What’s the function of wings on a fish typed surfboard?
What’s the function of wings on a fish typed surfboard? -Forgive me If I miss somethiing, but as I understand it there are two functions of wings. One, they create a pivot point to break your turn off of, and two, You can have a fairly wide overall board but then quickly bring the outline in to a narrower tail for more control and easier turning.
One of the ways I like to think about tail widths (and this relates directly to to the sudden narrowing of tail width aka the wing, bump, stinger) is the wider the tail the harder the board becomes to turn at higher speeds. This is because…well lets just use a simple analogy: the next time you’re sitting in a motorboat, make your hand into a little surfboard and, when the boat isn’t moving, lean over the side push your minisurfboard hand into the water. No resisitance - easy to push in the water. Then try doing this at high speed (be sure to point your fingers towards the rear of the boat, so your finger tips become like the tail of your miniboard). You’ll notice its much harder to push your hand down and keep it under water. If your hand was twice as wide it would be even harder to push the miniboard into the water. Now here’s where the imaginary wings come in. If you could take off your pinky and index finger your minisurfboard hand would have wings and it would become easier to sink the tail. The same principal holds for the rear of your surfboard when on a wave. The reason wings are frequently used on fish is, like Fletch said, to maximize width in a really short board while not compromising a high performance tail section. Swaylock http://www.pointblanks.com/