The low down
The Manta FR (Free Race) is Tabou’s freerace board line and is the little brother to their full-on slalom range, the Manta, sharing many design features to make them fast as well as user-friendly. The range is available in six sizes and comes in carbon sandwich construction.

At a glance
It has a very compact outline, coming out as the shortest board in this group, it has a rounded nose and wide tail. Underneath it has deep double concaves upfront and vee in the tail. On the deck it is flat up front and nicely domed at the back, with deep ramped footpads for extra comfort on-board. It comes with quality footstraps and also a T-Lab Tuttle box slalom fin for top performance.

Performance
It accelerates extremely quickly off the beach, with the deep double concave hull lifting it smoothly up onto the plane. The volume is well distributed but it does feel very compact under foot, so heavier riders may notice this. The ride from the straps is very comfortable, the ramped footpads are well cushioned and the riding position is perfect for high speed blasting. The hull shape and short nose deals extremely well with rough or choppy conditions, soaking up the bumps for a smooth and secure ride, which gives you the confidence to really push it hard. It is a very fast board in a straight-line, we found it especially impressive in super powered up conditions. In the corners it continues to deliver smooth and controllable handling, with very rewarding gybing characteristics, it loves the high-speed wide arc and maintains maximum speed for the exit of every gybe.

The verdict
The Manta is very fast and comfortable, making it a very competitive racer and an excellent freerace board. We found it delivered its best performance when fully maxed and it was particularly good when you were on the limit or in challenging conditions, where it would make everything feel easy and never punish you for pushing too hard. It would suit a wide range of speed hungry riders, best suited to medium-lightweights however, who are looking for a serious freeracing machine.

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