i’m about to make a 5’5" quad fish modelled off a mandala quad i’ve been drooling over in the resources section:
(Quad Fish by Mandala, see the Resources Section 5’ to 5’11" for more details, photos used without permission - sorry)
i aim to make the fins from ply. leading fins to be single-foiled & trailers to be double-foiled.
i’m wondering if any fellow swaylockians can help with fin templates &/or dimensions, as well as specs for toe & cant, distance from tail & stringer etc. that is, i’m after specifics. i’ve had a good look in the archives but not much success.
for reference i’m 5’5" & currently riding a 5’7" twin-keeled fish i made a few months back:
(see this thread for further details if you’re keen):
the quad i’m aiming to make will have similar dimensions to the fish i made (see above), but will be a couple of inches shorter & a touch more refined in terms of thickness.
Back set go 6’’ up from the tail and 2’’ in from the rails, and the front set go 11’’ up from the tail and 1.5’’ in from the rails. I usually put very little toe in the back set maybe an 1/16 to 1/8’’ maybe and put around 1/4’’ of toe in the front set. I always use the same placing but change the toe depending on the friend or wave I am building the board for.
The canard quad set me free about a year and a half ago, as I am sure that you will understand shortly. It will blow your mind.
Thanks go out to our forefathers that brought this design down to us.
This is on a 5-8 fish. 22.5 three inches in front of center, 17.5 nose, 17.5 tail, 12.5 between tips, 6 inch crack. All four fins are 1 1/8 inches off the rail. The rear fins are 6.5 inches from tips. The lead fins are 12 inches from tips(rear edges). The rear fins have no cant and no toe-in. The lead fins have /8 inch cant and 4 degrees cant.This board is less tracky and a bit looser than my traditional keeled boards and perhaps a little less drive,too. Are the differences do to the fins? I don’t know and wouldn’t venture to say. They work, though. Fun board in the right surf for this fat old man. Good luck and have fun. Mike
Mike , if it’s not pushing a friendship , can you please post a shot or two of the fins ?
…Possibly looking from the tail to the nose in one of the shots ? [so we can see the cant and toe , as well as the distance between the fins ?] …is that okay with you , mate ?
Futures and Lokbox offer the fins, those are from the Pavel quad canard design by Toby Pavel.
Lokbox has posted fin positions and angles multiple times before, possibly at surfermag design instead of here, but IIRC the front fins are toed 1/8" and the rears not at all…spacing between them is pretty critical…
trailing edge measuring 5 1/2 from pins for the back fins and 11 for the front fins.
somewhere probably between 1- 1 1/4 off of the rail…
Front fins toed in 1/8th", rear straight to 1/16th"
Would these measurements stil work okay if the back set of fins were the same size and template as the front set of fins ? Or would you move the fins further apart / forward/ back ?
I’ll post pictures. But, right now I can’t even see pictures. Can I post them if I can’t see them? I took the baseline measurements from a friend’s fish with the Pavel quads and adjusted them a bit to suit my board. His fish is a Coletta from Santa Cruz. Mine are glass on although I would like to get set-up with Lokbox. I’m disatisfied with the Future system in that if you frequently switch fins the box and screw wear out. FCS has the same problem. I like the selection of fins for both, though. Oldy, let us know how it all turns out. Mike
many thanks rooster & icarus. you guys have been so helpful. i really appreciate your generosity.
okay, so i think i’ve got the placement numbers down. now i’m interested in your ideas about templates. here’s the fins from my current twin-keeled fish:
the keel size is as follows: 9 & 3/4" base, 5" deep (these measurements include the 1/4" clear halo around the entire fin).
now from what i’ve read about the quad, the idea is to ‘split’ the D-shaped keel into two seperate fins, the theory being that you thus get the same amount of drive but much more rail-to-rail sensitivity because you are surfing off two fin clusters instead of one.
so do you think i should be thinking about two sets of fins that are around 5" deep add up to a base depth of around 9 & 3/4" (ie. the total base depth of my D-shaped keels) or do you guys have other ideas about what works better.
ideally, like chipfish, i love photos since i’m visual but even descriptions of the leading & trailing sets of fins (ie. base, depth, rake) would be helpful.
I’ve read that explanation of the split fin, too. Probably on Sways. I don’t know the answer to your question. Maybe Blakestah or Halcyon will pop in. I don’t analyze like that. I look at something and think,‘that looks fun or that looks cool.’ If I think I can build it I try it out. If it lets me surf the way I like to surf(fast,smooth, and down the line)I say it’s good. If not I might tweak it or just sale the thing and try something else. One of my favorites is a 5-10 with big poorly foiled 9x5 double foiled keels. Straight up with no cant. Better than the canards? No. Just different feel. Still fast and smooth. It’s all fun. Mike
just stumbled across this photo in another thread. i think i’ll use these fins on the pavel quad for inspiration, as mandala obviously has.
i’ll have to use a bit of guesswork to work out the templates, but i imagine the fins are around 5" deep. anyone out there who can set me straight? i’m open to ideas.
