every single chop, and you need to feel it because you're working with it. The sail, however, doesn't have as stable a profile as a racing sail and responds much slower. The mast on that rig wasn't 100% carbon and the boom was aluminium, not carbon, so the sail responded very slowly. I felt uncomfortable on this combination.
• Race sail on the freeride board: quite the opposite, and I was really surprised. The profile of the sail is super stable, and the board goes over the water super smooth. Of course you have a big mast sleeve, so the handling is more difficult: if you fall and the sleeve fills with water, on the beach, carrying it, and in the jibes. But once you're riding, it's way easier.

With the freeride sail it's a bit the opposite: the riding isn't so comfortable, but handling the sail is easier, because it's not as heavy and doesn't have a big mast sleeve.

I liked the race sail on the freeride board a lot better, and it was faster too: 54 km/h against 52 km/h with the freeride sail, about a knot. Not that fast in general, the speeds weren't that high, but interesting to see. And that was with the stock fin in the freeride board, a very slow fin compared with the carbon race fin in the slalom board. Just being more stable got me more speed. And as soon as you put a race fin in a freeride board, you're going to get so much more speed out of it. (Which fin goes in which board is in my fin size guide.)

I wouldn't recommend it to you in this extreme way, but in a bit less extreme way: a freerace sail with a freeride board, or a race sail with a freerace board. Then sail and board are a little closer together. A sail that is more stable with a board that is more stable makes a lot more sense.

The race sails, by the way, you can always use a little bigger than freeride sails. And the price difference is big: a slalom board goes anywhere from 2,500 to 3,000 euros recommended retail price, and a slalom rig with a carbon mast and a carbon boom somewhere from 4,000 to 5,000 euros.

Which windsurf sail is right for you?

Be honest about how you actually sail.

• Freeride sail: you want it effortless. Lots of power, easy handling, easy jibes, and you can use a smaller sail than with a race sail.
• Freerace sail: you want extra power and a little wider wind range. Stable in the gusts, more acceleration, a bit more work in the jibe.
• Race sail: speed is the whole point. You look after your gear, you're ready for the effort, and you know how to handle the pull.

And whichever you pick, match it to your board. Below you'll find the three sails at a glance, side by side. Save the card on your phone and take it to the beach.