I Have been looking at some quad fin Longboards. The Most appealing ones to my eye are made by Robin Mair. Since getting one built by Mair and shipped to Florida is a rather expensive proposition. I was hoping some here had some feedback. On quads and Mairs long boards to be spacific.
Interested in this too.
I’ve been a single fin soft railed/tailed longboard guy, in my appraoch to longboards, my whole life, but find their low top speed to be a limiting factor, frustratingly so at times.
But I am not so sure about a longboard which might need to be turned only from the tail or just allows a the rider to never move their feet as this can be an extremely ugly style of surfing to witness.
I have some extra Proboxes I was considering installing into my 9’3" singlefin pintail, but it still has old school rails which likely would not compliment a quad setup.
I make my longboard tails 15+" so quad +1 boxes are really popular. My rear rails are on the hard side.
https://swaylocks7stage.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/longboard%204+1.jpg
UncleD - is that McKee layout? What fins you using? I have been going to wider tails lately, just finishing a 7-2 with a 13" tail. I like the quad setup on the wider tails, having the fins on the rails. Haven’t tried a 15" tail on a longboard yet, that sounds extreme lol! Are you shaping them with a lot of V? Any tricks to keeping 'em loose?
I have a few single fin boards I need to add some quad plugs on.
There was a time a thread like this would have all kinds of responses by now, kinda seems like the forum has really died off with the new format.
I’ve made a couple of quad set ups and interestingly enough, one that was laid out as an asymmetrical arc tail with a single keel/1/2 quad fin set up was reportedly improved by just using it as a dual keel even though the keels weren’t laid out symmetrically. The guy just placed one of the keels in the rear box on the 1/2 quad side.
He said it just felt like less drag overall. In all honesty, based on my limited experience with quads, it might have been totally my fault for the way it worked out but the guy likes it better now.
Regarding tail widths… quite a few people I’ve discussed this with seem to agree that 17" is the new 14" when it comes to tails. I remember when thrusters first came out the standard around here was 16" tails, 12" noses. The Kelly Slater hyper rockered/thin and narrow phase brought the tail widths much narrower and they seem to have stabilized for quite awhile at 14" as a general rule. I think designs like the Mini-Simmons and reexamination of retro-fish opened a lot of people’s eyes to the advantages of wider tails in gutless waves that many of us surf on a day to day basis.
This longboard is not a quad but as I recall the tail width was right around 17" - the guy ditched the raked fins for center and sides of more conventional design.
Quad HPLB’s have an extra gear in walled up surf, and plenty manueverable paired with ample tail rocker. Liked my quad LB so much, installed FCS plugs in an older HPLB so I could surf it as a quad as well. When peakier, softer, ride these 2+1, throw the quads in when it’s haul okole time. These boards are set-up ala Rusty, not as close to the stringer as McKee, basically a 60/40 split between the stringer and rail.
oh I see, you guys are calling tail width at 12" up, duh
I pushed the fins up about 1.5" from the Mckee Layout. I like my fore fins up near 17" for my 4+1 set ups. I like a forward panel v in my bottoms. This board is all about the glide rather than an HP board. It was made for catching the big north swells that roll into Hilo Bay. Here are pictures of the deck for this Epoxy/EPS 10’ x 23.5" x 3.75" longboard.
Keep it up I’m getting some good information to mull over