Kneeboard Surfing USA Community Forum

im looking to change boards. i surf a fish tail at present 4 fin set up.
i was thinking of going to a round tail same 4 fin set up and thicken the tail by 1/4 ".
The reason im doing this is so the board will carve better oof the top of the wave. Am i correct in thinking this . Any suggestions welcome.

You also could consider adding a center box, surfing it as a tri-fin, which might come off the top better. Also, have you tried using smaller fins? Less surface area on your fins can mean less "hanging up" at the top of the wave. I have been using grom-size fins for awhile now and have enjoyed some increased turning and releasing freedom.

Totally agree with Scott on that small fin set-up
Plus three fins is less drag
The bigger the waves the more I increase my fin surface and set further back that center fin
You can never have/own enough fins -- it's the only thing that will allow a surfer to fine tunes a board

Scott's right. On the new one consider 5 boxes so you can try it as a tri-fin in addition to a quad. Keep the fish for the bigger days, it probably carves off the top just fine when the waves get good.

For the smaller days, try a chopped square tail and you'll really notice a difference carving off the top, especially with a tri-fin set up. Dial it in with fin placement and fin size and you'll be good to go, even on the bigger days.

Hey y'all,

Checking back in on this thread. Brought my quad to the local shaper (who spends the winters in SoCal shaping with legit folks there, otherwise Maine isn't a great homegrown shaper's growth place), he thought the rear fin boxes were way too closer to the rails. To his point, on bigger surf, I could feel the inside rail was tracking pretty hard and didn't want to carve a turn sometimes. Put in a moveable finbox with a 4" True Ames center fin, took it to Cali (Santa Barbara/Santa Cruz -- sorry Scott I didn't look you up, was just in town for a day!), and surfed quite a lot better, especially on the bottom turn.

Has been fun here, still trying to get enough time moving the fins around to see where works in what condition. Actually realized after today's session I should just dump the center fin entirely, as it was stomach/chest high but often fast where you had to get down the line b/f the initial part of the wave closed out. Could just not get the speed going compared to stand up friends. Gonna go full bore and use my old Stevie Ho! trailers as the front fins and run it as a twin when it's 1.5 ft @ 11 seconds later this week.

Finally gave Scott's beautiful Red Blast quad a try yesterday as we had an abnormally large and clean day here in Maine (6 ft. @ 10 seconds), beautiful waves out there but spent most of the time getting pummeled getting out, and then struggling getting that thinner board into waves while weighed down with a 6/5/4 suit and strong offshores (in other words, a host of excuses). Still haven't given that thing the session it deserves, need to bring it out to one of our steeper points on a bigger groundswell.

Also have considered busting the fins out for the first time in years, but getting those on and off with 7 mm lobster claw gloves on was always a NIGHTMARE (getting the gloves on is bad enough), so would like to avoid at all costs.

Also, I find I habitually get way too far forward on the board, having a real hard time breaking that habit... esp. in bigger surf, i do it I think b/c I imagine I'll take off faster, but then it feels like riding a log that doesn't want to turn.

Anyways, enough typing for now! Here's a fun one from a great session we had a Devereux near UCSB... that made my winter!

Thanks for the update narrative, Ryan! I'll catch you next time you're around here. Keeping talkin' that boss into business trips in the Silicon Valley! The pic was great, BTW. Such a good carve back in the power section of the wave. Takes good surfing just to get into that position, for sure!

Scott