Hey Blakestah - wanted to ask you about what you said about guys riding quad fin setups at Mavericks… Think I saw somewhere (here? a recent mag?) that Jeff Clark was riding quads there… You happen to know the reasoning behind it? Other than what you mentioned in the ‘singles vs. thruster in big waves’ thread…
Such things are certainly best left to Jeff to explain. I wouldn’t pretend to even know what he would offer as explanation.
The quads do have their trailer fins inboard a little more than usual to ease transition from rail to rail.
Ive seen a few of those quad gun setups around, once at ocean beach, once outside of Santa Cruz. The ones I saw didn’t resemble a small wave quad much, all the fins were thruster size and shape, and they were spread out more, almost spaced equally across the board, with the back two about as far back as the third on a thruster would be.the toe in on the rear fins looked to be about half that of the front, anmd they were all pointing to the same spot, out ahead of the nose somewhere. They were all big mavs type guns, over nine feet and pointy at both ends. One of them had a sharp little swallow tail cut in, about three inches across. It looked built to tilt…
I have no idea about the quad thing either, best I can come up with is that it’s good to have two rail fins in the water in a turn, if one of them gets into a piece of air, the other will hold the turn until the aerated fin shakes off the bubble and bites again. In a thruster when that happens, the center fin takes over, but the turning characteristic changes too much, and the board spins out or tracks.
just a guess…
Kneeboarders have been succesfully using Quads
for 3 decades now…
…fins that are spaced out from each other.
Rear fins are also double foiled and not toed on the guns.
Rear fins which are double foiled with no toe in are approaching the tunnel fin in their effect. Getting away from toe in for big wave boards was one of the measures which I was advocating in my post at the 'singles versus thrusters in big waves ' thread yesterday It's only a matter of time before tunnels start showing up as a top big wave board fin solution.
Respectfully, Roy
Just speculating here…could 4 fin be more resistant to cavation type spinouts than one or 3 (two in the water, tail barely) when you are racing the wall?
or could 4 fins allow a slightly wider tail, for earlier wave catching and slightly better paddling per length.
or maybe 4 fins can snap turn (emergency type desperation turn) from anywhere on the board, with more hold, and the spread out cluster allow for a bigger sweetspot, so what happenned to MarkFoo might have been avoided?
and with the introduction of some amount of concave under the rider’s feet, adding the fins would create a similar effect to bonzers, for more glide out the flats to make the swinging section?
I read an article about some big wave surfer and the quad setup once. Seems like they basically replaced the centerfin with two fins in parallel with the stringer, but closer to the rails so the stabilizing fin wouldn’t break loose and result in a spin out.
regards,
Håvard
I’ve thought about putting four fins on a board for awhile now, obviosly not like a traditional “quad”…haven’t tested it yet. I’m talking about putting two trailer fins parallel with the stringer, similar fins to the thruster setups. I would put two fins on the outside of them where they would be on a thruster set-up but I would use a fin more like a wakeboard fin or old-school bonzer, not that deep with more base area and no real curve. Can anyone help me predict the effect the water would have traveling between the two center fins; opposed to the water on the outside of those fins. If you had a foil on the outside and straight on the inside…I’m guessing the water on the inside would move faster, however when the water from the outside and the water flowing between the inside meets there might be alot of turbulence… I think this setup would allow alot of drive. After an outside fin releases and you put the board on a rail there are still three fins in water, the two center fins acting as the pivot point in the turn siince they have alot more area(thus drive), I guess it would be a pretty fast turn in comparision to a thruster and it should have plenty of drive and hold as long as the two center fins are in the water. I hope to try this someday…I have never even shaped a fin so it will be a while before I can give any feed back…Tell me what you think I think this kind of setup would be similar to what they are using on big waves, same concept, four thruster size fins on a normal sized wave would create too much drag, on a big wave this is not a problem.
I have a 10’ Clark Quad. I haven’t ridden it at Mav’s (probably will never) but I have ridden it in big, scary Ocean Beach where a 10’ board felt adequate. I can describe the board this way. On a big, steep wall the two side fins provide excellent hold to the face of the wave --more so than a single thruster fin. At the same time, when on edge, the board seems to track with the speed of a single fin. I believe this is because you don’t have the drag of the trailing fin + toed in side fin. Finally, off the bottom, you feel about as safe & confident as you can laying into a turn. I’ve ridden a 9’ brewer thruster gun in similar conditions and it was over all, more loose and and less stable feeling than the 10’ quad.
Sounds like a good setup (and reasoning behind it) to me… Wonder why more people don’t ride them - or is it the usual resistance to something new?
If the two stabilizing fins are same size, lengthwise position and parallel to the stringer as the center fin on a thruster, the extra fin area will make the board a bit stiffer which do make sense on a big gun but not so much on your average truster. For the quad setups used on fishes the straight pointing fins are further up than on a thruster.
regards,
Håvard