Freestyle/Freerace/Freeride

quote:
Understand that the Expression is for freestyle sailing (as stated in your article for those who want to get airborne off every piece of chop), & based on my interest, I'm more into freeride/freerace sailing. Is it still ok to get a Expression sail instead?

Junie, the expression is a 5 batten sail designed for maneuvers. The soft feel of such a sail is a huge advantage when doing tricks but is unsuited for boards like formula boards. Since you are clearly oriented towards freeride/freerace, look for sails with 6 or more battens eg the GTR from Gaastra or similar sails from other brands.

What's the disadvantage of the expression (or the Gaastra Echo which is also a similar sail)?

Stability: the sail will deform earlier than sails oriented towards freeride/freerace. This may give you a front arm heavy feeling. CWG used an Echo on the hypersonic last weekend and found the sail to be very front hand heavy - thats cos like the expression the echo is built for maneuvers and bursts of accelaration, not smooth steady sailing on a board that has high apparent wind.

Foot cut: The freestyle sails have a very high foot cut so that they can be used for tricks without the foot of the sail catching. This means you are unable to rake the sail to the deck of the formula board in order to get good power especially for upwind sailing.

Stance: The freestyle sails suit a relaxed legs, weight a bit inboard stance (look at pictures of wave sailors etc). Formula boards are best driven off the fin using a more powerful leg stance so these sails are far from ideal.

Almost any sail can work (to some extent) on any board as long as the sizing is sensible but I would encourage you to look for something with a bit more stability and range. If you are into freestyle then its a perfect choice, if not..look again.