Do any test fins for these boards ?
I asked one shaper about a rider and he had no idea what was used .
I’d like to know too…
watching the contest and seeing SO many of the guys (who are freaking nuts) drop in, have the wind lif the board, they get corked sideways and the fins release. sometimes they make it, sometimes they don’t. made me wonder about using bigger/longer fins to stay hooked into the wave at the drop.
is that a possibility? would an extra inch or so even matter? would they be too slow once the drop was made?
EDIT: footage from the day below and a note that i have never even seen a big wave gun in person so my questions are purely out of curiousity and learning
Never seen the Maui wave but at Sunset, (Paumalu) a longer stiffer fin with a little more baseline would do best. Waves with that much drive or push need it. Seems the case might be the same at Pe’Ahi. You don’t need any twisting coming out of a turn.
Noticed alot of quads @ the Mavericks show too.
Oldschool here!
“more fins more drag”
So anyway I would like to know?
Quad set front “s” curve???
Rear ah, 60/40 ???
And @ Pe’Ahi???
Insane Shane!!!
The best big wave pilot, EVER!
https://www.facebook.com/clark.little/videos/10206703720324097/
It is my understanding that you want/need smaller fins in bigger waves.
She said yes it would! Humor aside, a single fin on a big wave gun, works just fine. I never had any of the problems described, at major NS breaks.
I love this thread, hearing what other shapers think is interesting. There is one key reason a quad works at Jaws which really doesn’t apply to other big waves. I want to hear more from others before I give my personal experience but the reason really isn’t what most think. Also there are things that are magic out at jaw Jaws that simply won’t work anywhere else. I am lucky to be a shapeer here on Maui. Going against the known theory is really cool.
I was impressed the way Albee Layer surfed the 8-8…some of those big guns looked too lite with all that wind…while the 8-8 was less subject to getting picked up by the wind…Is the 8-8 a Quad or ?
roger
Roger, Albee rides quads. In his case, he is dropping in under the lip and more on the west bowl which doesn’t have the same wind problem. He also has excellent technique to set the edge before the wind gets under his board.
spill the beans Kazuma!
“spill the beans Kazuma!”
In the great words of Smokey Robinson… I second that emotion…
Not that any of the waves were small but Albee seemed to favor the bowl section which was a bit smaller and broke what seemed like a more traditional wave. Take off at the peak and get in under it.
Two things that you can’t tell from videos of Jaws is that the wave bends at you. (bend is an understatement) there is no going straight down the line, you need to always be “drifting” or fading towards shore. Second is that water is getting sucked up the face at an insane speed, again means that you always need to be “drifting” towards shore. Any fin setup that holds a straight line well is extremely dangerous as you or your riders will end up too high on the face. (you see it in the videos) Out of necessity, you need a fin setup that is neutral and likes to release down the face. Almost opposite of what you would usually try to achieve. Tri fins lock you into a direction which is really scary out there, Yes they work fine but do not give you confidence. It is by design that those guys can get airborne and the board always rights itself towards shore. My riders have tons of success with quads that have normal front and 50/50 foils back in anything under 50 feet. Also less cant is important so there is no hydrofoil effect. Over 50 feet and fins become the biggest part of the equation, 50/50 all around and zero to negative cant, nothing acts predictable at those speeds. I know that sounds extremely stupid but a couple of those XXL waves were boards using negative 3 degrees can’t, 50/50 foils, all same size 4.25" fins with 3/16" front and 1/8" back toe in. (the toe reduces dangerous tracking) Like I said, it goes against everything I understood about fin placement but I was lucky to have messed up some fin installs years ago that turned out to change my mind on fin theory. There is lots more but once you start using fins closer to 50/50 foils, it opens much more design possibilities.
Right on Kazuma! Thanks for sharing!!!
Interesting stuff…
What about thicker foils. Have you played with that at all?
And, how about placement?
I assume you are using a more stringer oriented quad?
How far up are you placing your fins?
Are you able to add tail width due to the quad setup?
Chrisp, I think you are on the right thinking with thicker foils. I believe that it would reduce the twitchy and uncontrollable direction changes that thin foils have. I haven’t tried thick foils since I limited by the thickness of the fcs/future fin panels. Toe in is necessary as it keeps the board from tracking and digging rail. How far up I place the fins depends on the width of the tail but on a 10’6 for me I like 10" and 20" up. I have done 8" and 16" with good results until it gets really big then the fins are a bit too close together and catch drag off each other.
Matt.
Eh! Matt
- 1, is not enought!
Thanks for your valuable input!
Thanks Mattwho, I figure that it is nearly impossible to get your hands on a Jaws gun anywhere but here on Maui so I figure if anyone cares to actually believe what I have to say then we might be able to work together on making these extreme boards better. Since I surf Jaws, I have a different perspective as well as the other surfer’s I make boards for on design needs. I can tell you this, board design at Jaws is much more diverse than any other line up in the world. Things that I said couldn’t work blew my mind. The guys here on sway locks are real thinkers from a wide variety of backgrounds and I can learn a ton from their ideas. (open mind is the key) Here is a picture of Gabriel Villaran’s boards he rode in the Peahi Challenge making the finals. On the left, the clear one is my personal 9’9" West bowl board. It has a set of Greg Griffins g10 fins that work magic on 25’ face and below.
Great info Kazuma!
I was picking up some epoxy from Wahiawa the Thursday before the contest, and got a chance to take a sneak peak at someone’s gun for the contest before it was glassed or had fins installed. Not sure whose board it was going to be, but man it looked so smooth.
The tail was a lot thinner then I would have thought. Any reason for that? I always thought a whole lot of thickness in the tail would help push you into the wave.
I can’t imagine surfing waves that intense, but still is cool to think about what is making them go.
Thanks,
Jason
At about 26:47 in this link,one gets to see the tail of Kemper’s quad, looking up the back along the cluster:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3t4P3h6q2Y
@ 25.52 One cannot ‘see’ the length of the board, and it almost looks like a small wave quad with a very pinched swallow
I just had to watch the whole thing again.
What was Carlos Burle’s fin setup? Kind of looks like his boards were not behaving very well.
A was surprised how low Albee’s board sat n the water with him sitting on it. I thought it would be a little meatier to make up for the lack of railline.
But I know jack about big waves and gear for them.
Anyway, impressive contest, Surprised the non surfing world has not picked up and posted a bunch of click-bait. A non surfer watching normal contest surfing is quickly bored, but when it is held in gargantuan surf they are enthralled, at least for one wave or so.
Thanks for sharing Kazuma,
So basically standard depth fins on these guns?
Wrcsixeight, Billy Kemper’s best boards from me were 10’6" with 9" and 18" with normal sized fins 4.25" with something similar to a m5 template but back fins were 50/50 foils.
I did not see Carlos Burle’s boards but funny that you commented because he ordered a 10’6" from me the day after the contest.
Jason, cool that you got to see one before glass. You can sure see more details in just the foam. I do notice that my riders tend to ride the more foiled tail boards. Of maybe it is psychological, on my personal boards rounder rails in the back hold in better so I would rather leave more stringer thickness for strength. These are the areas where theory might not be as sound as we once thought. I think at that speed, water release becomes the enemy as it gets hard to set an edge and boards become hyper sensitive. It’s crazy how a 10’6" becomes so easy to turn at those speeds.
20 years ago, Laird had this magic Brewer tow board and when we were trying to figure out why it was so much better than the others, the big difference was these egg rails. I mean egg, like old school classic longboard rail shape. It simply grabbed the water at ultra high speed instead of skipping over the surface like the other boards which held in so much better. I had to see it to believe it but it is like I said, an open mind is the key when making boards for this next generation of extreme surfer’s.
Matt