Lots of you are commenting on those exact fins. Surely that one design is not perfect in all conditions?
It’s just like all the others but refined a certain way.
The geometry must vary for various conditions, just like all the others.
Now if they would just get rid of the curvy bit at the end, the turbulence would disappear and that might make it even better.
personal and team feedback combined… here goes…
light weight = feels great to have less weight in your boards tail area
all riders seemed to paddle 2 more strokes to catch the wave,all commented they work better in the more powerful part of the wave, didnt seem to flow as far in fatter surf.
considerable hum at speed, made no difference when sanding the relativly poor twopac bead down to a thin trailing edge.
template feels fine, definitly do have a lot of cant (12+) in the legs preset.
several reports of tab failure if overtightened, NB= soft core collapse, with screw going thru the skin of the shell.
my alterations would be to reduce the cant to a normal 5-7 degrees and remove the inside foil.
all my team riders so far have gone back to normal carbon or glass fins after a few days and found them just as useful in surfing… just another fin to use in other waves on different boards!
p.s. i think the full text of the award gives them a lot of credit for the packaging and marketing of the fin… good on them (fcs) as lots of customers want to buy them and try them… ive sold out again!
I think the toe and cant listed there are relative to the plugs, not the board. That meshes with the text.14 degrees is a LOT of cant.
yes, after re-reconsidering i think you are right and what they mean is that the new fins are set with 1 degree more toe in than regular, not 1 degree of toe. FCS would need to cater for custormers who wanted to change fins or put the new ones into existing boards, so rather than instruct shaper to mark the plugs with extra toe in, offsetting the tabs on the new fins would allow the interchangeability
Howzit cb, to quote George Greenough,he says that fin design is so important that every pro surfer should be spending about $20,000. a year on fin desgn. That works out to about $880,000.00 a year for the tour surfers as a whole. Aloha,Kokua
Hi Kokua,
Well, I don’t know how serious George was when he made the comment. He more than anyone knows that all you need are a sander and foiling/testing experience in the line up. Where else would you spend the money?
I for one consider the tank testing by what are effectively amateur board makers, the biggest waste of money I have encountered in the industry to date. How much better and more valid would any testing have been if say 20 fin companies were asked to supply a couple of models each for comparison…
YES U CAN skeltor www.ebodyboarding.com the are the tech’s great drainage systemonly problem is u can’t walk on reef or hard surfaces with them my first pair cracked in two but they said the wored out the kinks from the first batch(which is where mine came from) and they are fine my replacement pair to date has had no troubles
Something out there tells me that a lot of fin makers may not want to be compared to others, for obvious reasons.
I have not used these fins, but have tried similar, as many have, so I believe they are onto something.
Good solid marketing wins the race again. At this point they could dare anyone to do a comparison, as they are on it already and would probably come out on top.
The money spent isn’t always a good indication of the money spent on r+d. The grant writers I know spend more time sitting writing for grants than doing actual work.
so i guess we can all agree this is not “revolutionary”
“H-2”…hmmmm…wonder what the “H” stands for?
HYPE?
It comes down, once again, to feel. To my way of feeling, they work fine, better on some boards, and better at some breaks. Small waves, small boards, speedy flick turns and lip launches, they are fun. Feel a little looser, as expected. Even surprisingly good on long lined up overhead bowly waves. React quickly, adjust well to getting in the tube and don’t seem to lose much speed in turns. But nothing earthshattering. Haven’t noticed any extra blazing speed yet. And in my boards for bigger hollow powerful barrels, I switched 'em back to the standard old favorites. Just have a better smoother more dependable feel esp when hitting hard gauges at full umph. I will soon be taking 'em to some South Pacific racetracks to compare vs the usual…
i had to re-read your post…it all makes sense…most of that proly comes from the lower rake…be interesting to compare these with a set of “K” fins which are also less rakey…their entry also includes more toein and lots more cant…these have huge affect using any type of fin…funny thing about all this is there’s very little mention on foil…thats where some fins simply outdo others…lots of foil variety within the FCS line and that I will give them credit for…
so i guess we can all agree this is not “revolutionary”
“H-2”…hmmmm…wonder what the “H” stands for?
HYPE?
i think they just named it after the Hummer H2 so people would have that psychological word association and think that the fins are bigger and better than the rest. or maybe it is hype.
The H could be for hydro. Not many hummers in oz.
As far as fin hum comments from feraldave, the pictures obviously don’t show enough detail, but the flow tank shot shows the reason for hum quite clearly.
The trailing edge looks to be the standard, blunt, rounded, out-of-the-mould, inacurate edge. I’m very picky when it comes to accuracy, and as important as any element is on a fin, the trailing edge is where you want the water to create, transfer and release energy cleanly, not have it confused by small curves. The flow tank shot shows this as well.
The foil has a shape for a reason, and none I’ve ever seen have a small rounded off trailing edge or resin bead in their coordinates. Efficiency can rely a lot on accuracy.
Trailing edges can be flattened off, not sharp or rounded. I think the rule is the flat can be around 1% of the foil thickness. This does not make a large enough void to cause problems, and creates a clean release edge for both sides of the foil.
Also sounds like they needed to put a hard point in the base to fix the overtightening damage problem.
The H could also stand for Help!!!
Funny you should mention the Kfins. That’s the fin set I was working with before trying the H2s. Despite what some might say, it’s a valid fin that works. When put up them against each other, the tips of the H2s and the Ks are not much apart. The H2s just get there more directly with not as much curve and the H2s are a bit longer. Actually the H2s are more similar in template to the Ks than the standar type G5 is to the H2. As to foil, it’s a rounded front edge maybe 80/20 type and also a concave inside foil. As to hum, I haven’t heard any at all, as opposed to the Vectors and Hatchet I tried which were really loud at speed. The trailing edge looks clean and normal. Perhaps someone got some early (Aust) makes? For all their differences, I’m surprised they ride not all that different. Still testing.
i bet if one took the K fin and rounded the leading edge (80/20) you’d have a similar ‘poorman’s’ version of the H2…
off all the FCS foils I like the K and Rusty the most, the 3k next…hate everything else esp the G5…butt-ugly curve and too thin for a tepmplate that size…
I am not sold yet on the idea of rounding off the leading edgeb to say 80/20. I modified a set of fins to 80/20 and didn’t like the results. They seemed to turn a tiny bit easier and smoother, and lost a little of the thrill of a hard biting 90 degree cut at full speed. They were a little boring on the hyper I was testing them on. But maybe if you put them on a board that was too stiff or thick it might help get a better feel though.
“Good solid marketing wins the race again.”
I wonder which race this is?
Not the one I’m in, I assure you.
The configuration of the H-2 fin is not that progressive IHMO. Here’s what I see: Higher aspect, smaller profile, shorter base, more toe-in, and more cant with subtle changes in foil from a standard flat-side thruster set-up, They put a little dent in the high pressure side which does help with fin lift. On the other side of the coin they did piss poor job on tapering the tip.
What you get in performance is this. They are more sensitive to directionally change and slightly more speed sensitive because they are more high aspect and a realitively short root cord and added cant. They had to toe them in more or they wouldn’t have had enough punch but the still don’t have as much as a standard set of rail fins. They did double foil the leading edge of the rail fins slightly which helps over all performance enormously.
The H-2s look weak to me and don’t look flighty enough to my eye. When I have close look at the foils there just isn’t that much going on. The new fins on the market already look cheaper than the originals – just a silver paint job with epoxy over it. Not the snappy metalic fabric on the orginials. Who knows what’s inside.
So if the race is to the bank they may have a head start, but if the race is on a surfboard? Red-X is way ahead, and then there’s Halcyon Custom Fins. I may figure in the picture somewhere but I don’t have a clue where. I just ask surfers to make theri own decisions after comparing set-ups objectively.
When I size things up with H-2s: Market hype is what put the styles in the H and the fin put the cross hatch in it. So that’s about 20% or so. Maybe the H-3s will be better. If the race is 100 meters they in it for the first 20.
As for me ~ I’m leaving three fins for a while and going to four. They won’t be called H-4s though. I’ll come up with something better and I’m I getting some ideas as I write.
I’m sure Tubedog isn’t done with his reports on fin performance. It’s guys like him that cut throught to bull.
If you want a producton fin IMHO, Red-X’s 80-20 foil is far more sophisitcated and I have no doubt that on the same board they will out perform H-2s. Trouble is until we have a fin box that’ll accept both fins (Though I think T.O. has something in the works) we won’t know and some like tubedog to ride it we won’t really know, will we?
Share the stoke, Rich
The race to the top of the pile of course, or was it the race to the top of the shit heap where the grass is greener. Marketing sadly is not product, so long as they sound scientific and sell.
Not sure how long they’ll stay there, but if the avarage surfer is told it works and thinks it works, then they buy.
No matter what they tout, they are not the only fin in the world.
I’m still sure mine are better, and I guess yours are too.
Halcyon… I have something I want you to look at and see of you can make it for me. You up for that? PM me if you are.
To everyone discussing the tip vortex on the H2’s. I dont think this is completly correct, download the video, I’d say this is a lamina bubble. Classic tip votices form away from the foil, not near the leading edge.
Would you agree it makes it less efficient?
Its a cool picture. Obviously, for comparative value, it is nearly useless, because we have no idea what kind of cavitation or vortices would form if another fin operated at the same flow field.
However, it is still a cool picture.
AH GEEZ…just when i thought i was getting it i now gotta boneup on LAMINA BUBBLES???
Yeah that pic is very cool and it would be more fair to compare other fins in the same test…but its obvious that showing the vortex says to the world “look at us…we are spending boatloads tank testing our fins and the competition isnt…naah nah nanaaah nah”