I was so impressed with the concept I forked over the $ (full retail - I have no interest in Dave’s business) as soon as they were available. I just received them and haven’t tried them yet. It just seems that standard toe-in is kind of like dragging a fin sideways through the water unless you turn all the time. Some of us just like to cruise.
The guys that have to do two little turns to get around a section might consider one big glide turn?
FWIW, the design and engineering is (IMO) top notch. The demo single rotating fin system I still have is equally impressive.
Think about it… drag a fin sideways??? Doesn’t make any sense at all to me.
I was surfing with Pat yesterday but did not get a chance to chat about the surf during or after.
I am glad you made the post that I was just about ready to make wrt the fins size.
Very impressed
Christian
A happy customer is someone who is told what he is going to get, likes the sound of it, and gets what he was told he was going to get.
If you take your current thruster, get fins 0.25" longer in the base, and use them in SurfTrux in an otherwise identical board, I think you will like the result in that it will be faster and turn better. If you use the standard thruster fins it will turn close to the same and be faster, and it will not make nearly the same impression.
So in a sense you might say the key is using bigger fins…but those fins are unusable in a thruster because of how bogged down the board gets. With SurfTrux the board does not get bogged down with bigger fins, and they are just as powerful in turns.
So is the drag from thruster configuration mostly just from the opposing angles of the center fin and the operative rail fin, or from the combination of that and the length of the thruster cluster, Dave?
Reason I ask is because if you just shortened the length of the fin cluster by a half inch, it seems like you would have a cluster with the same amount of drive, but looser, assuming you moved the center fin up, or tighter, if you moved the rail fins back.
And you wouldn’t have to give up the assistance the outside rail fin provides.
The fin cluster configuration measurements seem to me to have evolved into the standardized version because of the uniform tail width and pod width of the usual size of the usual performance board.
So is the drag from thruster configuration mostly just from the opposing angles of the center fin and the operative rail fin, or from the combination of that and the length of the thruster cluster, Dave?
It depends on lots of things.
The biggest, perhaps, is how rear/front foot heavy the rider is. If you ride low in trim (nose down), then the water flow under the board is straighter, the fins are at negative AOAs, and it is a big drag (for a thruster).
If you shift more rear footed, there is less resistance from the fins, and more from the hull. This is how ALL good thruster riders engage the board. They know from hundreds of hours of experience that you have to keep your weight far enough back to avoid the negative AOA range of the fins most of the time.
So a HUGE advantage of trux is that you can change your trim angle (nose down) and the board will speed up because the hull offers less resistance, and because the fins offer little to no resistance. Even this concept is completely alien to most good thruster riders - it takes between 5 and 10 sessions to get it wired…then you drive to your front foot in between turns and open up new opportunities on the wave.
The other advantage is losing the outside rail fin in a turn, and this manifests as a reduced drag/improved release and thrust in the second half of the turn.
Quote:
Reason I ask is because if you just shortened the length of the fin cluster by a half inch, it seems like you would have a cluster with the same amount of drive, but looser, assuming you moved the center fin up, or tighter, if you moved the rail fins back.
And you wouldn’t have to give up the assistance the outside rail fin provides.
I am not sure you would notice if the assistance was gone!
I am pretty sure you would not enjoy a thruster with a 6.5" fore-aft spread, but maybe you would, and I would like to know what you find either way.
I bet your style would have to adjust, but I bet the traditional spacing is more an outgrowth of having to pump up speed on crappy waves so you can make a spray move or chop hop. I also bet drag would be reduced enough to make up for it.
All that said, I think your fin system sounds like a great thing for front-footers, and I would think your Patagonia rocketfish is a great candidate for a retro-fit.
As far as me reducing the spacing, I don’t think I would lose anything. I sorta hate that tail-oriented pivoty pumpy shortboard style–it looks to me like kids doing tricks on a quarterpipe.
EDIT: "Could it be that the ‘thrust’ felt is not actually a force forward, but a reduction of drag that allows for more board/rider acceleration relative to another fin setup/design that has more drag? "
No, the acceleration is real."
I saw you say this and I thought about the outside rail fin coming out of the water somewhat to be what MM said. You’ve often made ref to the outside rail fin coming up and taking off that brake, and I wondered why you didn’t mention it here.
EDIT: "Could it be that the 'thrust' felt is not actually a force forward, but a reduction of drag that allows for more board/rider acceleration relative to another fin setup/design that has more drag? "
No, the acceleration is real."
I saw you say this and I thought about the outside rail fin coming out of the water somewhat to be what MM said. You’ve often made ref to the outside rail fin coming up and taking off that brake, and I wondered why you didn’t mention it here.
If you
use a rail fin with 1/4" more base width
AND
use SurfTrux
you will get much much more thrust than you had on
a fixed fin board.
But for a very good rider, the increased bottom turn action is, while noticeable in 100% of all test riders, not enormous.
The difference in drag when you jump to the front foot between turns is what really opens new wave opportunities, and it REQUIRES multiple sessions to adjust. For example, after a bottom turn, you head into the lip. Instead of staying hard on rail and holding it until the top, you front-foot it and coast to the lip. When you get to the lip you have MUCH more speed. You rip off a vert turn, and then descend 4-5 feet to the trough. But, instead of staying on the rail, you front-foot it down the wave and gain maximum advantage of gravity. Then you shift your weight over the rail fin, bottom turn, and head back to the lip…
THOSE are the times I felt new opportunities opening up. The bottom turn is better, but it is a small effect (especially if you use the same size fins as you use on a thruster).
If you read between the lines you can see I am saying the difference in drag is enormous IF you shift front-foot when you want to go, and back foot when you want to turn, as everyone had to do in the single fin era. The difference is that now the advantages of three fin turns are combined with the ability to push the front-foot to go faster (which is a natural tendency anyway).
Hey grasshopper. Blakestah is still around and the website is live. I don’t know why this idea didn’t take off. Blakestah asked to check that he has stock before ordering. Why not send an email, get some and try it out? It’s reasonably priced.
I think quad would make a lot of sense since people interested in this area less likely to be interested in thrusters these days. But the quad isn’t dialled.