So what’s the difference?
Is one for small waves, one for big surf?
What’s the difference in the fin set-up.
What’s the difference in board configuration.
Set us straight Swaylockians.
I have my ideas about the difference but I’m gonna wait to see what the forum comes up with in the way of definitions.
Gone Fishin’, Rich
I have no experience on these but Im definitely interested…
back to the top we go…
What is it they say about a picture being worth a thousand words. Here’s the short version:
Twinzer
More like a twin with superchargers in front. Smaller lead fin very close to the trailing fin, similar toe-in angles.
Quad
Fin cluster more spaced out, with more overall fin area. Lead fins have a bit more toe-in than the trailing fins.
I’ve got a quad and use if mainly in really small weak waves because of the decreased drag without a center trailing fin but I guess some of the crew at Mavericks have been using them at the other end of the surf spectrum with good results. I found it really hard to dial in the quad with the ideal fin setup as it seems real sensitive to fin size in relation to each other. In effect you’re trying to optimize two seperate fin setups that interact with each other differently depending on which fin is in the front position. I really like the way they ride though.
i tried real hard with quads , put about 10 team guys on em at one stage , tried so many variations ,just couldnt get it wired for high performance…
moved the fins all over the place , ended up getting something half practical …looked a bit like a reverse twinzer…still nowhere near the drive and workabilty of a thruster…
regards
BERT
I rode quads quite a bit back in the era they were first popular. Some worked very well, others sucked. They seemed very sensitive to fin placement, but if you get one dialed in, they are sweet!
Oh, by they way the best quad I ever rode had a pretty good sized (wide & deep) center channel in the tail. I suspect that had something to do with it working so well.
Twinzers, I never got my hands on a good one.
Jobson did his twinzers with a deep single concave. The concave was actually curved so that it was deepest close to the fins on the side, and a little less deep in the center. He was the inventor of the twinzer. Herb used the twinzer design as his starting point for supercharger development.
The twinzers I’ve ridden don’t hold real well…they are somewhat of a challenge in bigger surf, but super fun on a dialed in fish on a head high day.
I have only ridden a few Quads. The one I rode didn’t have the ride I was after. I have been playing around with twinzers lately… on this board I tried many different fin combo’s and found that GX size foward and GR size for the back fins works the best…I found that with the larger MR fins in any combo’s made the board slow. I guess it was to much fin for this narrow tail board. I use a double concave and a outward tail channle. The boards is fast and loose just like I like’um… but anything over head high and it tends to a get a little squirrelly. .I was kind of influenced by Jobson and Mabile for this design.
In my experience, I liked twinsers better. I think it’s a more well thought out design and the placement of the outside fins add to the drive and speed by creating a slot effect over the main fin. C-5’s do the same thing. Quads just hold the tail in and allow you to ride wider tails. In my experience quads just ride like twins with a small trailer fin.
Hey Rich, i had some Quads from my shaper some years ago (3 or 4 years, maybe 5), following the fin placement that Bruce Mc Kee told us. Then i was at Mc Kee’s home for some days and i tested some of his Quads, from small wave quads, to big wave quads and longboards.
I can honestly say that they worked great, i never felt the extra drag, and i only felt that they loosed drive when i “forgot to use my rail” on a small board with a wide swallow tail.
They were loose, even looser than a thruster, and they were fast, but we haven’t found the perfect mix between looseness and drive, but i’m sure that if we have worked more on the design, we had found it.
I was really happy with those boards, even i won some events with quad set ups. Anyway, my favorite board at the time was still a thruster, but we (my shaper and me) were working on thrusters for some years while we were working on quads for some months only.
Then Bruce moved to Portugal (where he’s now) and we came back again to thrusters… I have good feelings on my mind about quads.
I wasn’t the only one testing those quads, there was an aussie guy called Tom Carroll that really enjoyed the set up, and he tested it in many conditions, mostly in Indonesia. Bruce also told me that a guy called Tom Curren from California was testing the set up too, here i show a photo taken from an vhs “The Search” video on Jeffrey’s were Curren is riding the quad. Maybe you know those guys 
Bruce really trusts on this sytem but “Pukas”, the label he was shaping for in Spain didn’t want him to shape quads under the Pukas label, and he was really pressed from what i remember. I think there were some “ego” problems on both ways…
Rich, if you want, i can get in touch with Bruce, he really worked on the system for some time.
Good waves!
On my last post, the three stringer longboard has the “multituttifrutti” system he used to test the differences in a same board.
Here you have more photos.
Rich, on the twinzer i can say that i only rode two twinzer boards, and for me they are like a refined version of a twin fin. More drive, more speed, you can hold longer lines, but the concept, for me, is really close to a twin fin.
I set some new boxes in my fish and added C5s. Played around with both, the quad setup held in very well, but was too stiff for me, twinser turned much better. Makes sense since the twinser with my setup moves the fin area further forward and have less fin area. This is with less than ideal fin placment, specially for the quad. Both had good drive, specially the quad. Quad good for down the line surfing in a steep wave. Just my $.02.
regards,
Håvard
Hey Haavard, if you feel your “quad” too stiff, try it with rear double foiled fins… for some guys, this worked.
Hey Haavard, if you feel your “quad” too stiff, try it with rear double foiled fins… for some guys, this worked.
You have any placement measurements ?
i personally reckon , you guys will play with it , get excited, come up with some other variations , and eventually get back on thrusters…
i will make one favourable point about the quads tho…
they did work in bigger surf…specially down the line stuff , just like havard said…
but there was always something missing when it came to timing…
some waves i was on fire, then the next wave was all out of rythem and couldnt get it right…
all the principals are the same when it comes to moving the fins forward or back in relation to each other…
even after a year of trying , and having all my team guys reject them after trying heaps of different configurations,only 1 guy continued to ride them for a while and that was only in big wave boards,
the one that i was finally happy with,still seemed , stop/starty, then would do a sick hook , then all of a sudden oversteer and go past the turn, never could really get a good solid combo of performance moves with control happening…
the one thing i didnt like the most was once i was out of control it was hard to get back…
i really like boards i can push past the point of control but still have control even when im out of control,if that make sense…
basically if im sliding, i still like to be in control…
for me the quads didnt have it in that area…
still worked in longboards and big wave boards, i would be interested if someone gets them wired for small wave performance power surfing…
regards
BERT
I think you’re right, a double foiled fin would help. I don’t think the center fins for futures fit the sideplugs tho so I would have to foil somthing myself or something. The rearward plugs are too close to the front plugs anyway, both sideways and lengthwise so I’m sticking to the twinser setup.
However, I would like to know messurements for a good quad setup, especially for the quads fins for the lokbox that you find on http://www.mandalacustomshapes.com/futcanquad.html I guess the whole fin cluster is moved a little further up compared to a thruster.
regards,
Håvard
I think the more fins you put on a board, the harder it is to get it dialed in. I wonder if your stance is more critical with a quad than with a thruster. I guess the thruster is as complex a system as we can get fins to work consitantly.
Personally, I’m having a very hard time getting the thruster wired, coming from snowboarding and learning to surf on a singlefin. I know that I do have a forward stance and don’t ride off my back foot. The thruster just don’t seem natural to me.
regards,
Håvard
Bert, i totally agree with you, on a quad once you loose control, you haven’t that “control over the uncontrolled” that you have with the thruster. With a thruster is really easy to be back in control if you are in good shape, for me, that’s what makes a big difference between the thruster and the rest (i haven’t tried the 5 fin bonzer).
I had a “magic board” for small waves and i’d let it go… i don’t remember any fin placement numbers, the board was something like 5’9’’ x 19.25’’ x 2.375’', low rockered, swallow tail… this isn’t a lot of information, but is all i have in my brain about this board.
I’ll try to contact Bruce’s to let you know some numbers.
As Bert said, it isn’t the best fin set up for me, but is different, is fun, and if you like to test “new” things, here is another way.
Good waves!
One of my favorite boards ever was a quad back in 83. Trying to make the transition from a twin to a thruster was difficult because the thruster felt rather stiff like the rear fin was an anchor. So i compromised and had a quad shaped by Minami double wing swallow quad.
Haavard, I think you have the riding concept in reverse.
Singles, you can ride either off your front foot using small, forward placed fins, or off your rear foot, with larger, rearward placed fin.
Tri’s you ride off your rear foot, being back foot oriented, with WidePoints centered or back up to 4’, all the cluster of fins on the tail, and the last fin a good foot behind your back foot.
So ride tris off your back foot. Try it.
