Egg fin location

Hello all

So I'm putting together a  7' 2" egg.  My knowledge of fins, is to say the least, defficient; and from what I'm reading, eggs are a bit sensitive about their fins and placement?  Is that so?  Other readings have lead me to believe that close is good enough?  Thoughts?

The board is 15" at the tail, 22" at the mid, and 16" at the nose.  With 2 1/2" of tail kick and 4 1/2" of nose rocker.  I'm 6' 2" 195lbs of mediocre skill and will be in waist high to just overhead beach break mostly. 

I have an 8 1/2" futures box for the center fin and some FCS plugs for the rail fins.  My goal is to set the boxes/plugs in a manner that I could switch from 2+1 to single to thruster for comparison purposes.  Am I asking too much?

Also, any comments on the board dimensions would be helpful as well.....Thanks

Here is the AKU profile....[img_assist|nid=1057465|title=eggo board|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=0|height=0]

I made a board with very similar measurements 6'10" and set it up as a quad, 12" and 6", goes good in all conditions. 

A quad eh?  I've hadn't even considered a quad.....It would probably work pretty well at my favorite break.  If I like this board, I might have to rebuild it as a quad.  For now, I am interested in the single, 2+1, thruster comparison.  But Thanks for the inspiration....

When i surf my midlength as a thruster, i just put side fins in the boxes ( its a 2+1 ), and then put my centre fin so tha rear of it is 7" from the rear of the side fins. The fins end up being around 15" from the tail for the sides, and 8" from the tail for the centre fin. It works ridiculously well, just yesterday i paddled into a bit overhead wave, and was flying off the bottom and the top, it felt a foot shorter than it is. Very responsive as a thruster. It is like 2 completely different boards, depending on the fin setup. I used to try 2+1 setups, but now i surf it either as a thruster, or a single fin, which is also unreal in its on way.

 

Cheers

Thanks Beerfan, Hopefully the boxes will be set next weekend!  I 'preciate the imput....What do you think about the rocker on this board?  It was a bit of a guess in design.....

 

considering described waves, skill level and wide eggy shape, consider dropping the tail rocker 1/4" and increasing the nose by same for enhanced paddling/surfing glide…

Its gonna be a wood board and I already have the fish bone built, but I think I can reasonably bend it a 1/4" here or there.  Thanks!

I usually have the back of a long center box (the longest you can get) about where a small rear thruster fin would go, about 3 1/2" from the tail. You’ll need to have the fin and box to see where that lines up. Then I place the side boxes where a thruster side set would go. That way I can ride the board with a big single fin, or as a bigger single and 2 side bites, or as a thruster. 90% of the time, I ride them as singles with a 9" cutaway fin. If I get into heavier waves, I add the side fins, then going to the thruster setup is the third option. 

Play around with the fins a lot to see how it changes the way the board rides. I switched from my 9" cutaway to a 9" non cutaway and the board got a lot more drive. I’m not too keen on 7" fins on singles, I don’t think I get the hold I should have, but a 7" with side bites would work.

 

Sharkcoumntry makes an important point - I had a great board that ended with the fin box too far forward, and to ride it thruster (which ended up being the best ride), I had to notch the base of the rear fin in order to get it far enough back in the box…

Based on the general consensus, sounds like I need to trade my 8 1/2" center  box for a 10 1/2"-er.  Thanks

put the box you have with your long single fin as far up as it will go, then place it on the board about where it needs to be to have smaller thruster rear fin in the right location. If the fin looks like it’s in the right spot, you don’t have to get another box.

I use my gut feeling for where I start when I put the single in. I like to have the tip of the fin just inside tail tip or up as much as a couple of inches. More than that will give you a very loose board. This is based on all the singles I rode from the late 60’s up till the first thrusters were made, then going back to singles since 2006.

I really enjoy riding a single fin double ender 7’ or longer. Can’t say I’ve had the same feeling on the boards from 5-10 up to 6-6. I’ve found the 3 fin setup better on my shorter boards, but I’m also just starting to test quads on the the same boards. Huge difference when you take a smaller board and go from 1 big fin to 3 smaller fins. Even more when you go from 1 to 4.

I think it’s safe to say that 3, 4 and 5 fin boards are more high performance than a single fin.