Did you get to ride it yet? The fin obsessives amongst us need to know!
would be it that as soon as I got my board the waves shut down.
But she’s got an accelerator you would not believe when you find the sweetspot on the tail to drive off of. Just as fast if not faster than my gemini with out using all all the fancy double nose concave design to pump air thru the bottom just a really good understanding on how fins work and where most of the work is being done on the board.
People think they are stiff and tail heavy but you don’t feel the fins at all you only feel the effects if that makes sense.
So if you pump and engage them off the sweetspot on the tail on a small mushy face you kick in the nitrous or turbo but when you are traveling at high speed from a larger face they engage and the more pressure you exert the tighter the arc you can draw without losing any speed at any point of turn. Any point…that’s a very critical point… Those that surf alot will understand
on one wave with larger face I was able to turn straight up the face then as the lip was hitting me right in the chest I was able to power it 180 degrees straight back down before the lip was able to knock me off the board. Normally I would’ve gotten swiped right off my board or just powered thru the lip and out the back. Really small boards allow you to whip things around like this.
My brother got his during the last decent south swell and overhead plus waves at a premier spot (courts). He was taking 8-10 foot air drops in the lip and able to plant his board and blow by the lip and into the shoulder, My other friend Kevin who’s been riding these for years just absolutely destroys the waves he rides. Straight up and straight down ripping the lip to shreds at speed with huge spray. Not bad for a grandpa aged hardcore surfer.
One thing about the fish design though
with 20mph side winds or offshore the wide nose tends to hand up making it difficult to get over the hump. You really need to be way forward with the nose under your chest paddling these in just like the Gemini…
I need to really get this 5-fin down before the next big swell but look forward in trying out some of Griff’s other designs like his supertwin which he’s riding himself at boneyards/backdoor sunset. I’ll be getting a more high performance shape and size for that design to use in the winter and really big days.
The board isn’t from everyone
you have to be a really good backfoot surfer so you can take advantage of the design just like my nugget, or gemini. With 29 boards in my quiver I need to thin out all the front footers like my stubb vectors or classic fishes because that style really ruins your surfing on these style boards. Guys who surf like Taj/Rasta will have a problem while guys with a style like AI or Slater will pick these up with no problem.
People everywhere seem to have forgotton the basic principles of what makes a board go. It is the whole package not just one component. Fin systems and throw away boards seem to have led to this short sightedness but the fin guys like Jobson, The Campbells, and Griffin seem to have a closer understanding on the dynamic of what is happening under your board and along the face of a wave than most. Being able to design the board and fins as a single component seems to have died when we went away from glass ons and the shapers that design and mounted their own fins. To me boards that go for sale with out a specific fin configuration or placement built into the design is no different than what everyone is calling a popout nowadays. It’s just a popout for retail sale concept than popouts reproducing the same shape.
Bottomline I guess is…
Go out and find a shaper who understand fins first and who has decent board building skills and forget about all the technology aspects of what makes a board and you can’t go wrong…
With that said I wish the fin discussion would come back to sways
that was some of the best sways had to offer…
finally
try everything you can if you want to work your way through all the bullshit out there cause there’s alot of it in this arena always has been, it’s the only way to find the right fit.
Quote:
would be it that as soon as I got my board the waves shut down.
But she’s got an accelerator you would not believe when you find the sweetspot on the tail to drive off of. Just as fast if not faster than my gemini with out using all all the fancy double nose concave design to pump air thru the bottom just a really good understanding on how fins work and where most of the work is being done on the board.
People think they are stiff and tail heavy but you don’t feel the fins at all you only feel the effects if that makes sense.
So if you pump and engage them off the sweetspot on the tail on a small mushy face you kick in the nitrous or turbo but when you are traveling at high speed from a larger face they engage and the more pressure you exert the tighter the arc you can draw without losing any speed at any point of turn. Any point…that’s a very critical point… Those that surf alot will understand
on one wave with larger face I was able to turn straight up the face then as the lip was hitting me right in the chest I was able to power it 180 degrees straight back down before the lip was able to knock me off the board. Normally I would’ve gotten swiped right off my board or just powered thru the lip and out the back. Really small boards allow you to whip things around like this.
My brother got his during the last decent south swell and overhead plus waves at a premier spot (courts). He was taking 8-10 foot air drops in the lip and able to plant his board and blow by the lip and into the shoulder, My other friend Kevin who’s been riding these for years just absolutely destroys the waves he rides. Straight up and straight down ripping the lip to shreds at speed with huge spray. Not bad for a grandpa aged hardcore surfer.
One thing about the fish design though
with 20mph side winds or offshore the wide nose tends to hand up making it difficult to get over the hump. You really need to be way forward with the nose under your chest paddling these in just like the Gemini…
I need to really get this 5-fin down before the next big swell but look forward in trying out some of Griff’s other designs like his supertwin which he’s riding himself at boneyards/backdoor sunset. I’ll be getting a more high performance shape and size for that design to use in the winter and really big days.
The board isn’t from everyone
you have to be a really good backfoot surfer so you can take advantage of the design just like my nugget, or gemini. With 29 boards in my quiver I need to thin out all the front footers like my stubb vectors or classic fishes because that style really ruins your surfing on these style boards. Guys who surf like Taj/Rasta will have a problem while guys with a style like AI or Slater will pick these up with no problem.
People everywhere seem to have forgotton the basic principles of what makes a board go. It is the whole package not just one component. Fin systems and throw away boards seem to have led to this short sightedness but the fin guys like Jobson, The Campbells, and Griffin seem to have a closer understanding on the dynamic of what is happening under your board and along the face of a wave than most. Being able to design the board and fins as a single component seems to have died when we went away from glass ons and the shapers that design and mounted their own fins. To me boards that go for sale with out a specific fin configuration or placement built into the design is no different than what everyone is calling a popout nowadays. It’s just a popout for retail sale concept than popouts reproducing the same shape.
Bottomline I guess is…
Go out and find a shaper who understand fins first and who has decent board building skills and forget about all the technology aspects of what makes a board and you can’t go wrong…
With that said I wish the fin discussion would come back to sways
that was some of the best sways had to offer…
finally
try everything you can if you want to work your way through all the bullshit out there cause there’s alot of it in this arena always has been, it’s the only way to find the right fit.
Onela,
This is one of the best post on the board in awhile. So true. As Geoff says this is the era of ignorance in surfboard design. When we lose the great ones that understand some of this stuff surfing will be back in the dark ages because many of the young shapers have not learned from masters…but simply gone and shaped something that looks like a surfboard. I have found a design thats works for me…many of my shapers friends poke fun at it and give me a hard time about it…but I know what I need in surfing better than they do. This is why I stick with what I know works for me. I got rid of my front foot designs as well and don’t ride longboards as often for the reasons you mentioned. I have a few short of you.
Thanks- that all makes sense and I’m even more interested- I love my fish hugely but I do tend to surf off that back foot if given my druthers. Yes, more discussion is welcome- tweaking rails and fins can keep you occupied several lifetimes- roll on that next south swell, I want a full report! (and tell Griffin to put up a shot of the supertwin)
to quote many Bonzer riders----“the sacred fifth gear” that kicks in when your right on the sweet spot.
i was told many years ago that the fin(s) of a board were more than half the sum of the total board…most surfers today have little or no clue as to the effects of changing or moving the fins about
Yep, I have a more ‘conventional’ 5 fin board and sliding that centre fin around in tiny increments totally changes the feel, to say nothing of changing out the centre fin. There’s a lot you can do with them
“most surfers today have little or no clue as to the effects of changing or moving the fins about”
hehe … I bags not be “most surfers” !!
I have a 6’ Griffin 5 fin fish and I love it. You can see it on the surfer forums. I’ve ridden it in waves at Courts on Oahu with faces up to 8 feet at take off. I can’t say enough good things about this board, it’s as loose as any fish, but you can put as much power into a turn as any thruster. I’ve broken the side fins off of 3 thrusters I’ve had from turning too hard. This board accelerates out of turns better than any thruster I’ve ridden, with the exception of a 7’ 2" BK semi gun I have, and I can’t throw the BK around like I can the fish.
Griffin only moves the fins about 1/8 of an inch at the most, and he marks the boards, so you know the limits. I am very impressed with the way he looks at the whole board and how finicky he is about having the right fin. I haven’t met anyone quite as thorough as he is. I have had a such a good time riding this board as is I haven’t tried experimenting yet.
I met a guy with the same board during the last session, and he was riding his as a quad. I plan to try taking the 5th fin out and seeing what that does, and also moving them back to the line he marked to see what that will do. All in all I think it will probably be better leaving things alone. I’ll post results when the time comes.