Single Fins

[Davros]

Being light on your feet, not forcing.

[tootr]

Simple. Get one with four little side runners and a smaller center fin.

[Cpt.Caveman]

I'd love to put some time into one to get the feel everyone talks about, but I live in Sydney. It'll be surfed mostly at short point breaks and beaches, and will probably just give me the shi7s.

I've I lived closer to some lined-up point waves that'd be different... A bonzer is high on the list if I did.

[Nick Carroll]

What is the "knack" to surfing a single fin shortboard?

Mainly you just gotta pay a different kind of attention to the wave. Multi-fins give you a lot of options for gaining and holding speed whereas a singly just turns where you turn it - there's no reach out of the turn, it's an on-the-spot sorta thing.

People have talked here about being light on your feet and nursing a singly, well, that's because they're trying to surf the thing like a thruster or quad, looking for the side fin and not finding it. You can power turn a single fin - hell, that's how modern power surfing was invented. You just gotta make sure you're in a curve or steep area of the wave when you do it, not in some flat or dead zone. Go back to that fin and lean on it hard and rip the board around.

You don't wanna lose speed on a single fin unless it's on purpose, they're wonderful boards for the stall-turn tube entry but run 'em out on to the flats and drop off speed and you won't get it back real soon. They surf unreal vertical especially backhand in slightly hollower waves where you can square the bottom turn off the curve at the wave base.

But other than that they suck, multi-finned boards shit on them in so many ways, I'm speaking as a guy who grew up surfing single-fins and once I got hold of a good three-fin I felt my surfing expand hugely as did everyone else who made that transition. It's cool for about 45 minutes every now and then to feel one again and flash back to the underlying style DNA etc, but jeez, after that it feels like driving a car with the handbrake on.

[Nick Carroll]

btw cavey, North Narrabeen and DY Point were major heartlands for short board single fin power surfing of the mid to late 1970s, if Col Smith, big Simon, Fitzy, Russell Lewis, Jimmy Sasse, me and Tom, and a cast of hundreds could surf 'em in these waves, so can you!

[Nick Carroll]

and...and the Bonzer was thought up by the Campbells Bros while they were surfing Silver strand and Oxnard by the sea, which are basically Californian versions of South Narrabeen and good quality Nth Steyne.

So don't be too hung up on needing a point break.

[el rancho]

Simple. Get one with four little side runners and a smaller center fin.

um yeah thats four fins too many for a single fin

[Hatchnam]

So don't be too hung up on needing a point break

That's what I've found. While they seem to "light up" on a long wall or point type wave, they still go well in wedgier short run peaks. Just move the rear fin forward and loosen things up.

[Cpt.Caveman]

Hmmmm...

Just ordered a new board which will be a twinzer + 1. Bad timing to be exploring the singleys.

I've enjoyed mid length mals with single fins and pulled in tails. Nice knife through butter feeling.

I think I'd have to give the bonzer a try at some stage though. It just sounds much more like the surfing I enjoy.

[Davros]

Interesting point there on why one would be light footed or nursing through turns, never really thought of it that way, have only ridden mine a handful of times and love the trim and speed with the V over 3/4ft waves with face, but every time to push a decent turn I feel heavy footed and it seems to punish me a bit, maybe I'm not using the rail enough. I actually find it great fun but its easier to ride a tri fin with half the volume and 8 inches shorter, which really suprised me. My first board in 81 was a Twin Fin, this is first Single, so yeah weird but good.

[steve shearer]

if you're surfing a single fin light footed you're doing it wrong.

Best to watch the Zenith of Australian Single Fin surfing: Stormriders and see Joe Engel, Thornton, TC etc etc doing it with power and style.

even then you could see how they had pushed up hard against the limitations of the design in the late seventies.

Go back five years to Steve Core's film Ocean Rhythms and see some more beautiful surfing including my fav session: Terry Richardson on a three fin bonzer at Blackrock. It was immediately apparent how those side fins gave him drive and hold.

Personally I think single fins are most fun ridden a little "softer" than that hard Aussie -particularly DY/Narra style- a little longer with a more Innermost Limits/MOTE approach.
Emphasis on early entry, line drive and high line cut-downs to strong bottom turns.
But they need a Pointbreak with plenty of room to "waste".

[steve shearer]

Someone who figured it out short or long.
Chris Brock.
5'10" single fin, with tri-plane hull and a Maurice Cole feeling beveled edge rail from nose to tail.








Light footed? nah, full power. He was well over sixty when these shots were taken.

[steve shearer]

Probably my next board.











Innermost Limits single fin.

[el rancho]

a lot of the fins on boards from the 70s were dogshit

[foamy]

And the single fin basis of speed is the old idea of trimming the board. Finding the optimum balance point. Then you can move up and down the wave. Turns are smooth but with power. Like Steph Gilmore when she moves to the single fin at the 2 minute mark. It's easy, just surf like Steph.
(as I weep over my surfing inadequacy)

http://vimeo.com/72287506

[Davros]

Good tips Shearer, I will have a look at these movies

[spork]

Great vid Foamy, Steph really shows the glide and flow of single fin surfing while make me sick with her grace and style. Shearer, you buying that Free Flight? it looks like a great board.

[spork]

Ride report on the New single. Two sessions in and I'm yet to catch a decent wave, but my observations so far are that its going to take a while to work it out. I think its more the size that anything, It paddles great and I have no trouble catching waves on it. I think it is critical where the front foot goes and I rekon Im a bit far back on it which maybe has a little to do with the straight handers infecting the coast at the moment. On the couple of half decent rights Iv had it was super twitchy and loose as. I had to charge the peak and a little grab rail before attempting a backside reo in the closeout. Made the turn with ease but it pivoted around far quicker than anything Iv had before so ended up almost facing back the other way. The other wave was a fat take off and a bit of wall, I still had the feeling of being too far back or maybe the stance too narrow? Anyway I caught maybe a dozen waves in two sessions but felt like a complete kook on them all but those two. It does feel super quick down the line and im very keen to figure this thing out. Its keeping me awake at night!