Quad / Thruster ride report - fin advice needed
Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:51 am
http://i624.photobucket.com/albums/tt32 ... G_0335.jpg
http://i624.photobucket.com/albums/tt32 ... G_0344.jpg
OK so after two months surfing this board (on left of pic) with both quad and thruster setups here goes my thoughts.
Keep in mind the shaper will have kittens doing this review as the board was always meant to be a grovel board, and I've been trying it in everything up to shoulder Fiji reef breaks and even bigger lumpy Sunny Coast beach breaks. It's not what the intended purpose was, but I see this plan shape as exaggerating everything I'm trying to find out.
Thruster has a "softer" feel, it's hard to explain but it maybe could also be explained as less precise or maybe even less tracky... but under your feet it feels softer, and that creates a "slower" feeling.
Further to that, I'm not sure thruster is "slower" but the extra precise feel of the quad I reckon mimics that of when a thruster is going faster, that feeling when everything "locks in" and you are flying. With the quad this locked in feeling happens at a lower speed, therefore this may give the impression of going faster.
There is some cause to think the extra fin surface makes you sit a tad higher in the wall of the wave, therefore giving more speed from gravity, therefore they may indeed be faster.
The reason I think this last comment is the most accurate is from recent experience surfing bigger waves on the 6'3, it tends to stay higher on the wall unless you drive it to the bottom, and there seems to be a lot more speed. I don't reckon the "board is faster" I think the "setup is faster" due to where it sits on the wave face. Someone else wrote "a quad rewards taking a high line" and I think that's pretty apt.
I have absolutely no doubt I now know what "more drive from a quad" and "more pivot from a thruster" means.
The main drama I've had with the quad setup on the little board is backhand. I just cannot get the bastard to snap off the top backside when I've got even moderate speed up, but in thruster I can. Whether it's been pure coincidence that I'm standing on the tail in the correct spot or whether in time I could adjust my style to get the tail to come around better in quad I don't know.
So far I've had single foiled 5s in the front the whole time. All rear fins have been double foiled. I've tried 3s in the rear as quad, 3 in rear as thruster and a 7 in the rear as thruster. If anything the 7 in the rear "hooks/pivots/turns" even better and I haven't really felt it is overfinned. However I have buried the nose/shoulder on drops a couple of times with the 7 which wasn't happening with the 3 but wave shape was completely different as well.
What I want to explore next is whether sharing the fin area between the rear quad plugs and the thruster (so a five-fin setup) gives me the best of both worlds or just makes the fins fight each other.
Or perhaps even smaller quad fins all round, with a 5 in the thruster slot or something.
I may even be trying to achieve something this plan shape simply was not built for, but I'd like to see how far I can push the argument before I decide what board should fill in the hole between the two boards.
I haven't tried the 6'3 (on right of pic) as a thruster yet. I have been so stoked on the extra hold, precision etc I am getting from the narrowed McKee setup that I haven't wanted to try anything else. I will be doing it though as I want to know how much the tail shape and contours are doing and how much of that is fins.
Would appreciate any help with what to try next with fins.
http://i624.photobucket.com/albums/tt32 ... G_0344.jpg
OK so after two months surfing this board (on left of pic) with both quad and thruster setups here goes my thoughts.
Keep in mind the shaper will have kittens doing this review as the board was always meant to be a grovel board, and I've been trying it in everything up to shoulder Fiji reef breaks and even bigger lumpy Sunny Coast beach breaks. It's not what the intended purpose was, but I see this plan shape as exaggerating everything I'm trying to find out.
Thruster has a "softer" feel, it's hard to explain but it maybe could also be explained as less precise or maybe even less tracky... but under your feet it feels softer, and that creates a "slower" feeling.
Further to that, I'm not sure thruster is "slower" but the extra precise feel of the quad I reckon mimics that of when a thruster is going faster, that feeling when everything "locks in" and you are flying. With the quad this locked in feeling happens at a lower speed, therefore this may give the impression of going faster.
There is some cause to think the extra fin surface makes you sit a tad higher in the wall of the wave, therefore giving more speed from gravity, therefore they may indeed be faster.
The reason I think this last comment is the most accurate is from recent experience surfing bigger waves on the 6'3, it tends to stay higher on the wall unless you drive it to the bottom, and there seems to be a lot more speed. I don't reckon the "board is faster" I think the "setup is faster" due to where it sits on the wave face. Someone else wrote "a quad rewards taking a high line" and I think that's pretty apt.
I have absolutely no doubt I now know what "more drive from a quad" and "more pivot from a thruster" means.
The main drama I've had with the quad setup on the little board is backhand. I just cannot get the bastard to snap off the top backside when I've got even moderate speed up, but in thruster I can. Whether it's been pure coincidence that I'm standing on the tail in the correct spot or whether in time I could adjust my style to get the tail to come around better in quad I don't know.
So far I've had single foiled 5s in the front the whole time. All rear fins have been double foiled. I've tried 3s in the rear as quad, 3 in rear as thruster and a 7 in the rear as thruster. If anything the 7 in the rear "hooks/pivots/turns" even better and I haven't really felt it is overfinned. However I have buried the nose/shoulder on drops a couple of times with the 7 which wasn't happening with the 3 but wave shape was completely different as well.
What I want to explore next is whether sharing the fin area between the rear quad plugs and the thruster (so a five-fin setup) gives me the best of both worlds or just makes the fins fight each other.
Or perhaps even smaller quad fins all round, with a 5 in the thruster slot or something.
I may even be trying to achieve something this plan shape simply was not built for, but I'd like to see how far I can push the argument before I decide what board should fill in the hole between the two boards.
I haven't tried the 6'3 (on right of pic) as a thruster yet. I have been so stoked on the extra hold, precision etc I am getting from the narrowed McKee setup that I haven't wanted to try anything else. I will be doing it though as I want to know how much the tail shape and contours are doing and how much of that is fins.
Would appreciate any help with what to try next with fins.