Until a couple of years ago the F2 formula boards were not worth much to write about, but with the FX 100 III, F2 introduced a competitive board. The board separates from the contemporary Starboards

• by being longer

• by having a very contoured deck

• by having very big and deep cut outs in the tail

• by being built in carbon/sandwich instead of glass/veneer as the outer shell

• by having a couple of so called air pipes.

The contour of the deck together with the carbon/sandwich makes a very stiff board that in turn is pretty sensitive to dings. The contours towards the rails in particular are very prone to damage, and in fact it's impossible to let the rig "resting" in the water, (causing the mast to press down on the deck) without this resulting in deep dents in the deck. Mostly it's not worth while getting these dents repaired at once, so most owners of the FX 100 III lets the damages accumulate before they get them repaired. Some F2 III riders try to minimize the dents by gluing on some ribbons made from foot pad material or the like.

The most eye catching feature of the F2 III is probably the air pipes (a couple of pipes, connecting the deck with the deepest part of the cut outs). The claimed effect of the air pipes is to be to equalize the difference in pressures over and below the the board (the vacuum that's claimed to be in the cut outs) that otherwise is said to slow down the speed of the board.

When you as a kind of experiment try to close the air pipes by means of foam or the like, you'll have to be a very incarnated F2 fan to feel the any difference relative to let the air pipes work in their designed way.

But air pipes or not - it's a fact that the F2 III sail very fast when going deep, while on a beam reach it shows a tendency to be lifted from the water a little earlier than the contemporary Starboard 159. Probably both of these characteristics are the results of the big and very deep cut outs - at the same time letting the nose lift-off pretty quickly (caused by the relatively little surface in the bottom of the tail) as well as allowing the board to sail very "free".

Generally most sailors shall probably find the F2 III a bit more technical demanding to sail than the contemporary Starboard 159.