Checked the archive and only seem to find Halcyon posting about Starfins and Cheyne Horan recently (salute)
I find myself wondering about buying/riding one of these things on shortboards and wondering what kind of length (I’m thinking 6’8"), thickness (I’m thinking 2 3/4 up to 3"), and rocker (I’m thinking not much tail) I would be shaping a board with. Seems like the fin placement (no idea), tail rocker (especially those two things) and outline would be kind of critical with a lifting V in the fin…
Also wondered what kind of noseriding fin it makes if you get placement/technique right–that’s seems like it would be WAY fun to play with!
Cheyne Horan says it’s a popular fin for longboards, and I think it would be way fun to switch a fin like that back and forth between the shorty and the log.
So, thoughts from people that know would be very welcome.
PS: I was gonna shape it in 2# EPS, stringerless, with several rounds of stout glass
it’s a great fin, unless you are riding in an area with kelp/seaweed.
Buy one, stare at it for a long time, try it out in an existing board that you know very well, then figure out what board you want to build next.
I just loaned mine to LeeV, he’s going to try it in his Liddle hull board… I’m wondering if that’s ever happened before. Possibly not… unique board meets unique fin.
(Yipes Lee, how do you ride that thing? Unique up on it!)
From my experience using it on a longboard I would say you have to go with a low tail rockered board. In my 9’1" it really felt draggy when paddling and trying to catch waves but once up it felt very firm / solid.
The single most important factor with horizontal area fins is the lift angle. . . . so if you are parking the fin in a box, just start with the wings running parallel to the bottom and then tweak the fin so that it is lifting the bottom slightly … . . big difference.
i’ve got a Starfin that i occasionally ride on my 9’0" robert august “what i ride”. slows the board down and smoothes things out on soft peelers. i ride the fin fairly forward in the box, and when i run out in front and shift my weight back right over the fin, it’s very loose and fun. then, as i step to the nose, it locks in and keeps me right in the pocket. it’s on loan to a friend right now who’s trying it out in this little eggy/disc i shaped him awhile back…rides good!
first a 6’8" 21.5" 3.15" Ricky Carroll Horan replica I got from Noel. CMP (6’3" 220lbs) tried it and said he could cheater five all day long. I ride it off the tail like it needs to be.
Second is this 7’4" 21.5" 1.8" balsa compsand vector shape with 1/4" vee in the tail
it has the greenough fin here but I swapped it with a an old red see thru lexan keel thinking it would help float the tail.
Before this I rode the red keel my longboard in the mid 90’s to supposidly do better floaters…
ended up switching to a 9" cutaway. The keels were made in a see through flexible lexan material before now its a stiffer opaque material.
On shortboards they turn very sharp much sharper than you’d expect.
You can go straight down and straight back and hook back down very easily with this fin.
They have some done the line drive but you get much more from a big swept back fin like the big red harbour fin.
They are pretty high performance and I like them better than the greenough because they are more predictable.
They make excellent nose riding fins but it you really want to hang out there forever without slipping get a turbo.
I consider them more high performance fins.
I like them on shortboards but lease management is a nightmare. I bought some floating leases and a coiled lease from poorboy to try and keep from getting snagged but it’s still a problem. When it snags on anything it like hitting the breaks…
I use my Starfin in this (http://www.swaylocks.com/forum/gforum.cgi?post=222619;#222619) and it is great fun. Very fast down the line, holds a beautiful high line on powerful waves and does cutbacks that increase in speed as you go. Board is 6’4" x 16"T x 16"N x 20 1/2" x 3". (I weigh about 220lbs).
Re toms set up ,the front of the fin would be pointing up slightly when board is on its back? Or maybe not .need help as i want to try a mates one this weekend.
Starfin/winged keel: I usually don’t care for pivots used as SINGLES, but the wings put this one on steroids. SMOOOTH, stable, rapid positive response on all but one of my 7-0 to 9-6 quiver, though it may not be my favorite config on 2+1’s. I’ve been able to mitigate wing-angle declination problems in paddling/riding on boards with +tail rocker by full forward box placement. You’ll likely get very good performance AND noseriding with to-your-taste box placement.
The apex of the leading edge of the fin should be closer to the bottom of the board than the trailing edge if you want to dial in some lift, it gets radical really fast though, so maybe only a 1/16th of an inch or so at a time. This applies if the wing is symmetrically foiled, if it’s asymmetrically foiled it’s different again.
Ben, got any comments about the fin and tal rocker? Did you experiment with it placed fore, aft, and neutral (level)? Interested in the effects in paddling and turning with the V canted down and with it level–also interested in the lift during cutbacks
I don’t know if you read my post about having it mounted at about an inch of tail rocker, but I had theorized that having the V pointed very slightly downward might make the thing bring the tail around like a rear skateboard truck when rider is a bit forward or front-footed
this will make me sound really dumb , but who cares
I rode mine "backwards " for a year , before another guy with a winged keel pointed that out ,
I then turned it around the other way and …
noticed no difference , actually .
Possibly , if I rode this fin consistently for months in east coast righthand point waves , I might .
janks , i wish i could give you some more in depth , helpful answers . But I can’t , sorry , mainly because I have ridden SO many different fin setups lately , since riding the winged keel [about maybe 6 months to a year ago] , so it’s all a bit of a blur , I’m afraid.
I guess the one thing I CAN comment on , is the fact that all my boards [except the “bushfire fish” are all pretty flat rockered.
It “may” be an idea to put it in the ‘bushy’ soon …it could be “interesting” to see what that would perform like…
