2025 Ace Foil Lightning + Foil Blade: Trevor Tunnington Reveals the Tech Behind Starboard’s Innovations

With downwind foiling booming all across the globe, Starboard has unveiled two groundbreaking products just in time for two major international Downwind SUP Foil events in France – the Crozon Foil Festival and LAST Les Ailes de Saint Tropez. The Ace Foil Lightning board and the Foil Blade are designed to push the limits of downwind foiling, and with some of the world’s best riders, including Starboard’s Clément Colmas and Benoit Carpentier, gearing up for these competitions, the timing couldn’t be better. In this interview, Trevor Tunnington of Starboard shares the vision behind the launch, discussing how these new designs cater to the evolving needs of the downwind community while remaining accessible to a wider range of foilers. From performance-driven dimensions to the cutting-edge features of the Foil Blade, Trevor explains how Starboard continues to set new standards in the sport.

Hello Trevor, congratulations on these two highly anticipated products. What was the inspiration behind this launch, and how do these innovations push the boundaries of downwind foiling according to you?

It’s exciting to see the sport of downwind foiling evolve, and with evolution we wanted to challenge the limits and set a new benchmark. The lightning range is the next step in performance from our Ace Foil downwind range. The new line of longer and narrower sizes give dedicated downwind platform to riders using smaller and faster foils in the open ocean, and in particular, our narrowest model at 7’5″ x 15″ is an industry first, pushing the boundaries and showcasing what is really possible when you have a stable downwind design.

We also felt that it was needed to pair our new lightning range with a dedicated foil paddle. The Foil Blade is our low-aspect blade that targets maximum acceleration at low speeds and gives amazing acceleration from 0-10 km h. Acceleration is one of the most important components to getting onto foil quickly, and so having a low-aspect, low-speed blade is key.
What we found when developing a new line of SUP racing paddles is that high-aspect blade shapes work really well at maintaining high speeds on a SUP Race board. The requirements for foiling, however, were to have a low-speed, fast-accelerating blade. So we took our new line of high-speed, high-aspect racing blades and re-profiled them in a low-aspect, low speed, fast accelerating blade shape. Generally, after you are on foil you won’t use the blade a whole lot; however, the added bonus of the shorter blade also means that you are far less likely to hit your foil when foiling.

The Ace Foil Lightning range takes extreme design to new levels while remaining accessible to a broader range of foilers. What was the most challenging aspect of balancing high performance with usability?

I suppose the biggest challenge when creating these ranges is to keep in mind the needs of everybody. In foiling today, there are so many different foil designs on the market – and for somebody buying the board, you expect that this board will perfectly suit your foil. This is actually the main reason why we extended our Ace Foil range with the new Lightning designs – to make this pairing process easier and logical. That’s why we have kept our Ace Foil range in shorter sizes and brought out the Ace Foil Lightning editions in longer and much narrower sizes.

From an accessibility standpoint, our tactic was to follow our key design language not only in this range of foilboards, but all of our foilboards. No matter how extreme the sizing of a board, it will follow these two core components to ensure that you get maximum stability out of the shape.

Our core design components are:

1. Nose/tail/rail volume distribution.
All foil boards feature the world’s largest stabilizer – the foil mast. This mast provides you fantastic sideways stability. What we have learnt is that when we feel unstable on one of our test boards, it’s usually not the side to side stability that is in question, but it’s often coming from a lack of volume in the nose, tail or rails. To create a more stable foilboard, you need to distribute the volume in areas that aren’t as stable; i.e. the nose and tail are the first two places that sink when you lose balance, so we add volume here.
We also see that alot of foil boards in the market feature these beautiful chine rails. But a nice chine means that you need more width to make up for the lost volume. We instead created boxy rails in narrow sizes – and even though you are standing on a 15″ wide board, you feel like it’s 18″ wide or more.

2. Direct Foil Connection
Keeping a thin standing area gives you great connection to the foil and lowers your center of gravity – we learnt this many years ago in our SUP raceboard designs and this concept holds true for foiling as well. We call this the “high heels effect” and we feel that there aren’t many people in the downwind foiling world that want to downwind in high heels – so we make the board as thin as we can.

Throughout the entire foilboard range you will see more and less extreme versions of this design language.

In the development phase, you mentioned testing the 7’5” x 15” in Tenerife’s large ocean swells. Can you tell us more about the testing process and any surprises you encountered during these trials?

It was great to give the range one last tick in larger ocean swells in Tenerife. In Tenerife we had our first production samples for our annual distributor meeting where we showed the latest line of 2025 boards. And although the testing for the Ace Foil Lightning range had finished about 5 months earlier, we usually re-test all boards again in their first production form to double check pads, constructions, weight, rockers and feel.

For me personally, using the 7’5″ x 15″ in 35 knot winds with open ocean bumps was a truly special board. The board is 83L (I weigh in at 85kg) and it was surprisingly stable in large ocean swells as waves could wash over the board. It was also a pleasure to pair the board with much smaller foils than we would usually use for downwinding – using high aspect surf foils on large open ocean swells truly felt like we were big wave foiling. It was also exciting to introduce the team riders to our new designs too as this was the first time they’d seen the new gear – showing Fiona and Benoit and later on showing Zane, it was great to see the team so enthusiastic about downwind foiling.

The Ace Foil Lightning range features very specific board sizes. How did you determine the ideal dimensions for each model, and how do they cater to different rider profiles and downwind conditions?

So let’s start at the beginning. When we first made the Ace Foil Lightning range we wanted to test the theory that you could gain more stability in a narrower board by making it longer. So our first model was the 8’2″ x 18″ 101L model, which we tested against the 7’0″ x 20″ 100L model. Amazingly, at 2″ narrower, the 8’2″ x 18″ model was the more stable model. And when we tested more and more with the 18″ wide board, we felt the advantage in not just stability, but take off speed, and speed in the air – allowing you to pump further and faster. This first model really paved the road for us with development.

We then created the 7’6″ x 17″ 87L version, which we selfishly designed for ourselves (Dan is 80kg and I am 85kg so the 87L was the perfect volume), and when this smaller size was still incredibly stable we thought, “How small can we go? Finally we ended at 15” wide for our smallest size.

On a thorough back to back test with the Ace Foil and Ace Foil Lightning range; both ranges have their advantages. The Ace Foil with shorter and wider sizes make for a great crossover board for not just downwinding, but SUP foiling and wing foiling. The Ace Foil also pairs really well with medium aspect foils and is a super maneuverable size offering. However if you are serious about speed and like to use small high aspect foils then there are clear speed advantages to the Lightning editions.

As for different conditions, we find that downwind conditions vary a lot in each location. Hood River vs Maliko Run are two entirely different animals and require different foil gear. Even when testing the original Ace Foil Range last year in Australia, I found that there was a massive difference between downwind foiling in a southerly wind vs northerly wind because of swell directions. Southerlies produce a more spread out larger ocean swell, whereas the more rare, northerly winds, stack bumps closer together with less ocean interference, giving a much easier run and a more suited bump to shorter boards and slower foils.

So to put it simply, the Ace Foil Lightning range is designed for riders who will be in larger ocean swells with more spread out swells, and to make the most of these swells you will require a faster and smaller foil to keep on the wave. However the Ace Foil range is designed more for Hood River or steeper/smaller bumps where you don’t necessarily use such fast foils and don’t require a whole lot of speed before getting onto your foil. So it depends on what your home conditions are really.

The Foil Blade is designed to complement the performance of the Ace Foil range, especially with its low-aspect design and winglets. How important is the paddle in enhancing a rider’s foiling experience, and what makes the Foil Blade stand out from others on the market?

Acceleration as I mentioned before, is key to getting onto your foil (especially a small foil) and that’s really the low aspect blade comes into its element, giving you instant power from 0-10kmh.

For the Foil Blade we kept the main width quite low down on the blade so that you can graze the water and get good power if you need to paddle when on the foil – it gives you that extra boost to get higher on the foil.

The blade features a double concave for even power distribution over the face, and this has a nice and smooth feel about it because the power is not so locked in but is levered over the blade. The shallow double concave has also allowed us to go much thinner with our blade so you have a super lightweight blade that has a clean entry and exit to the water – giving you great control.
On the edges of the Foil Blade we featured this winglet design.

Winglets are getting more and more popular in foil design, and what they do is actually pretty cool – you can see the same on airplanes. Winglets create less turbulence when air (or water) releases from the tips of your wing or in our case our blade. So while it makes foils smoother, it also makes the paddle blade smoother, and reduces that “flutter” which is that wiggly motion from your blade. Low aspect paddles are more prone to flutter than higher aspect blades because of their width, so the winglet is especially helpful on the Foil Blade.

Lastly the blade features a 14.3 degree angle, and this helps you to accelerate forward and bring the board out of the water – helping you to boost out of the water.

You’ve spoken about the future of downwind foiling being shaped by the Ace Foil Lightning. Where do you see the next big advancements in SUP foiling, and how do these products fit into that vision?

It’s a tricky question: what’s next?

I think the big surprise for us with the new Ace Foil Lightning range is that this range fits the needs of our most elite racers while being accessible for intermediate customers. It’s a truly high performance consumer board, which is exciting. I think the accessibility aspect to downwinding will be the future when we think about product evolution – and our findings with the lightning range is that by making something longer, narrower, with the correct volume distribution and direct foil connection… you can have the best of both worlds with good stability in crazy sizes. So I suppose these boards are future proof in a way, ready for even faster foils to come to market while still being accessible to downwind foilers today.

With the growing popularity of wing foiling, how does the Ace Foil Lightning perform for wing foilers? Were there any design features specifically aimed at optimizing this dual-use potential?

The wing foiling aspect is always fun with these kinds of boards, as their primary goal is downwind foiling but it’s surprising how good they work with a wing. The Ace Foil Lightning as you’d expect has a super fast feeling when you wing it, and takes off super fast with almost no wind required. If you like going fast in light winds or strong winds then this is a super fun board. If you are wanting a downwind board that has more maneuverability and all round performance then I would recommend checking out the shorter sizes in the Ace Foil range. The Ace Foil boards have been very popular for winging as they’re still reasonably small, maneuver great and can be used on super light wind days.
The Ace Foil range has also inspired us on the wing side this season and we are shortly coming out with a mid length range later in the year that is a blend of the Take Off and Ace boards. This range will be focused on freeride and easy foiling. As for the Ace Foil and Ace Foil Lightning ranges on the wing – speed and lightwind are the most fun conditions for these boards in my opinion!

More information on the Ace Foil Lightning:
https://sup.star-board.com/paddle-board/hard-paddle-board/ace-foil-lightning/

More information on the Foil Blade:
https://sup.star-board.com/paddle-board-paddles/foil-blade-paddle/