What sort of fin solutions are there (if any) to digging rails? Would more or less fin area help? I was thinking less fin would create less lift, therefore it’d keep the nose up more? Give me the magic bullet, puh-leeeeze!!
What you talkin’ bout Willis?
talkin’ about, I’m goin’ down the line and I’m digging my rail!, consistently, on this one board I have - & what seems to make it dig is too much lift in the tail, so I was wondering if smaller fins would help… I know I’m probably grasping at straws here, but I’m wondering If anyone has an opinion on what sort of solutions there may be… I don’t know, is there any connection at all between the fins and the old rail diggin’ problem?
Hmm… I’m no expert by any stretch of the imagination. I’d say it might help to know what kind of board it is, what shape of rails it has, and what else you surf. I surf a 6’0" twin fish a lot, with a lot of thickness through to the nose and out to the rail and it makes me a heavy front-footed surfer. Then when I get on a shortboard I always bury the rail for a few waves, especially on my backhand. In that case it’s just a learned way of loading the board that doesn’t work with a thinner-railed board… but maybe it’s the fins or something in your case. I’m sure there are people on here who have more accurate troubleshooting, but they probably need to know more about your setup(s) to guess at it. I would say… try some other fins whenever you get a chance, it’s not hard with fin systems and you almost for sure know someone who has an extra set of a different size who will loan 'em to you, or else have another set in a different board.
Peace and good luck
Thanks BC! - I switch from a fish to an egg to a stub and back & I’d say i’m also very front footed, and maybe it’s an issue of switching to this board, which is longer, requires a more sensitive approach?, but this longer board only managed to do the digging thing on hollower, faster waves… I guess if I boiled my questiondown to it’s essence: does more fin area create more or less lift in the nose?
My guess would be that your intuition is right… more fin area gives more lift to the tail, making the board plane flatter, and increasing wetted surface forward. Since that’s the only thing you can change, try smaller fins. But my guess is that it has more to do with the outline, rocker and rail than the fins.
more fin area will creat more drag and “hold”, and a less “responsive” feel to your board.
being able to toe-in your fins or increasing the fin’s splay would potentially solve the problem you are experiencing.
However if you have a standard fcs or futures fin set-up then you are pretty much stuck with only one option… try fifferent fin sizes to see if u can get some “release” so start with a smaller fin first and see if that “increased” responsiveness helps you with your current board shape.
if not, then another option would be to convert the board into a quad, this would reduce the centre fin drag and allow you to adjsut the rear fin splay settings to suit the board’s shape characteristics…
in the future, it would pay to have a fully adjustable fin system so that when u are in this situation, u will be able to resolve this without too much frustration.
for more info on adjustable fin systems: check out www.4wfs.com , there’s heaps of info there…
hope this helps…
Regards
deano
yep, it helps - the board is a quad, so I’ll go smaller all arond first, and then maybe even smaller rears… looking forward to some more waves, and giving it a try
btw, willis probably never “dug” a rail, but I think in his wayward post-famous-kid-actor-days he probably snorted a few! LOL
If your board is consistently “digging rails” you better look at rocker along the bottom and along the rail, rail volume, and rail profile. No matter what you do with your fins they will be unable to correct this problem.
Generally, digging rails is a problem that results from flatter rockers with insufficient rail volume. Surfboards generate down the line speed when the rider weights and unweights the rail. If the rail does not have suffiecient volume it “sinks” when “loaded” and does not lift out of the water on release.
An aggrivating experience best resolved with a redo on the shape that focuses on adequate rail volume.