This marks the start of a new recurring theme on youngwisetails, the discussion of surfboards/fins that we are riding and what we think works and what we think you guys might like. It will grow and progress in leaps and bounds from this small post about fins, but, this is where I thought I’d start.
On our trip to Australia, Gerr and I each brought a quiver of fins, thanks to the guys at Future. I had more standard stuff for the comp, but Gerr had all sorts of left, right, center, glass, plastic, quad, carbon, fins. It was a menagerie to say the least, and one night we laid them all out on the table and they were all shaped differently and colored differently and foiled differently. Then we started to mix and match them and test them in our surfboards to see how it effected certain boards certain ways in certain types of waves. As you can see, this situation is one in which there are many, many, many variables, but there are also lots of rewards to be found within these variables. So we played, and below is our first success.
Sides: WCT Tech Flex fins. Center: AM1 honeycomb.
Theses side fins are a more upright fin than the AM1 and with the carbon fiber, they are very stiff. This creates a very, very drivey feel. To balance out all of this drive, we put an AM1 honeycomb fin in the middle which is a slightly smaller fin with a lot more flex. This enables the board to retain it’s responsiveness and move from rail to rail with ease through mushy parts of waves such as Burleigh. I found this set up works best in waves with a little bit of push because if it’s too soft, the real stiff side fins make it a bit difficult to glide and maintain a nice rail to rail feel.
