Dubbed as the lightest slalom board range on the market, the 66 is the middle board in the five-strong SL range. Mistral say that “the perfect volume distribution for balance and forgiveness in manoeuvres provides you with that extra blast to overtake your competition”.

Design: It has a tiny bit of tail rocker (2mm) and a much shorter planing flat than the other slalom board on test, with the 2cm point at 148. It also has a very narrow tail in comparison to the other slalom board, but a little more vee (although still less than the freeride and freerace boards).

On the water: While not actually materially quicker than the other slalom board on test it felt really fast and very lively. It requires quite a lot of attention from the sailor and feels as if there’s definitely no room for error once you’re at top speed – a challenging nature that the more experienced sailors really enjoyed. The most characteristic difference to the other slalom board is with the narrow tail, making it more of a downwind racer that needed a little bit more time to develop its speed. It would go upwind on the rail very well when powered but this required a fair amount of skill. It was a comfortable board to sail with a very nice dome to the rail, which gave a good driving position.

Fittings: It comes with a 38cm G10 Tuttle box fin (unfortunately this never arrived so we tested it with the 37cm fin from the Ray). The deckpads were very comfy as were the footstraps. The deck featured similar ridges to the Screamer, supposedly enhancing the stiffness of the board and adding comfort.

Overall: Despite being a fairly technical board to sail, it was extremely enjoyable. It’s nice to feel the sensation of going fast when you are actually sailing at speed, even if you are no faster than your rivals. It would be an exciting board to sail with or without your mates to race against. We would recommend it to any advanced / expert sailors looking for a technical high speed blasting or racing board.