uhh boy. Can’t believe I’m about to open the speed debate – but isn’t “speed” of a surfboard a relative measure? In other words, when you measure how fast a surfboard is going you must state what that speed is relative to. Relative to a fixed point on land or relative to the surface of the H2O it’s traveling over. Think of a standing wave. No speed relative to land – lots of speed relative to the water. Given this context, would you still say longboards are “faster” than shortboards? I think this should be spun into a new thread rather than corrupting this fin thread. Go here for some speed debate.
gosh I cant believe I havn’t posted somthing
cryptic
antagonistic
bitingly sarcastic
or cynical on this thread.
fins are so cool.
…ambrose…
OOPS!
…first, I didnt said that shorties are faster than longer ones…
I d put shortboards to said that with those 2 types of shortboards I found a loose action and EQUAL speed like a guy who needs to constantly pumping their thrusters…
read again
-I ve got another point of view about putting fins and add speed…
put fins is like put bollocks in a board, you cant compare this with sailboats
you can compare a windsurfboard with a sailboat, but not a surfboards
we here dont use the wind like propultion
the other craft use wind so the platform of the board or boat is to serve in some point to that
Im not trying to enter in a mumbo jumbo here
the previous comment was a fact
I surfed those board, 1 for 3 years, the other 1 year. Mainly head overhead waves
-ok so go and put 10 fins in a shortboard to obtain more speed!
Im talking here only (like I said in the others comments) about shortboards
and not talking about super larger boards, and flexibility (like your boards) cause I never ridden one…
but I rode many types of the PU boards, and always see that the faster (when I say faster, the meaning is a board that travel to a similar speed with minimum pump in comparison with a CTE slalom pumping that you see in thrusters for ex)are the boards with 1 fin or like the Bonzer, that rides similar to a 1 finned board but enhanced for doing some tight arcs
check the other 2 comments
Hi Mike,
I didn’t say that longboards are faster than shortboards, I said:
a) That shortboards are not necessarily faster than longboards. . . . they can be faster, or not, as the case may be.
b) That immersed foils are able to have a better lift/drag ratio than planing surfaces, and that means that finned boards have a greater speed potential than finless boards s ( with some minor exceptions, and obviously this doesn’t mean that all finned boardsare faster than finless boards)
c) There is no such thing as ‘inherent speed’ as proposed by reverb as a shortboard only quality.
All of the functions of fins can be interpreted as lift, that includes the action of vertical fins, not just horizontal ones.
Quote:
…first, I didnt said that shorties are faster than longer ones…
I see, you were comparing different shortboards
:0
…if someday I would go to N Zealand, surely I ll go to your place and try to ride one of your longer boards
Speed of incoming wave = speed of a short or long board.
Fins are for control and direction…
Inputs by the Surfer, via legs, arms and body movements provide burst of speed, and locations within a wave to provide increased speeds by something called gravity…
Otherwise the best equipment in the world is useless without a good user/operator/surfer…
"Speed of incoming wave = speed of a short or long board.
Fins are for control and direction…
Inputs by the Surfer, via legs, arms and body movements provide burst of speed, and locations within a wave to provide increased speeds by something called gravity…"
Jackpot.
I like to break things down into bite sized chuncks
I think Rails have a major role in creating drive WITH the fin/s…
Hard edged rails in conjunction with fins act like a flipper to push the object forward…
And then there’s the variable of flex in the tips of fins…
I thought it was a nice distillation, but I agreed with you about rails in a post on the first page of this thread. 
The three fin functions mentioned at the beginning of the thread and subsequent discussion (except maybe the posts on fin/rail interaction) simplify the dynamic nature of fin/board/rider interactions.
For instance:
1.Fins have rake and are foiled to follow the rake in general. This means that the foiling (and consequent lift) changes from vertical to more horizontal. The horizontal component helps generate lift vertical to the stringer - possibly enhancing the “pumping for drive” action talked about?
2.When the board is laid on rail then the foil on side fin in he water helps "pull’ the tail into the water, generating purer turns off the tail curves - maybe less important when the fins are on the tail of the board, but when they are pushed up the board it becomes very important.
- Put more base into the fin and it will hold the board flatter in the water - the outside fin won’t want to let the rail up and out of the water - again more of an issue for full rail turns than “stall” turns (think stocky, power surfers like Tom Carrol)
Maybe the three fin functions need to be broken down further to allow for all the situations where fins do different things…
but I’m positive we’ll eventually arrive at the point of disagreeing what the best speed/maneuverability (thanks spellcheck!) formulas are and how they work - just like all surfboard design!