The "bushfire fish" with the 5 fin setup .....

General Discussion
41

BENZA!!!

Crazy comparison eh?

Alas she was given away in a drunken fit of my love for mankind, to some Aussie Deckhand, on the Quicksilver Indies Trader on her last voyage!!!

I have more boards in the works… silently amassing the forces for my attack of successful XPS!!!

Cell structure my man… cell structure.

I had a great talk with Wil Jobson a week or so ago up here, that really helped me define this “flex” crusade everyone is on.

You’ll be the first to see what’ll roll out of the hangar!!!

Looking good buddy!!!

42

" some Aussie Deckhand, on the Quicksilver Indies Trader on her last voyage!!! "

…wow , that’s GREAT , mate !

Let’s hope Kelly Slater gets to ride it in the Mentawais , boosts an air on it , and ends up on the cover of Surfer or Surfers Journal , under the title ‘S.O.S.’ sighting in Indo " …

[Or Tom Carroll does one of his massive backhand gaffs on it , and gets a cover shot , too , with the caption "45 year olds can charge on shortboards , too "]

cheers !

ben

43

44

Come on Chip, where’s the next one…

45

yeah , that’s what I asked Steve …

a $700aus 7 megapixel camera that only takes TWO photos at a time ??

…man , my $60 swap meet model does FIVE at a time then downloads [just a pity it is 1.4 megapixel , and the zoom doesn’t work , otherwise I’d lend him THAT for some proper sequences .]

I got THREE waves exactly like this , but I don’t know / think that this was the one I made , somehow !!

On one , I had ALL five fins out of the water [and the board …THAT was the one where I headbutted the sandbar , hard …I wish he had got THAT one on video !!]

cheers

ben
46

hi chip, at last i’m back. been a bit busy.

ages ago you asked me if i’d tried my 5’6 with just the curved fcs as a twinny.

well i have now, a few times and the report is . . .

speeeeeed. the fastest set-up ive ever tried.

in small mush its unbeatable, as you might presume but i went out in chest/head high , sucky on the inside type waves and it was even beter.

took some late backhand drops, like your pics, slid out on one but then got them dialled and the speed was amazing.

for such a small base fin , 4", theres so much drive.

rear foot placement has to be pretty precise for maximum effect but anywhere forward of the fins is nice and loose,

can be made to slide around in the lip but never let go on cuttys or hard bottom turns, in fact a coupla times too hard a bottom turn projected me way out on the shoulder before i knew what was happening.

good for perfecting cuttys tho’.

in summary, imagine a skateboard set up with really loose trucks and really big , soft wheels but no wheel-bite problems.

effortless speed and tight carves.

no pics yet but in that other thread the pics i posted had the curved fins in i think.

see ya

47

thanks for that , skater !

that sounds great , I’d like to see the setup …what thread would that have been on please , do you remember ?

cheers for that feedback …I LOVE hearing [and seeing …hint hint!] how others’ "fin experiments’ are going …learn together , eh ?!

cheers mate !

ben
48

there are some pics in the " chipfish, pics from skater" thread.

the flexy single fin is installed but you can imagine it taken out.

cheers

49

thanks to you Jamie / ‘Skater’ , I took the two front side fins out today …and rode it as a “rail to rail inline” [?] setup. (Sorry guys my camera is out of batteries , but at some stage I will post shots of this setup, hopefully .)

The surf was in the waist-high range , and I scored one nearly chest high “bomb” [heehee]

The wind was 20 KNOTS offshore. [Lots of spray in the face when paddling for waves !]

My first wave , a right , the board went a bit sideways under me . I could feel the two front side fins missing . Didn’t make the wave , unfortunately , but at least "Sandgroper " got a free laugh , watching me eat ****.

The second wave, again a right , I remembered to crouch , spread my legs more , weight on the front foot , and pump more .

It felt GREAT !!

The board took off down the line , and I actually managed three turns [!!] before an end section floater .

fun fun fun

I caught three more similar rights , it was a good little bank there , till the tide filled in over an hour ,

then I got a random left in . It DEFINATELY felt a bit more ‘squirrelly’ on the backhand with the three big fins , without the two smaller sides up front .

This was a different side fin setting , as I HAD been using the larger G6 templates in the front side plugs previously , with smaller trailer sides (a bit bigger than GS’s , and fibreglass , too [homemade] )

…to be continued …

cheers !

ben
50

notice the solar panel skull cap on the back of my head …

…nice , eh ?

okay , these shots are with the five fin setup , still …

51

nice waves. heading towards winter up here. looking for some autumn swell this weekend.

allegedly 13’ on sunday but what will actually arrive is a different matter.

with my 3 in line experiment it was basically a single fin with the sides just being in line

for extra drive .that was the plan.

so that setup wasnt squirrely coz of the 8" centre.

i’m thinking there must be a drag/drive correllation in amongst all these combos.

more fins=more drive/more drag. when does one over ride the other?

the curved twinny setup feels like no drag at all, no 8" centre makes a noticeable differance.

mind you , 8" on its own is pretty good too with its flexy raked shape.

anyway, lets see what the weekend brings,

cheers, james

52

have you tried / will you try the matching back fin from the curved set in that setup , James ?

…that could go alright , too, I reckon !

[here’s a shot which shows the deck concave a bit …]

53

i want waves like that!

not tried that centre fin yet but will at some stage.

seems like a good shape for rear sides in a quad if you had 2.

where are you surfing? i used to live in w.oz when i was little.

in '99 i spent a year in oz. spent winter in perth, surfed cottesloe, trigg, city beach areas.

searching in my '75 kingswood wagon.

54

hi Jamie !

‘scarbs’ … [same name as the english one …I’m surprised you didn’t surf THERE !!]

here’s another view of the concave deck [just before I went lobster diving ]…

cheers  



  ben
55

oh yeh, scarborough, forgot about that. thats where i surfed most, thinking about it.

memory not so good.

cheers.