The title above, is the question. I see a great many multi fin boards, with much larger fins (especially on the rails) than is necessary for positive control of the surfboard. The same is true of single fin boards too. Not all, but a great many are running very large fins for the board size. What are your thoughts, and more importantly, your experience?
More fin more grip more push, more stabilty. Easy in some way.
Less fins more critical to surf. More difficult, but more fun for me.
Why do you see it so much? I don’t know, but education is being offered more than years ago. So there could be a hidden need for those bigger fin set ups.
Yes, I think so. Foremost, in my opinion, is the need to overcome a poor or inadequate surfboard design. If a board is disposed to spinout, a larger fin will somewhat dampen, or overcome that tendancy. Personally I think the better answer is to design a board that doesn’t do that.
My experience with a 9’3" singlefin pintail showed me that a 10 inch fin was a major drag, when I tried it with an 8.5 inch fin instead. Faster, looser, no lack of drive, and no slidey factor. Woke the board up to a huge degree. The fin just looks too small for the board. It is not.
I also busted a wood 7.5 inch fin during a cutback on a shorter board I know well. At the time, I had 2.75 inch side bites and a 3 inch trailer fin behind the busted 7.5 fin in a F/U box, and I surfed for 2 hours as a thruster with ~35% of the normal fin area in overhead waves. It was dang fun. The thing was a rocket, but turns were awkward and tentative as it felt like pushing too hard would result in falling. I’m not a throw tail type of surfer, but this set up gave me a small glimpse of what it is like.
I went back to a normal thruster set up on this same board for the open face squirt and all around solidity, but I find that I like it better in all conditions with a smaller 4 inch center fin about 1 inch farther forward in the box than normal.
Not counting the population on this forum, I don’t think anybody ever considers that they have more fin than they need. How would they know? Fins are expensive, or very labor intensive, and not everybody is into experimentation. If it doesn’t work, it might ruin a session. I know plenty of guys who just want glass on’s so they don’t have to worry about experimentation. They just put their faith in the shaper/sander and decide to make it work.
I always say I am going to bring extra fins and tools to the beach to experiment on the same day in the same conditions, but never do.
in my experience the smaller, wider and especially the thicker the board the bigger or stiffer the rail fin. The longer and straighter the rail line the smaller the the fins
not sure if this is just nonsense…
but after almost 50 years of surfing all kinds of craft like almost 20 years of snow skiing before the mainstreaming of snowboards…
surfing is a combination of using your rail and your fins for thrust and control
so the longer the rail line the smaller the fin I need
the other problem i found on the last big south was with a wide thick in the tail board the turbulence created by a quad at fairly high speeds makes everything go out of control.
Never ever thad that kind of problem with a thruster unless it was a channel bottom or with Greg Griffin’s five fin design nor with Jeff Alexander’s quad design.
For me when I was young my thinking was the bigger the wave the larger the fin I had to have.
Found that once I reached what I thought would be the correct fin, was “waaaay” to big.
The fin would become a rudder not a fin. The sweeping flowing turns, would become labored.
Even when we first rode twin fins, my team Hobie had huge Guidance System fins that I cut down,…far better drive after that and not such a slug, more skate like.
As we all know a fine line between drive, friction and all that science stuff.
I was involved with a doc dealing with early “hot curls” and Rabbit had complained that his “hot curl” didn’t perform as well as Uncle Wally’s----Uncle Wally told Rabbit,… “too much V, too much drag”,…
Aloha, Randy
"If Some Is Good, Is more Better?"
Hi Bill -
A good question.
I think it's like a lot of things... there is a point of diminishing returns. If you end up 'dragging skeg' (I.E. tail seemingly stuck in the wave and slowing things down) you've likely gone too far with it.
I've enjoyed experimenting with progressively decreased fin sizes and have found that it is generally more rewarding. As with a fin that is too big, there is a point when a fin is too small and loss of control becomes an issue.
Taking it to the extreme, one of the most exciting things going on today is Derek Hynd and others with their finless experiments.
Timely post. I had a greenough style 7 1/2" fin made for me by someone here not long ago. It was meant for a 6’6" egg. I got to the beach and the waves were perfect for my 9’1", but I’d left my 9 1/2" greenough at home. So I popped in the smaller fin, and put it right back in the box ( it’s a round pin ). Boy did it go well!. Had enough drive to make it from behind sections, but it was obviously much more manouverable. And I had no issues whatsoever with the fin “slipping”. I plan on keeping it in the mal for a while.
Although I absolutely love twin keels, which for a small board, have such big fins. Loooooove the drive and swoopy carve of them, glassed on is best for me.
I surf mostly HP longboards from 9’ to 9’6" with 13-1/2" tails (hard-edged, down rails in the tail). 2+1 setup: 3-1/2" sidebites and 7" or 7-1/2" center fin. For me, any more fin than that is just creates extra drag without adding any advantage. In surf up to head high, I use a more upright, “cutaway” style center. In larger waves than that, I switch to a center fin with more base and rake, but not more depth. I set the center fin with it’s leading edge just behind the trailing edges of the side-bites, usually almost 12" up from the tail. The board is loose and maneuverable but does not spin out or side slip, even in hard turns.
I’m surprised how many guys I see running a full-base, 9" center fin pushed half-way or further back in the box with 3-1/2" sides and then complaining that their board “turns too stiff”. Often, these center fins are large enough to work well as a single on the same board. A lot of people don’t seem to get that, once you add side-bites, you don’t need that large a center fin any more.
My rule of thumb is to never use more fin than is required to hold the tail in the hardest turns I can do.
If two guys were to use the same board and if one was considerably bigger (heavier) all things being equal , IMO the bigger guy would need or would benefit from more fin area .
I’ve been on my 5’4" x 20.75 stubby board, running futures twin and trailer. The side fins are the largest side fins I’ve ever ridden. And previously I was riding a 5’7" x 18.5 twin with glass ons that I modeled off those side fins. But I’ve never ridden keels, and I want to try huge keels on the 5’4". Seems like it would be fun, and fast. The board is already decently fast, so those might add so much drive.
But not using more fin than needed sounds right. I like to be able to easily slide the tail around, which is why I like to run just those twins, the little center one definitely added some resistence to that, but it’s still easy, especially with my boards very wide tail. I don’t think these futures T1s are as big as a normal MR type twin either.
Funny thread title, and good topic. One of my old professors used to say (sarcastically) “if some is good, more is better, and too much is just right” (different context, but same principle). Fins are a whole 'nuther chapter in the book I’ve just barely cracked, LOL.
I support the longer rail smaller fin…after that I have more questions than answers.
I’ve been experimenting with wide (21"- 211/2"), short (5’4"-5’8") boards with wide tails and flat rockers about 30 or so litres of float and a 5 fin set up and found a big quad set up (M5 or M7 with M3 or G1000) and a small trailer work best. These boards are naturally so loose that big fins don’t stiffen them up as such they just add drive and will still pop fins and slide when you want. This was all trail and error experimentation. On my larger (5’10"-6’3") smaller wave boards I found M3 GX GX trailer worked best as a 5 fin set up. Incidently I use a 5 fin set up with the rear twins only 1/8" or so further off the rails than the front twins (I don’t like the mcafee method) and I need some kind of trailer to keep it all drivey even with big side fins.
Ive noticed when surfin thrusters a need for larger fins when surfing smaller waves - Ive put this down to the extra drive adding the speed needed.
i always reduce the fin
after getting fallimiar
with a new board.
toobig is too big.
1.fins slow down one end of the board
2.diff said somthing like
when the bottom got so flat and
drag free {the edge boards homage
that were flat rail to reil and from
1.3 thru the tail to make em as fast as possible
one was the grey ghost that cabell rode}
the -board- influence in the ride was minimalized
to the point where we were riding the fin…
the personal preference factor aside
less fin gives acces
to the design characteristics of the board
IOW you can feel the rails,tail bottom engage.
like bolting a plate of food your taste buds
just dont have time to opperate.
the under finning alows finesse
to blossom almost as much as
having slippery deck traction
aka slick wax and no traxion pads.
forces a calm down or fall off result.
The Nth degree of actually finless
is a commitment few are willing
to endure but a true test of technique.
On logs,boards of tree origin few could
articulate turns and manuvers.
On planks,boards made of milled lumber, manuvering was more common
with fins manuvering ,turning and cutting back,50% more people could turn
even blake kook boxes.with balsa foam boards and area’D’ fins everybody
who could paddle out even if they couldn’t walk could turn.
the evolution of the performance quest now at hand
surfboards are hyper sensitive they turn too much especially under 6’
as demonstrated in the you cant ride a board shorter than me days of 1969-70
and again now super sensitive to the point
that over finned aplications are warented to achieve ,
like bill says ‘dampen’ the board’s
sensitivity, for in this case control.
The balance of board rider and fin will always be subjective
aka spot… the bu or the con or the pipe or the pit or the slab
flaco vs gordo… body- food junkie or meth head and board,rails and tails and deck.
To the desired result of perfect syncronicity
one fin,or multi fin area must result in a pleasing go out.
Yes too much fin is too much fin.
but the other end of the spectrum is all about how much
slide ass you can tolerate.
…ambrose…
in 300 ad the fin fell from fashion only to be
revived by Pop mechanix in 1934.*
*write you own version of
history page 150074
paragraph two.
oh yeah after thought
if a fin is too big
and you hit a turn
hard enough to blow out yor box
or plug or lam-on…
the fin was too big.
…ambrose…
Personal anecdote: I spent a year living on the beach in Ecuador a long time ago. Had one board, a 6’4" thruster with a single set of plastic FCS fins.
While riding my bike down the beach to Montanita with board under arm - frothing because it was the cleanest, glassiest, hollowest 4 foot swell I have ever seen even to this day - a pack of stray ankle-biter dogs come out of the shrubbery and start snapping at my feet. I end up falling off the bike, on the board, and snap what would be my inside rail fin. First, I waste a few minutes attempting to catch at least one of the stupid dogs so I can kill it. That didn’t work. So I ride to the beachbreak section first.
Assuming my situation was pretty much hopeless, I pulled out the remaining side fin and paddle out with nothing but my roughly 4.5" center fin in the board. Figured,“Oh well, I’m here. I might as well see what perfect waves look like up close, not that I’m gonna be able to do anything.” I decide to try paddling for a small in-betweener just to see how badly I’m gonna eat it.
Paddle. Drop. Lean gently to the right. Everything went white for a moment, then all of a sudden I’m out on the shoulder. “What the heck just happened?” I just got the smoothest, easiest tube ride of my life with what should’ve been way too little fin. I ended up riding it like that for a large portion of the time I was there, with just the trailer fin.
For me, less fin is better. Less drag, and I’d rather feel the rails working.
I think a lot depends on the style of turning you do…and/or want to do. Late drops under the lip vs mellow cruising on burgery waves; are you racing down the line pumping, or busting the tail free… style sorta determines which fin setups you might enjoy the most.