twinsers, quads, thrusters, and twins

[haterrater]

Hi folks,

just your friendly haterrater here providing another pointless post for us all to groan about.
This has nothing to do with most of you, nor does a single one of you actually care about what I'm about to say, but I feel it is about time to set the record straight.

ready?
okay. Twinzers are not twin fins. No, they're not. Oh, and the "quads" Kauli's been sailing? Those are actually twinsers. And all the windsurf boards with small sidebiters and large center fins, those are not thrusters - they're 2+1 setups.
Twin fins boards are boards with two fins. Twinsers improve on twin fins by channeling the water more efficiently over the fins, providing more grip.
Thruster setups provide a nice grip not found in twin fins without adding the heavy lift and static drive of the 2+1 setup.
Quads take the thruster setup and make it faster, kind of cross between the feeling of a thruster and the feeling of a twin (so twinsers and quads come to similar conclusions via different routes).

I couldn't even begin to comment on bonzer setups nor elaborate on any of the junk I've just spewed, as I'm not a shaper/designer/engineer/pro surfer.

I just want to set the record straight. Windsurfers have already alienated ourselves once from the surfing community. The last thing we need to do is bastardize the names of the things we're stealing from surfing.

-this public service announcement has been brought to you by your friendly neighbor the haterrater.

[jingebritsen]

For faster, pitching, breaking top to bottom waves perhaps more fins will suit some sailors. How many of us are fortunate enough to enjoy such perfect waves? What do multiple fins do for more pedestrian breaks? Are the best sailors in more common places ever going to notice any benefits of multifins? Do our fearless leaders ever consider those questions when pulling out all the bling they can bring? Is mktg bling more important than actual performance? Seen that emphasis all too often, unfortunately. Too many folks with the wrong stuff in the wrong places happen that way. Pretty haphazard, usually to the detriment of the consumer....

I like the ability to slide thru cutbacks, but that's my thing. I guess some don't. I hear that the X-Wave III will have optional multi's. Looks like the bling has effected Exocet's mktg as well. Optional set ups are fine. Quad set ups commit someone to that or a twin. I admit, I have not spent much time with twins from this latest go about, but in years past, they stank. How much drag does one want in a fin set up anyway? The multifinned boards to date have been slow to plane and not very fast or esp turny. What could possibly be that much different now?

Gotta like the last bit of catalog copy: for crappy conditions....
http://www.exocet-original.com/forum/read.asp?ID=2384
click on link from post 16

[Wind-NC.com]

[cagjr21150]

What about the HyFly twin fin boards...i remember they were not all that slow, fun to turn and great in shallow water...my point is they had merit and a market niche worthy of being manufactured by the Industry. Pretty sure most here have never ridden a board with 4 hangy down bottom protrusions. The world is not a lesser place because these multi finned type boards are here. We're almost all adult here...the sport won't be ruined by bringing these products to market.

[jingebritsen]

Pardon me, did you read the catalog copy? I believe it said take out the extra fins for onshore. I've always needed more power from the board, a larger fin, cleaner (read more efficient) release, and a larger sail in my all too common onshore ugly crap. I wouldn't call gales at Pozo a pedestrian spot. I didn't say that multifins were bad for everywhere. Just gotta ask, is this really substantive, or just another ring of bling? Classic case of more bling than substance: multifins in the gorge with too much rocker. For what? The equivalent of weak onshore mushy surf?

I've never had the power to get back side to front side slides before my all too atypical Kona 11'5 either, so I'm obviously out on the fringe..... The industry keeps blinging the uber high wind stuff, meanwhile, the crap conditions we all have to deal with on a daily basis are maybe a bit too light to appreciate the scores of boards that need hurricanes to work? Sure, I like to sail a gale in mast high plus stuff, but how often do we get that on the east coast US? That's for the trust funders in a few choice spots in the world.

What amount of some avg wave sailor's time would be on a board with multifins? What amount of time does that same sailor with only high wind gear get to spend in the surf? How much more TOW would all have if we as a culture were not so infatuated with tiny rockered boards with lots of fins, and tiny sails? In the words of Matt Pritchard: go big.

Clyde, I've sailed the smaller HiFly's before they could not get dist into the US. They were not as good as the larger ones. Yet, the large ones required a different skill set than most were willing to try anyway. Look at a typical set up at your fav flat water spot. See all the ginormous fins? Worse yet, the uber huge weeders. That's for the heavy of foot.

[cagjr21150]

Did not see the "catalog copy" in your forum link...

Have you ridden any of the 2009 or 2010 twin fins or quad fins?

[isobars]

With two exceptions, I have spent only a couple of days total on various multifinned boards. I bought them because they impressed me much more than the others I tested. One of the two I bought was so clearly superior to all the rest I'll comment only on it, after many thousands of hours on it and its successors from coastal surf to small heartland lakes.

Simply and accurately put, it transformed my windsurfing life. My sailing ability doubled in one day, by my educated appraisal and by the explicit observation of the editor of a WSing gear test magazine. Jibes, slashing, aerials and landings, extreme wind competence, extreme terrain (by mere Gorge standards) proficiency, and pure hoot factor all doubled in one evening for a measly $1,095. I would have very gladly paid anyone $5,000 to improve my sailing ability that much, that quickly. I’ll never forget that day as my turning point from BAFfer to Gorge windsurfer, and it had to be due to the board because I had already spent at least 8 hours on the water overpowered on a fleet of competing multifinned boards before I got on this board. The others had been as completely blown off the water as a child’s balloon in a gale, I was wet toast, the wind was still building, and I wanted to test them all with the same sail. All but a small handful of sailors had already been blown off he water, leaving me almost alone at the Hatchery (this was in 1992) … until I pulled the last test board from my van and plugged my absolutely overwhelmed 3.7 Hurricane into it.

I knew within 10 minutes that this board was truly unique FOR MY SKILL LEVEL among the hundred or so high-wind boards submitted to our Gorge board mag tests that year . That capitalized phrase is important, because “everybody knows” true experts don’t need no steenkin’ extra fins (does that make Kauli Seadi a mere pedestrian?). Really, even I improved enough after another few thousand hours on this multifin board to dispense with the extra fins … most of the time … but only when I’m not pushed to my limits and only because I have tried hundreds of other boards since then in search of a better one at the edges of my envelope. (I haven’t found a better design yet for those 3 or 4 days a year the Gorge gets really windy, but I have come close enough that I no longer need this board when a 4.0 or bigger is lit up.) You betcherass it will slide … if I want it to … after which it recovers in a sneeze when I want it to. It’s also very fast in the wooly conditions it excels in (it has no centerline rocker from tail to front straps). When the Gorge gets outright dangerous for me, I will be on this board or I will be hiding onshore until we can see through the liquid smoke.

Bottom lines:
1. It ain’t just multi fins that makes all the difference; it’s the whole design. This design used hull channels and side-fin geometry optimized over years of R&D by the Campbell Brothers, and it worked.
2. The pros who tested this same board liked it, but didn’t feel it was unique except in tightly spaced east-U.S.-coast waves, where it extreme turning ability allowed it to jibe at full speed within a short and choppy onshore trough without ever spinning out.
3. My conclusions:
A. It worked wonders for yer average wannabe.
B. I’m yer average wannabe.

Mike \m/

[isobars]

[jingebritsen]

Clyde, see forum entry # 16, then click on that link. Dunno why the thing won't transfer and work over here. No, I have not sailed 2009 and 2010 multi's, neither have you. It's just another round of bling until I see otherwise. I believe some of the pro's could sail ironing boards with plywood fins around most of us.... The bling thing needs to stop. The beliefs seem to have more importance than actual time on the water, or in the surfs?

isobars, where did I ever say any pro was pedestrian? Where do all these "read what I wanna see" misconceptions come from?

[Wind-NC.com]

John, it's not the industry's fault that you live someplace with "crap conditions." Get over it dude, it's windy ALL OVER the east coast, especially spring and fall. We might as well take advantage of the times that it does blow, with some sweet a$$ equipment that rips!!

From the Boardseeker Magazine test:

"Some of the boards in this test have blown us away with how loose they are on a wave face. There really is something special about them that a single fin just doesn’t offer at the moment.

It seems that you don’t NEED to ride a bigger twin fin (than single fin), but you can if you want to. And this has many advantages in cross-on conditions.

We have a sneaking suspicion that this is where the real future of twin fins may lie (at least in Euro conditions) – making bigger boards that deliver a ride loose enough to match a much smaller single fin. "


All the major board companies make a pretty big twin fin, with recommended max sails in the 6-6.5m range:

JP- 92 liters @ 59 wide
Tabou- 85 liters @ 57.5 wide
Starboard- 87 liters @ 60.5 wide
Exocet- 96 @ 65
Fanatic- 93 @ 59.5
RRD- 99 @ 62
Mistral- 90 @ 59

I would think that with winds of about 18 knots, with a 6m sail, many of these boards would work very very well. And if you don't care about planing, these boards are stable enough to easily schlog in under 15 knots.

It is "Wind" surfing, isn't it??? Why limit the R+D and marketing to your self proclaimed "Crap Conditions?"