Twin Fins

[Shelfbreak]

Could be a bit of a 'Pacific Ocean' disconnect here, comparing the handling characteristics of the twin fin fish to fin forward style twinfins. Two different vehicles?

[frankfqr]

Thanks for the edit John, sincerly, and with the photo to back it up. I always thought I was cheating myself by not adapting to trust in the design. At the transition point in the trough I was way to criticle. I would back off at the slide point and not lay into it. It's obvious the pin seems to come into play once on edge, you can see it in the photo looking at the track leading to the turn. For sure I never got to the point of pushing mine that far over, hence my reply. I'll soon know, Pavel called 2 days ago, we'll talk in more detail when he's ready to plow foam. Thanx!!!!

[Bud]

Lots of ways to make them and for many different reasons.
Big waves, small waves any way you want to go.

Here's David Parkes riding a 5'9" round pin twin fin at Laniakea 1988.
The fins set pretty far forward, were deep, fairly broad based and not too raked back.

[Bud]

Another example is this shot of Mike McGuire surfing V-Land in 1978.
The board was an Aipa "twin fin" Fish. The board was 5'4" X 22" wide with a nearly "stinger" wing placement and prominent V through out the bottom.
The fins were very upright, much like the MR style templates, asymetrically foiled and set with acute angles about 8-10" from the tail. Not much drive but he certainly could make'm go in small surf.



After I turned him on to one of my 4 fin Fish he quit riding that style of board because the "twin fins" he use to ride had a turning radius that was too limited. Short squirmy turns can be deadly here.

[Bud]

Here are some examples of early twin fins.

First shot is of a Bob Simmons twin fin circa 1949. Note the keels and concave.



Here's a Greenough Balsa spoon twin fin 1962.



Next is of Rolf Arness holding a Bing Surfboards twin fin, early 70's.

[surfhorn]

Great photos, Bud. I'll try and find some of the late 60s-early 70's twins from the Santa Cruz area. Both KBs and standup boards. Many kneeboarders rode KBs I called "Point Potato Chips".....very thin boards with twin fins.

[Bud]

I quit riding twinfins altogether by 1980.

Previously I'd had 4 very good ones all fish type shapes.
I also, had a couple of real DOGS, woof woof,....... it's true,...........bad fish STINK! (There's a lot of them being made out there these days to.)

#1 built by Steve Bohene at Infinity Surfboards 1973.
5' 4" X 20", It had 6" base 4 1/2" deep raked back, asymetrical foiled keels, set with fairly strong angles.
It worked great for 2-5' light weight and or sloppy surf.

#2 was built by Dave Hill of San Clemente 1974. This thing needed real good conditions to work at all due to semi sharp rails around the nose and super drivey nearly parralell 7" base 5" deep keel fins.
Fast wasn't the word for this thing. I did my best performance surfing on it. I learned to FLY on this thing.
It was perfectly suited for good So. Cal. surf up to 8' but limited to the less than real powerful stuff.

#3 was my first Lis Fish, 1975. Not as good as the Dave Hill board for afore mentioned conditions but much better for the real juice.

The reason I stoppped riding them was, I was having trouble trying to find a balance of drive and maneuverability with them.

I tried every placement, template, and angles etc. under the sun.
At a certain point I felt the loss of drive from more upright templates and relatively more forward placements was a liability.

What really jump started my 4 fin designs (late 1979, I was unaware of anyone elses 4 fin designs at the time.) was I realised that the big keels of my Lis Fish were equating to too much area in general.
I was loosing traction surfing Sunset despite their large area and symetrical foil.

A big part of this problem was particular to my physical make up.
IE...........132 lbs. skinny, one armed and realtively tall 5'11".

I had a hard time keeping the things tracking through some critical turns.
My scrawny arse just couldn't keep'm on the water at times.
Those times were while blazing from outside the boneyard into the West Peak. As the waves grew in mass, I'd sometimes feel the board's tail rising off the water. Just when you needed to be connected most, to drive high up into the peak and set up for the inside bowl.
Loosing traction and slowly drifting into the imapct zone there........ was uh........ well NOT FUN to say the least.

In 1977, I'd watched (with amazement ) Bob Ward, and a couple others unknown to me, carve and tear with their Lis Fish at BIG Sunset, Pipe, Back Door and Laniakea. I knew it was possible and wanted a taste of that action.

It dawned on me to just break up the fin area and reduce the pressure build up.

Bingo! My 4 fin Fishes were born.
First with very small back fins coupled with fairly large slightly more upright keel types, then to small, nearly equal sized fins and then to the templates we enjoy now.
We tried a whole bunch of sets ups. One board got around 15-18 different setups in just a couple months!

This solved the probem and gave me the turning action I was seeking.
The drive similar to a keeled fish with more responsive turning.

The templates I use most now are just what I settled on as a happy medium to what I wanted.
Different placements of such, have been sorted out for different wave types and power ranges as well as different board styles.

[W.G. Facenda]

Such great pic's there Bud! That Simmon's and Dave Parke's pic's are Alltime!

[W.G. Facenda]

Thanks much for that Bud!! Great stuff on my lunch hour.You really should write a book!

[hart]

However, I used to get into situations at Scripps where I needed to make an aggressive bottom turn, one minute I was setting up for the turn, the next minute I'm spinning out of control. Perhaps I was riding too far forward... :oops

mm

No, I would say that your board simply stalled..

Too many kneeriders think its them..rather than their board not doing the right thing

hart

[hart]

I think some of the best kneeboarding documented has been on twins. Look back at some of the old footage of Nov and Simon. Fast and loose.

.

hi red

I am happy to be corrected on this..for sure ( )

Novakov rode twinnies from Crozier (and before most..took kneeboarding away from the realms of PC and (single-fin) tri fins into newer directions as a result..)

Late 70's

But..the day he arrived at his home beach (NN) to surf (early 80's) and saw Simon Ando with a thruster, he went straight back to Kiwi Craig MacDonald (Aware Knees) and added a centre fin (Nov and I only spoke of this recently..)

Next thing you know, Michael wins his first World Title..with 2 more to come (courtesy of shapes by Hot Buttered/ Albert Whiteman and Peter Daniells from Division)

All of them by surfing on thrusters

Farrer of course, was waiting in the wings (he was the younger surfer)

Simon's early World Title relationship(s) were with Hot Buttered/ Whiteman as well..(and later of course, with Wayne Hutch/ Kneeon)

But as I can recall, all 4 of Simon's World Title results, were from thrusters



hart

(and here's the bit about being corrected)

I don't know of any video footage (from either) that show them riding anything else

ps

great pics, bud

[Jeff]

Red

Are talking about the footage from Water Slaugter of Simon and Nov

[jamie]

Hey Bruce
small corrections - Nov won his first world title riding an Aware Knees shaped by Craig MacDonald. I am not sure how many fins but most likely a twin.
When I was a grom watching Novokov surf the rights into the mouth of the lake at Northy in the arvo's after school was fairly eye opening, at this stage Greg "Keg" Geddes and I mainly surfed Northy point, and we would try to snag a couple in the alley on the way in.
There was a micro grom surfing around the Collaroy at this stage who picked up the unlikely moniker of "plank man" - known as Simon Farrer now, in those days he was riding a Crozier twin that he used to carry on top of his head( he couldn't get his arm around it to carry under his arm) like Nat's crew would have carried their mals back in the day at the Collaroy.
I am pretty sure he rode a 4 fin for a while that Craig McDonald shaped just before he headed back to NZ to be a "Rag Trader".
I can remember him Simon and Damo beating me in a schoolboy contest at Off Rocks at North Av,
I am pretty sure Simon was riding a self shaped 4 fin.
This would be about 1983.
Off Rocks is now my home break which I check as I eat breakfast in the morning.

[hart]

Hey Bruce
small corrections - Nov won his first world title riding an Aware Knees shaped by Craig MacDonald. I am not sure how many fins but most likely a twin.

Hi jamie

I did mention that Craig MacDonald shaped Nov's first World Title board and I said it was a thruster.

Both comments are accurate.

Michael only stayed with twinnies a VERY short time and in fact had gone back to single fins (prior to the thruster) because he just couldn't find any inherent drive 'longitudinally' in a twinnie..which ultimately was overcome by adding a centre fin (that now defines the thruster and was the mainstay of the single fin)

My point to this post was only that we have witnessed seven (7) World Title victories courtesy of such surfing talent as Farrer and Novakov (from 1982-1996) and all 7 were determined by thrusters..

And I might add, against the twinnies and quads that were surfed by their competitors at the time.

Take care, mate

Bruce

PS

What time's breakfast?