hey all, I realise there was some talk ages ago about modifying a thruster to with a bonzer style fin set up in around 2005, but can’t see any responses as to how the boards went in the water, has anyone done this recently and did it work at all? seeings that the thruster didn’t have the bonzer style bottom design only the fin setup?
i've *heard* of people doing it and liking the results. Bonzer purists might tell you that it's not a true Bonzer (which it isn't) but, i've also *heard* that the Campbells even suggest doing this to see if you like the Bonzer feel.
I put the fcs bonzer side runners (larger of the pairs) into a 7’ diamondtail I have and it worked very well.
I’d read an article in Surfers Path in which Malcolm Campbell said you can put bonzer fins in any board and see if it works but the bonzer equations is about the synergy of the whole.
With this in mind I put them in with a 6.5" fin and found I had a combination which worked beyond my expectations.
The board felt slow and unresponsive as a single. It now carved turns while maintaing speed and really made it easy to ride the board in a smooth style.
Keep in mind this is a an old school wide point forward 7’er with modern tweaks like a light single to double concave.
Orange board in pic…
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yes the comments by malcolm in the surfers path interview have inspired me to test it, the surf down my way is far from perfect cylindrical walls so I figured retrofitting an old board would be a good place to start.
I’m in the process of modifying a 6’4" x 19’ x 2’1/2" which is abit older and has some serious double concaves in the tail, I had a fin box floating around and noticed the bonzer fcs side fins on ebay, so am having a crack.
I’ll let you know how it goes, I’m tipping I’ll be waiting for the right day though.
cuttlefish I’m envious of the dick van straalens, very nice.
recently on the ‘surfysurfy’ blog they showed a board that had been modified with the addition of the bonzer fins, it was reported to ride very nicely.
[img_assist|nid=1055422|title=bonzerness|desc=ADDH boards|link=none|align=left|width=0|height=0]i did that to two of my boards..
one is a bonzer3..other bonzer5
thanks for all your comments, I surfed the thruster as a singlefin this morning in clean 3ft walls, it was great and flew the sections, I reckon it is heaps better than as a thruster but I never liked them much anyway. have ordered the fcs bonzer side biters and I reckon it will go really well with them on it as long as i get that fin placement right.
cheers