Kneeboard Surfing USA Community Forum

BEING A TRI FIN RIDER I MIGHT BE BIASED,BUT HAVE NOTED AN INCREASING NUMBER OF GUYS PUTTING A REAR FIN IN THEIR QUADS.HAVING RIDDEN A FEW QUADS AND NOT LIKING THE AMOUNT OF UNWANTED TAIL SLIDE ITS EXACTLY WHAT I WOULD DO(A SMALL TRAILER FIN}SO BRINGS ME BACK TO "WILL FIVE FINS REPACE QUADS?" :?:sorry about upper case im compuer illiterate

All depends on your fin placement. Quad fins foreward, and you aren't gonna grab your rail and crank a turn or you'll spin. The five fin boards that I have ridden have moderate fin placement. Not to far foreward, and not on the tail like your classic cali quad but somewhere in between. Also you don't want your foreward fins to be too tall. Keep playing with different fin combos and eventually you'll dial it in for your own style of surfing. A twinzer set up with a small center fin seems to work fairly well for me. Later, T Hall.

unwanted tail slide?

depends on whether u get that or not and whether it is unwanted in terms of slide

im liking a bit of slide - if its unwanted perhaps one is not on the right part of the board or something cos i cant belive good quad shapers make boards with unwanted slide...unless u like unwanted slide and asked for it as a feature......

Slide? On a 4 fin? I'd probably give myself a brown wetsuit before I could make a quad slide...

NOV MAYBE YOU OR SOMEBODY WHO HAS FITTED A REAR FIN COULD EXPLAIN WHY THIS SEEMS TO BE A GROWING TREND :roll:THE ORIGINAL POST WAS NOT A CRITISISM OF QUADS OR THE PEOPLE WHO SHAPE AND OR RIDE THEM JUST AN OBSERVATION.PEOPLE ARE SO TOUCHY ON THIS 3 OR 4 FIN ISSUE,WHO GIVES A RATS ARSE RIDE WHAT WORKS FOR YOU.MAYBE THE QUAD I RODE HAD ITS FIN PLACEMENT TO FAR FORWARD THATS WHY IM ASKING QUESTIONS NOT CRITISING.LOOKING TO GET A KNEW BOARD TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT MAYBE 5 FIN

mornin all,

Five fin replace quads,Don't think so.The key word here is innovation.All these combinations add to the variety of what is available the KBing world.There are so many variables,fin placement,up,back,set in from the edge,size of fins,etc,that it's almost impossible to compare these combos against each other...It's fun though and makes for interesting reading

cheers.

Hey dogtown

im not touchy im...feely

just answered the question as i thought

in other words I wouldnt bother with the exrta fin id look at different shapes and if you want to try a quad get one from Parkes as there should be no unwanted slide.

5 not should replace 4 cos four is ok - as a 3 or 4 man if i got bored of a 4 id try a 3 with a diffrent length or shape

d


I think 5 fin kneelos are fashion victims*














*joke

Nah - 5 fins have been around forever - and it's like saying "quads will replace tri-fins". It just doesn't work that way. Some people prefer the tail slide of a quad, while others (like me) can't even turn a tri-fin because of the drag off the rear fin. So it is all down to what you like riding and what feels best for you. And what feels best for me at the mo is my new small-wave quad - it's a real rocket. Super fast and and VERY unforgiving. I'm going to HAVE to become a better surfer to surfer it (...if you know what I mean...)

.....also, having a quad set-up with fins forward isn't necessarily a bad thing. It allows you to use more length of the rail to turn off. So things like double-flyer rounded pins really start it work. It forces you on to the rail to make use of it. I can actually feel the pivot off each of the flyers - depending on the turn - but in cutbacks especially. I would suggest that not getting it on to the rail would perhaps be the reason for the "unwanted tail slide" on the four-fun you rode. It's just a completely different style of surfing (between tri-fins and four fins). It's really hard to compare - and I don't think you realistically can. Which is why I admire guys who can surf both types of boards. My mate MEAT for one, as well as guys like Dave Parkse who ride both both so they can keep in touch with what the boards do when shaping.

I remember people whinging how twinnies would slide - so they added a stabiliser (or two or three).
But people that put their boards on a rail were unable to slide twinnies and didn't need stabilisers.
A lot of the people that put stabilisers in twinnies couldn't ride thrusters either - they had never mastered the technique of putting a board on rail.
Many of them moved to quads, using excessive fin area to overcome slide. But the quads were slow with all that drag, so the tail area was increased. But that brought back the potential for tail slide....

It's all cycles of learning. The knowledge resides in the shapers who remember the last cycle (or two or three) and can pick out what's diferent about the current one.

In 34 yrs of kneeriding i have never had a twinfin fish or quad slide out or spin out! I would look at fin placement.I find my Lis fish to be much more on the stiff side if anything.They have big keelfins with the trailing edge of the fins 6in from tail. Not sure how you could make it slide or spin out since they are designed to be ridden on the tail.The classic fish is a hard riding stiff twin pintail. The fin forward later designs are more for slide turns i think.

Splashy,
I've just ordered a quad from Parksey for exactly the same reason you have stated... "forces you on to the rail to get use to it". I'm looking forward to this difference between the quad and the FT Tri that I have.

I've slid out the Tri with David's large template fins on in 4-6' lumpy surf. (It has soft rails so no real bite and I was trying to turn it flat on the face. Board rolled and I had one leg either side of it, the outer fin glanced inner thigh but luckilly no blood drawn). Anything will give unwanted slide if you don't surf it as it was designed.

Brendan

I don't think any board should make you do anything at all.

Surfing isn't about eating your vegetables in front of your Mother.

Surf the way you feel..and its the board that's gotta keep up.

Not you.

hart

dorje...I'm glad I scrolled down ..first

I'm pretty sold on 5 fins after experimenting this past year with my quad; I dropped a long center box in this past spring and am really impressed on the performance.

I still have some work to do with working with my extensive fin collection: ride it as a tri fin; ride it with a big flex in the center and smaller side fins; mix up the quads sizes. John Mel took my same shape to Indo this week and measured my cneter fin placement so he could drop in a futures box prior to the trip. Hopefully he will find time during his 3 weeks to try a variety of fin placements.

I'm really stoked on the ability of my 6'0" 5 fin to ride 2 foot- no-swell all the way up to DOH+ cranking surf (south swell here in Santa Cruz). I can't wait for our winter to turn on so I can give this board a go in our large, sometimes bumpy NW swells. More later..............