Brewer made the board that Bruce won the Eddie on, but he shaped it for Makua Rothman. Bruce paddled out for a practice session and ended up breaking his board before his heat. Eddie Rothman ran home and grabbed the yellow board from his back yard and gave it to Bruce. Makua had previously broken the board and had it repaired. Bruce liked the board so much that he (and Andy) ordered a batch of guns from Brewer when they got back to Kauai. The board is a thruster. It’s current whereabouts is unknown.
Mahalo for bringing the quad into this discussion. As someone who shapes a lot of guns including many single fin guns (only when they are over 11’ long) I’m convinced the quad is a great choice for a modern gun.
All of my most recent guns (including the 9’ 6" I shaped yesterday) are setup as quads. These boards all have fairly complex bottoms for guns with subtle concaves through the center and very extreme bowled double concaves through the tail running into a V. Many of the quad guns I have made were for people who were riding a quad for the first time on a gun, every one of them were a little skeptical until they got on the boards and then they were blown away with the capabilities of the boards.
Modern guns are so far removed from the old style guns, in my mind they are more like performance boards than guns. Mine have been getting wider with more hip and rocker in the tail, and with solid thickness.
All of the balsa guns I do are single fins, but that is mainly because they are very long (11’ 8" - 12’ 6") on these boards the single fins I use are fairly narrow based with lots of rake and range from 9" to 11" but they are placed very far up on the board. On these boards the single fin is favored because these boards are not being turned a lot, instead they are doing long drawn out bottom turns with subtle cutbacks, because they are being ridden on waves with 20’+ faces and it is all about speed. In my mind the quads would work equally well in these conditions, except they just might be a lot faster!
Here is a photo of one of the more recent single fins made out of bamboo and glass, this fin is around 10 1/2" deep.
I’m about to shape myself a new 9’ 7" gun and it is definitely going to be setup as a quad. Of course with a quad it all boils down to what fins you use in them as to how well they are going to perform, all of the ones I do end up using my Thumb fins for a quad setup.
So mahalo for bringing up the quad for a gun, in my book they are way better than a thruster on these boards, but that is just what I have learnt from experience with the boards I have shaped. I still do a few thruster but mainly for people who I cannot convince to try a quad
Wow! that photo I included turned out REALLY small, sorry about that, if you go to my web site using the link in signature you can see a larger version of the photo.
A tri-fin cluster on a 10-10.5 tail behind a big board gets really
stiff and tracks. This is a bad situation if it is bumpy (here it
usually is ) because you can’t lay down a hard rail turn, you want to
finesse it a little
No offense - But we get similar conditions up here in Oregon, and I couldn’t disagree more. My 10’7" thruster borders - (After I added some glass and put a little more belly in the middle, 'cuz I thought it was a little to stiff if, and here’s were I agree with you, I didn’t get my feet far enough back, and given some times the take offs are not as early as I’d like and this would happen, and the board felt stiff.) - on twitchy, but far more forgiving of foot placement. But it still allows me to do round house, if the faces are smooth enough, in the biggest waves I can catch… I guess @ 3xoh+ depending on who’s calling it… But that’s a different story.
I have been thinking about a quad gun -
Robin - Would you be so kind as to speak to some general fin placement, and what your “Thumb fin” is (I’m guessing it looks like a thumb… )?
Here is a link to a page on the ProBox web site that shows a couple of different sizes of the Thumb fin, I typically use a combination of the 4.75" and the 4.25", with the larger fin in the front for medium size surf and then with them switched around when it gets bigger.
I have recently become a Single fin semi-gun rider. I’m surfing a McCoy 7’6" with his gullwing fin in it.
I spent my whole life on thrusters and always had a hard time on them in big testing conditions. The move to a Single fin gun has really surprised me, this board seems to paddle in earlier, get to the bottom quicker, run long lines around sections much faster and generally feels much more nimble under foot than any other semi-guns I’ve owned or ridden.
The biggest single positive about this particular board is that it is definitely faster in a straight line. Watch how long the straight lines are in big wave surfing and tell me you think a multi fin system isn’t an anchor? That was my realization when I watched Biggest Wednesday for the 1st time. …Guess who’s riding a single fin in that movie? Watch the lines and you’ll see it.
It does of course have downsides, I can’t get it to project out of the pocket like I can on a multi-fin set-up. That has taken some getting used to but now that understand how to surf the board a bit better I’m very much of the mind set that, for me, a Single fin gun is the best thing that ever happened to my big wave surfing.
And, because I know some people will be wanting to say it… YES, I have owned guns from lots of the big names. They all pale in comparison to the one I currently ride.
You would get no argument from me that a single fin would be a better choice if the only two choices were between a thruster and a single fin, but there are other multi-fin choices that provide options that are equal to or better than a single fin. A case could also be made that a lot of the time when a thruster is sketchy in the big stuff it is more due to poor fin selection and placement, possibly also coupled with the wrong board design for a thruster.
We also use a lot of 2+1 setups on guns and for many people these are a great choice as they provide the best of both worlds. But in my book the quad still has the most merits, but so much of it boils down to fin selection, placement, and the type of board that it is really hard to say there is a single magic bullet.
Single fin guns are amazing given the correct choice of fin, placement, and board design, especially when coupled with the right wave. There is also no doubt that they are well proven and versatile but there is room for multi-fin setups as they can provide so many additional performance enhancements.
Now if we are talking small single fin boards in the 6’ to 7’ range, these are a sadly neglected option that are being overlooked by a lot of surfers, they are a total blast and can add a whole different dimension to surfing. I make a lot of single fins in this size range and they always blow people away how well they work, especially if you want to surf smooth and tight.
It sounds like your style of surfing would get a lot out of a quad fin configuration. I like my quads but they feel pretty neutral, I doesn’t feel like they project across the face with the same power as a single fin, and this lateral projection is essential to making the section you dropped into to find the pocket on the edge. Quads have their place, but so do single fins in bigger, big wave boards. The salient issues are ones style of surfing, the foil of the board and the fins. For myself, I have to say that the dynamics of fins are still a vast sea of untapped knowledge and possibilities. By the way, Robin your guns are truly works of art.
I’ll have to say I’ve not ridden a Quad for more years than I care to admit. I think the new generation of Quads do have a lot to offer and my board purchase next year will definitely have four fins. I know nothing about their big wave performance but the concept makes logical sense to me, thus highly appealing.
And, in regards to your next point. I was so impressed with my Single fin semi-Gun I bought a 6’5" Single fin and I completely understand what your on about with regards to those things. Just a whole different approach that I happen to really like in the right kind of waves. I’m sure it has taught me to be a better tri-fin surfer at the same time!
I was just at the Mavericks opening ceremonies yesterday. Thrusters are still the main board of choice, but a lot of guys in the contest are riding quads. Stretch is still heavily on that bandwagon. He was there admiring (ha) all the Stretch knockoffs that showed up this year. Anthony Tashnick - who won in 2005 - was telling Bob Pearson he want’s to try a twin fin out there this year. He said “you don’t really need to turn anyway… just gotta get the hell away from the lip”. To which Bob told me - “he makes a great test rider because he’ll ride any kind of board and take off on anything. He doesn’t even care if he knows it won’t work”.
While none of the competitors plan on riding singles in the contest, there are a few guys who regularly ride them there… and love them.
L…I don’t think you can really nail it down as to which is BEST because you have to take into consideration the context aka rest of what board design you are incorporating.
However, an interesting take on this is that you can evolve the board design around the fin(s) choice. I had an ab diver friend once order a board from me by handing me his favorite fin, just saying “you know me, make it for this”.
Some guys would be in a quandry…I always love stuff like that. Talk about ‘creative freedom’…now I realize how great a name John Bradbury came up with for his label.
I spent a winter playing with single fins at Rincon. I found they paddle to the wave slower but DROPPED IN faster…less water loading and releasing on take off than clusters. Obvious pros + cons thereafter. Evolution is gr8, but there is a helluva impressive historical record of surfing on single fins too.
Ding…your bro riding that board looks sooo much shorter than 9’0"… loose baby loose!
