RealSurf Surfers' Forum

15 sec period hitting now.

Just slightly S of E.swell.

Hope the wind does it's job early tomorrow.

buddy wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 13, 2024 1:47 pm

FCS bringing out a few more classic templates (like MF, AM) in fibreglass and marketing it like it’s a new breakthrough after years of telling everyone how good honeycomb, carbon, and hollow fins are.

Most punters wouldn't notice much difference between the different technologies, performance wise.

Exactly. Unless you put a set of keels in or tiny fins they wouldn’t have a clue.‍♀️

I notice big differences changing out fin templates even if they only look subtle. Or things like putting a slightly smaller rear fin in.
But I've never tried a honeycomb and a fibreglass in the same template/foil on the same board so I'm not sure if I could tell or not.

A few in the last couple years that have been very obvious.
In a 6'6 Wayne Lynch I had some medium fcs1 Soar dahlbergs that I swapped out for medium honeycomb rusty's and they were reasonably similar outlines, and against my bias, I much preferred the Rusty's.
I took out some future AM1s out of a chilli fader and put JJF mediums in and the board was so much better.
I tried some Glide nautilus fins instead of the wade goodalls in my webster DS and the board became really hard to get on rail. The Nautilus fins went ok in my emery's though.
I put the nautilus rear fin which was quite small in the emery short with Wade G fronts and it made it much less stiff through turns.

I'm not gonna pretend I understand exactly what each design element was changing but I have a bit of an idea. But it's pretty obvious that you can feel the differences.
And I am well and truly an average punter.

People reckon futures blackstix vs honeycomb is a significant change but that has the concave inner foil vs flat difference.

Disagree Yuke.

Pretty easy for almost any competent surfer to feel a big difference related to fin stiffness/flex pattern.

edit: as per Buddy's post above.

Huie used to send me a bunch of fins in different materials and templates and sizes because I could give him feedback like Buddy's post above, and I'm not a great surfer by any means.
Surfing the same board 2-4 times a week with different fins I found my favourites for different conditions in a couple of months.

Buddy is a competent surfer though. Half the suckers wouldn’t have a clue. Also I guess if you are prepared to put the time, effort and cash into comparing fins you could fine tune your craft. I've just got a big bag of old fins and finding a set that match is the biggest challenge.

While I can't predict what a fin template will do by looking at it, I can definitely tell the difference riding different fin shapes.

Can also easily feel the difference between stiffer and flexier materials.

yep.
Total fin area is easy to feel.

Different materials easier to feel.

There’s a dude I talk to occasionally down the beach who is constantly buying new boards, fins, etc. Given his ability he would have a much better time and catch a lot more waves if he had a midlength.

steve shearer wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 17, 2024 2:14 pm

yep.
Total fin area is easy to feel.

Different materials easier to feel.

Confirmation bias, moite. I’m certain that in properly blinded testing you wouldn’t be able to pick up any differences

godsavetheking wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 17, 2024 3:24 pm

steve shearer wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 17, 2024 2:14 pm

yep.
Total fin area is easy to feel.

Different materials easier to feel.

Confirmation bias, moite. I’m certain that in properly blinded testing you wouldn’t be able to pick up any differences

Notsureifserious.jpg

Fishing as usual.

Nah not all. Surfing is full of wonderful self delusion and fins are just one part of that

Be an interesting test- I'm not totally averse to the idea that preconceived biases (delusions) may be at play.

You live by the psychosomatic sword, you have to die by it.

You and buddy could arrange quite easily, yes?

You need to design the experiment with a little more rigour than that moite.

This feels like a great opportunity to publish some proper research in a high impact journal. Beachgrit, certainly, maybe even Swellnet if you do enough repeats