i rember that add, etc. but do not recall any feedback on how they worked. KP would know. having a spoon and knowing how it doesn’t float too well, i suspect there is too much glass in the tail area of that board…KP??
I used a fin very much like the one in a picture on a 6’4" single fin summer board (kind of a Ala Moana Brewer style board shaped by Pat Flecky) back in the mid mid 70’s. I’m thinking Bahne made the fin but I could be wrong. Anyway, the fin went OK, but not good enough to use that design forever.
That board looks like it would be awfully tail heavy.
Come to think of it, I remember seeing a tunnel fin on a Jeff Ho board in the used rack at his shop one day about the time that ad went to press. Don’t recall ever seeing any pictures of it though. It was a long low profile fiberglass tunnel unlike any of the others I’ve seen lately. Skip Engbloom was behind the counter that day and we spoke about it briefly. He didn’t seem very stoked on it… (?)
The fiberglass flex tails are still being made by at least two people I can think of… The Pendoflex boards down in San Diego are rumored to be made in that fashion, then the scoop is filled in with EVA foam which is reshaped to a more conventional dome deck contour.
Mitchell Rae in Australia is doing something like that with the deck scoop filled in with flexible foam. Those too are initially glass or carbon flex panels.
Without dissecting a couple, I can’t say for certain but I think the Pendoflex and Rae boards are pretty similar in construction.