Thanks L.I.T. - Yes, that’s me in the photo, paddling my Wing Squad board out to a dawn patrol session as the sun comes up.
Hey Huck,
I wrote a post last week congratulating you on how well the board is going for you, but due to a bad internet connection the post evaporated during sending and never made it here.
I am really glad that the board is going pretty much exactly like you hoped, and also that as you correctly predicted the step-down isn’t an issue for your back foot. Sounds like you knew exactly what you wanted and nailed it!
I saw your post about that sometimes you overturned a bit while turning, and I instantly thought 5-fin! I know that you are really happy with the board and how it works as a quad, and I feel a little selfish in asking if you could perhaps try it as a 5-fin, because I’d really like to hear how it makes the board feel.
I recently tried my little 5’ 1’’ as a 5 fin and the thing blew my mind, that definately suffered from big over-turning issues before i added the extra fins, now its fast drivey, and still turns amazingly.
I’m not saying that your board needs 5-fins, but if you get time and patience to try it I would love to hear a ride report.
LTM
thanks L.T.M., I’ve had that happen also. Nowadays I try to remember to write my post on Notepad, then copy and paste. If it crashes, I still have it. Sometimes I forget, ‘tho. The board is going really well, I’m lovin’ it.
As far as the foam wedge for my back foot - jury is still out, but so far so good. I put it directly over center of fin cluster, so should be OK, but its a shaping detail I’ve never seen done before, so its all trial and error at this point. I didn’t want to move it further back and add more foam to the tail, so it was just a guesstimate. I tend to ride mid-board, and this is not a board meant to be surfed off the tail. But of course you do step back when turning, I’ll just see how it goes.
I consider the board a success because it has accomplished what I set out to accomplish. I can paddle out in a crowd of much younger surfers and still catch waves, and I can ride it like a shortboard, well, enough like a shortboard for me. I had a fun session the other day, and when I got out another surfer I was talking with said he was bummed he didn’t bring his longboard, because the waves were kinda soft. But I wasn’t having any problems getting some really good rides that day, and I didn’t need a longboard. And he was on a midlength with more width and volume than most.
The board also does well in head high waves with more punch, no problems making the drops at all, surfs very positive at faster speeds. I’m still getting acquainted with its qualities, but I like it. You don’t just point and trim like a longer board, you kinda have to work the board around the wave, and bear down when you want it to go, so that’s an enjoyable change for me, but a bit of an adjustment too. And if you push it through a turn, it’ll squirt out, which is kinda remniscent of my old twin fin fish.
I would gladly try 5 fins, but not sure what that means? Do you just add another fin in the extra (thruster) plug? What kind of fin - like a thruster back fin? You’ll have to educate me.
I suspect he means adding a small, low-aspect fin like the FCS Knubster (e.g. http://www.surffcs.com/shop/surf-specialty/fcs-vs-knubster ) into the centre thruster fin slot.
A friend of mine was out riding his favourite board (as a quad) one time in big, good surf. Unfortunately the extra speed he was getting in all that juice mean’t his board became a bit too twitchy (i.e. very easy to overturn) than was comfortable. He added a Knubster into the centre fin slot and that little bit of extra fin in a central location calmed the board down just enough for it to be nice and controllable again despite all the extra speed he was getting. From what I’ve heard, he then went ballistic in that session. Afterwards he was amazed at how much of a difference such a small addition to the finset made to the quality of the session for him.
ok thanks, I’ll look into getting one of those
I have one of those knubster fins, although I havn’t used it yet.
I considered that my 5’ 1’’ was too squirrely for the knubster to make enough difference, so I just threw in 5 G5 size fins (thats a lot of fin area for a board that small). The 3 fins closest to the tail are all centre fins as I figured it would make it smoother through turns, but, I would still like to try it with flat foil fins for the rear quads just out of curiosity to note any difference.
Huck, for your board, I’m not sure how much difference a knubster would make to a board of that size, Just completely guessing, I’d say that you might still feel a difference. but first, if you are up for it, I’d just try a regular G5 size fin in the rear plugs- the main reason is that I assume that you already have one of those lying around, so it won’t cost you anything to try it.
LivetheMoment - I was thinking the same thing with the center ‘thruster’ fin in there with the quad… most likely worth a try. Fin adjustments can make big differences. Increading the overall spread of the quad layout can do the same thing but not sure if there’s much, if any adjustment available there. Maybe even long base keels up front?
Good stuff!
The use of a Knubster with a quad setup is just what my surf-buddies mean when they talk about a “5-fin” (likewise with the vast bulk of posts I’ve read on surf forums).
But so what - if it needs more fin, it needs more fin.
The only thing that matters is whatever gets it to perform the way you want.
Do you think you could swap the Knubster with the central G5 halfway through your next session and let us know what differences you perceive? I’d be very interested to hear about it - I’d try this myself with my own board, but I don’t have a Knubster to do it with (for now); I’ve only just recently picked up a board with 5 fin-slots in it (in the past they’ve always been thrusters and twins) so haven’t had much opportunity yet to play with these kinds of things.
Would also be very interested to hear how Huck finds having a large versus a small central fin in conjuction with the quad setup (if he manages to get his hands on a Knubster, or some other smaller fin like say a G3/M3 size).
I’m guessing, the bigger the additional centre fin is, (in conjuction with a quad setup), the more stable and the more drivey the board will become. And having a big centre fin in there may well mean you can tackle even bigger surf yet again than what having the Knubster in would allow.
It’ll be fun trying this with my Vanguard - it’s not supposed to be able to handle properly big surf, but I’ve got that G5/M5 size centre fin and I’m thinking if I find it gets a little too twitchy for me in big waves, that centre fin’s gonna get plugged in
Will post the results when I try this out.
I’d be very interested to hear how that goes too - the 5-fin set I got with my 5 fin-slot board came with assymtric rear quad fins (I think - I’ll have to double check this) so unfortunately I don’t have 3 centre fins to do this experiment myself. Let us know how it goes when you get around to trying it
Cheers!
“The use of a Knubster with a quad setup is just what my surf-buddies mean when they talk about a “5-fin” (likewise with the vast bulk of posts I’ve read on surf forums).”
Hi L.I.T. -
Just for perspective on the 5-fin design, check out photo and posts by Greg Griffin. I’ve never ridden one but suspect that he’s on to something.
Yep; that’s why I said “the vast bulk of posts” rather than “all the posts” - when I wrote that, the Griffin 5-fin is what I had in mind as the main exception to that generalised definition of “Quad’s + Knubster = 5-fin”.
I’ve been aware of Greg Griffin’s 5-fin and other boards here on Swaylocks for probably a year or so now.
And I was considering mentioning it. But in every 5 fin-slot board I’ve seen around, none of them have the central thruster fin-slot lined up parallel with the two rear quad fin-slots; the central one is always set a little ways back from them. And Greg has publicly stated that if the 3 rear fins are not lined up perfectly level with one another, his design doesn’t work properly.
So to try and replicate his design in LTM’s or Huck’s Mi Gordita, a custom central fin would have to be made with the leading edge poking a fair way past the front of the fin slot, the trailing edge ending well before the back of the fin-slot and you’d have to make the fin-base super-super-stiff and strong to stop the leading edge from wobbling around when it was put under any kind of pressure. Hard to do. Likely to not perform the way it’s desired to, and I suspect there’d also be a good chance of it snapping due to the reduced structural support such a design would entail.
And I suspect there’s probably even more to it than that - you’d probably have to build custom rear quad’s as well. Fin cant, alignment, placement. Different rocker, bottom contours, tucked rails, etc, etc.
So I mentioned the easy-to-do Knubster versus larger fin experiments and omitted the much harder-to-do GG 5-fin replicant option.
But hey, if someone’s willing to build a fin to attempt something along the lines of the GG 5-fin replicant experiment with their board, go for it!.. I know Huck’s pretty good at making fins.
But thanks and good on you John for mentioning the GG 5-fin; if I hadn’t been aware of it, learning about it through your comment would’ve got me hugely stoked.
It’s an interesting design, eh?
And the GG 5-fin chrisp recently built and has up for sale is pretty sweet eh?! If I wasn’t on a different continent I’d be all over that one.
Well, I’m about to pack the car and head off (i.e. will be offline) for a week or so.
Catch y’all later!
Hi L.I.T. -
I should have guessed. Anybody who has been browsing Swaylocks for any length of time has seen the GG 5-fin.
I agree most 5-fin designs are placed as you say. I am just finishing up a board for my son and it has the boxes like that… the center box aft of the rear quads. I figured it would be ridden one way or the other (quad or thruster but not as a 5-fin.) If it was too loose as a quad though that rear box could be used for a stabilizer.
For Huck’s board I just mentioned it so a normal size trailer fin could be considered if it was still too loose. Sometimes a loose board just has to be ridden awhile before you adjust. You are right that with the GG design it pretty much has to be thought of beforehand and center box placed accordingly.
The board wasn’t really too loose with the quad setup. At any rate, I put a rear fin in it, I think its a quad rear but double foiled, its the same size and shape as the other quad rears, but they are single foiled and honeycomb, this one is a cheapie composite. I had my doubts, but paddled it out into some small but lined up point break surf this evening, and dog my cats, wow! Pleasantly surprised. Haven’t really pushed it in all directions, but it was fast and responsive, felt positive but not too tracky. Will continue with the 5-fin experiment, thanks L.T.Moment for suggesting it, I wouldn’t have thought of trying otherwise.
Yeah, we’ve all seen the GG 5-fin, thats cool with me, I don’t mind surfboard pics posted over and over. ;-) I have been wanting to try to emulate one of those for awhile, all the moreso now!
here’s some pics with 4 fins…
What could also be done (and I think I’ll try this when I make my next board) is to put in a short longboard sliding/adjustable box in the centre fin-slot with an FCS adapter in it - you can plug in whatever size/shape FCS fin you want and slide it as far forward or back as you like (i.e both a rear-placed thruster as well as an inline 5-fin position is possible this way, not to mention even further forward than inline).
My kneeboard is setup as a thruster with a sliding centre slot. Play with it all the time. Beats me why more boards don’t have sliding central boxes.
:) :)
Dang, I’m thinking I might have to plug in that centre fin along with the quads in my next session now too… just to see
That bit I said earlier about how Greg Griffin stated his design doesn’t work properly if the fins are all perfectly in a line… maybe what he mean’t by that is that the “5-fin effect” his boards have is less than optimal if the centre fin is a little way behind.
But so what, if having the centre fin in there is still better than not having it there at all, then that’s still something. Bettter is better, even if it’s not total perfection. From what I gather Greg Griffin is a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to his boards.
Maybe it’s the case that the closer the centre fin is to the quad rears, the better the “5-fin” effect becomes, peaking with all 3 rear fins in line -> the leading edge of Huck’s Mi Gordita’s centre fin is probably 2/3rds of the way up the length of his quad rears, (i.e. not much further back from totally inline with them), so it may well be he’s getting close to full “5-fin” effect when he plugs that small symmetric quad rear in the centre slot along with the other quad fins.
I think my Vanguard’s a bit that way too - yep, I’m definitely gonna try that centre fin in with my quad’s next session! -> thanks LTM
Well, the car’s packed now, so I’m outta here.
Catch y’all later!
& Cheers
Tried the 5th fin… sort of; Caught a few waves, and then my leash broke. Called it a day after that as it was crowded and the shorey was fairly gnarly (continuing to surf without a leash could well have resulted in damage to the board after any further wipeouts).
Of the few waves I caught before then, I kooked it on a couple (small, messy, bumpy waves) and of the ones I did ride all the way through, it was only a short one (was riding a beachbreak). Board possibly felt a little stiffer. Will try again when I get some good conditions to really check it out.
I tried it in some bigger waves, felt a little stiff to me, so I’m back to 4 for now, but will play around with a 5th fin later, maybe try the nubster.
Great that you gave the 5 fin a try.
Sounds like the nubster could be the way forward, or something inbetween, 5 G5 fins is a hell of a lot of fin area, my stubby really needed it, but from your ride reports your board perhaps could be perfect with the little nubster just so you can really to full powered turns with a tiny bit of extra stability to eliminate any chance of over turning…
If you get around to trying it with one don’t forget the ride report!
All the best
LTM
fyi for those that don’t really peruse the General Discussion forum much, after reading chrisp’s recent “Twinzer Love” thread, I’m also now going to try playing around with a Twinzer vs regular quad arrangement on my Vanguard. I’ll also play around with different fin sizes too (chrisp’s Twinzer uses what looks like a twinny-sized “front” in ummm… the back)…
… just to see what happens -> thanks chrisp!
Cheers all.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too; was wishing I had a Knubster to play with as well at the time.
Am planning to make a few fins soon… and now the list just got another fin longer
Ride report to be posted here if and when I get to try one out.
Cheers!
… aaaaand another variant to the experiments -> Twingle out (i.e. have the front fin with flat side facing out and foiled side facing in) both the:
- quad (big fin in the front)
- and Twinzer (big fin in the back)
… style fin arrangements.
