Pleading the fifth: The case for the fifth fin
“Three fins is confusing,” says Kelly Slater on the topic of fin setups. “How you shape, place, foil, and cluster fins. Four fins makes it exponentially harder.”
Despite riding quads fins for the last seven years, even winning 'CT level contests on them, the world's most successful surfer still doesn't believe he's got four fins completely dialled in. For that reason he travels with a 'Nubster', an FCS compatible fifth fin devised by Sean Mattison of Von-Sol Surfboards.
“Sometimes the quad needs that fifth fin,” says Kelly. “When they feel a little floaty out of turns or drift a bit much like with a wider tail, that's when I like a Nubster added on.”
Pressed on conditions Slater said he's more likely to screw one in when the surf is “generally small” however he's “also used 'em in good barrels and had great success. Portugal 2011 for instance.”
For those without the recall, or the recourse to Google, Portugal that year was clean 4'-5' and barrelling. Slater scored six 9-point plus rides in his last four heats, including a 10, but lost to Adriano De Souza in the final.
Greg Webber is another shaper who believes the quad configuration has plenty of room for improvement and a fifth fin can augment performance.
Webber takes a typically holistic approach to fin placement. “When you try to validate or dismiss any fin set up you have to look at the two most contrasting turn types: the full rail turn where the maximum length of rail in in the water and the flattest turn that you can do where there is no rail in the water at all.”
“A fin set-up that suits a rail turn is not always the same as a fin set-up that enhances the flat turn.” And it's here that the versatility of the thruster is brought to the fore, it supports turns of each extreme. Yet fifth fins can act in a similar way without hindering the inherent performance of the quad.
“With small trailing fins” says Webber, “they hardly function during the rail turn but have at least some supportive effect on the flat turns so that there isn't too much drift as you flatten out.”
“Until we perfect the quad, with its tail fins being about two inches further forward than the standard tail fin on a tri, then small trailing fins in this in-between zone will have a place in some conditions.”
Stuart D'Arcy believes that the boards he shapes exclusively as quads ride well as quads. They don't need fifth fin assistance. Despite this D'Arcy invented one of the more popular fifth fins on the market.
“The fact is around 85% of the boards I shape have a five fin set up” says D'Arcy. “Guys want to have the option of both thruster and quad.”
To help surfers transition between the two fin configs D'Arcy manufactured the 'Darc Drive', a wedge shaped fin first devised in 1998 while he was working on wakeboard design. When quads became popular he realised the benefit of the fin and five years ago Shapers began manufacturing the Drive for FCS and Future systems.
Unlike the top end performance of the Nubster the idea of the Drive is that you hardly notice it.
“I call it the 1%” says D'Arcy. “It stops that small moment of indecision. It stops that tiny bit of drift from fin to rail in the start of a turn.”
D'Arcy has found that older surfers are benefitting more from the Driver. “Transitional assistance” he calls it, a tiny aid to help them jump between different fin configurations.
The consensus among shapers seems to be that, while quads are now considered a valid design, there's still plenty of room for refinement. As the placement, foil, and cluster of fins - not to mention their relation to rail outline - is fine tuned the fifth fin is a credible aid for surfers of all skill levels.
Comments
If I knew the difference between 3 and 4 I'd be stoked!!
Depending on how far forward the back two fins are in a quad set up changes it completely - further forward and it acts more like a twinnie (especially on a wide tail fish), further back and it acts more like a thruster with the added benefit of holding a higher line more easily in critical sections. Thats been my experience anyhoo...
I think that if you go with a round tail, rounded pin, or perhaps even a diamond tail, the apex of the tail provides a pivot point and probably negates much of the the need for a nubster.
Roy Stuart, what profile would you design for a nubster ?
Hi Udo,
For conventional nubster fins the first thing is to make sure that the base length is in the usual range i.e. not too short, as if the base is too short the fin will stall easily, except when moving very fast.
Both the standard nubster and the 'Darc drive' Have reasonable base lengths and I'm sure that they work well. the down side of a short fin with a long base ( especially those with a long raked leading edge like the Darc drive) is that they produce low lift for their surface area, which means a loss of efficiency.
I'm making our 'Warp Drive' nubsters with a shorter base and elliptical planshape to keep the proportion of the fin closer to the usual used for side fins. The stalling issue is addressed via the bumpy leading edge, (which improves the angle of attack capability by around 30% and overall efficiency by about 40% ) and by a thicker and improved foil section.
Rider feedback so far has been 100% enthusiastic. They work.
roy im sure yours are superior . you should get slater to try one !
That would be nice but I don't know how to go about sending him fins... he's a hard man to contact.
Roy maybe via Freeride ? Iam sure SS will be visiting the Quik pro comp.... and he would pass them on to Slater for you.........And Freeride is a believer in your fins.
Thanks Roy, I should have checked your site first. At around $ 46 Aus hope some aussies quadders give them a try and as Caml said like to see ol baldy test one......or Ryan Birch ?
Yeah the boys should give them a go they are remarkable fins. We have the nubsters at 3.5" and 2.5", the smaller ones are AU$38 in FCS or Futures.
Here's the 3.5" http://www.roystuart.biz/2014/11/the-mighty-wd-nubster-markos-ride-repor...
.. and the 2.5" http://roystuart.myshopify.com/collections/under-100/products/copy-of-sp...
The 3.5" has two FCS tabs the 2.5" has only one which gives the option of two fin positions.
Hi Roy, Do the 2.5"s come with zero cant, ie for nubster with an already quad set up..?
Or is it the 3.5" that you prefer to use as the nubster...?
Hi Welly.
Yes both fins are symmetrically foiled with zero cant, both sizes are ideal nubsters.
We have canted versions with asymmetrical foils for side fins also.
Cheers Roy
Gonna get some and check these puppies out.
All really good comments about them, cheers Roy;)
Stoked, thanks!
I have found that the quad cluster also changes depending on the size of the fins. Spacing that feels right for medium fins feels too close together for larger fins.
Also I have a quad with a Vee bottom and it doesn't need a nubster. However it also needs a bit of push to get it going. The trade-offs are real.
Quad fin setups are extremely complex.
I've been riding boards with two, three, four and five fin setups from as early as 1980.
Twins with two, and sometimes, three trailing fins in the 1980's. Quads with a trailing fin by mid to late 80's. I say trailing fins as I just added different combinations of fins, to either smooth things out, or to add drive through turns, etc. The small fins (trailing fins) just add that extra bit of subtle (or sometimes not subtle)tunability. Some board like a cluster of fins, and some boards are "all at sea" with too many fins. I have a twin fin, which will not respond favourably when I add fins. It actually slows down!
Backwards!!! it's all backwards....
"DaClaw" by Precision Equipment. 5 fin setup since 1985. Still being used to great effect. Piece of brilliance. Same surface area as a thruster. Largest fin in the centre. Fins getting smaller towards the front. Equal resistance. Increase turning points. Increased control.
a anon . actually toms claw has more surface area than a thruster .
Thanks for that Caml. I was certain it was the same surface area. Maybe with the shorter back fin setup?? Regardless, I can't believe how versatile Da Claw is. loose but so stable. Soo much drive!
Complementary rails and bottom make fins work ??
Advanced steering systems - Don Smith 'The Shredda'. 5 or 6 in 1.
Call me simple if you like - My school teachers seemed to think it appropriate - but it's thrusters for turns and quads for barrels, if at all , for mine.
Talk board design all you want, all I see is an opportunity to name this new five finner going begging. So allow me to step into the breech. Quīnque is Latin for five. Quin being the root word used in each of the Germanic languages: quintuple means 5; a quintuplet is one of 5 siblings etc etc.
So, we start with quin then, as is the want of surfboard shapers we indulge in some word play and give it an obscure sexual name (don't tell me Simon wasn't thinking that when he named the Thruster!), and we end up with...the Quim!
I'll order two.
I like both Thrusters and Quads, I've tried the nubster thing and i honesty didn't get it, it sounds good in theory, but all it seemed to do for me was create drag, which takes away the main benefit of a quad which is speed, sure it may have taken away some of the squirrely quad thing, but I'm not even sure if it did, it just felt like a slow mane slightly harder to turn quad….and in futures there damn hard to get out if a tight fit.
it is rumored Kelly was`going to surf a bonzer in the Pipe masters in 2012, before his house was`burgled and Malcoms craftsmanship was part of the loot.
Campbell Bros have been doing there thing for years and the footage of Taylor Knox is all time. The Bonzer 5 really is the reverse quad and nubster, ie. Larger single fin with four trailing fins. Personally, i have tried the quad and nubster setup to improve the transition between rail to rail especially in figure 8 cutties. i'm interested in any feedback on how the bonzer goes in that situation.
I ride both Bonzers and Quads including quads and nubs.
Different feelings.
Bonzers is single fin on steroids quads are souped up twins with more drive and hold than thrusters depending on how you have rears situated.
Looks like most of us don't get the difference between all of this...I spent 1 1/2 on quads to go back to thrusters. Now the transition to thrusters feels as good as the transition to quad was 2 years ago....
I get the idea of it but ideally I should surf one wave with the thruster, switch the fins in the water and surf the next wave with quad...
I find what Kelly was riding at the recent pipe comp to be more interesting. now thats a different fin set up.
Wow that is something!
Its funny when you read how good are Quads , except that there is design flaw in that with the 2 side fins .....and no central fin, there is still a need to transition from one rail to the other...so the nubster was born........to compensate for the limitations that Quads deliver.
I think that Quads pivot,and thrusters carve.......yes quads have more drive off the bottom turn.....but are very limited off the top....no man turns........way less drive in the transitions!
I am hard at work on the next design breakthrough....... The Septic!
....but I probably need to do so e work on the Sextup first.
I am working on ," The Abbott"..so far, promises a lot, delivers what you don't want but looks like it could hang around for....???
At least till this coming Tuesday......
Going back to those big man turns for a moment brutus. I have always thought that a single fin delivered the absolute maximum power in a down the face carve but with a very high degree of difficulty. I saw quite a few surfers who would pull them off free surfing back in the late seventies but Derek Hynd, in small to medium stuff, was the only one I saw who really mastered them.
Noooooo not Tuesday....the Abbott is an Aussie Icon...and needs to be nurtured more...as the Abbott has promised better performance!
BB ..even Da Kong on a single could do what Dh did....I think the advantage with the Thruster set up is the continuity thru the bottom turn to the top hack.....its interesting to not how Mick F has gotten a couple of world titles doing exactly this......no air game...
but my memory tells me....uhoh........watching SimonA first on his thrusters at Big Bells was the bigger man turns off the top ...using the side fin to drive off...and of course the central fin also...you just don't see this with quads or singles!
Yeh maybe it was just the impact of seeing someone actually pull a big one off on a single, it was always like "Holy shit did you see that?" The two big things with thrusters for me were that you suddenly had all this extra area under your back foot to keep the flow and deliver the power AND you could make adjustments mid turn that were pretty much impossible for ordinary humans on singles.
Single fin design stagnated when the thruster came out, so now the retro single thing is equivalent to riding early 80's thrusters. I've made some changes to singles over the past 20 years, and wouldn't want to go back to the old '70's type even though they were good at the time.
I've never been back on to a single Roy. Some of Terry Fitz's replicas tempt me because I surfed so many of the originals and there were seriously great boards amongst them but that would just be a nostalgia trip, so I don't bother.
Yeah each to their own. What modern short boards have done is certainly impressive.
The old singles were often let down by their fins and the rail shapes, plus they were made too short at the end of their heyday I think, guns excepted. They need more rail length.
Hmm this is where I tend to not agree.........as we are surfing Tow bds that are 5 9 ,and use max, 3' 6" of rail and can surf waves up to....or from 8 ' - 40'.....and can carve on a rail ......at speeds no normal s/bd could handle.....
but the formula; of what fins/hull shape/position of fins relative to footstraps.....is one that has taken years to perfect ,but has opened a whole new world of testing equipment , and se what happens with edges/concaves/fins rockers...at twice the speed of paddle in bds....the F1 of s/bd design....
Roy the shortest singles I ever surfed were in the 5'8" range and that was around 1969. In retrospect I think we could have moved ahead much more quickly if we hadn't increased the length of our small wave boards from that. At the end of the single fin era most surfers were using small wave boards in the 6'0 to 6'6" range and they had come down from significantly longer earlier on. A big factor was that for most of the single fin era most surfers could only afford one board which limited design options radically since the same board had to function in all conditions. The usual result was something that was either average across the whole range or seriously limited at one end or the other.
Don't fink too much! Just go for a paddle!!
Brutus what's the benefit of using a hard edge along the rail instead of the usual smooth edge. I saw that MR used hard edges on his early boards when competing. Is it better for release = more speed?
I have loved hard edges nose to tail since I had a twinnie off Dane K shaped by Glen Minami in 1980...same as the MR's.
in shorter bds the edge releases a soon as the water hits the edge ..as in all bds who have an edge in the tail of their bd.....edges release nearly instantaneously ....whereas a rounder soft edge sucks water to the edge...is a tad slower,and a hard edge is has instant reflex........eg lean forward and pump to get down the line ...get up on the edges and much faster with faster reflex in turns....
there is a myth surrounding edges, up forward that they catch.......nonsense,as if edges caught why do all modern bds have an edge in the tail???
Because the edges in the tail are at the trailing end of the board following the turn rather than leading into it. Hard rails in the nose are prone to grabbing. Unforgiving is the term people use.
I have one in my wider tailed quad, they seem to reduce the arc width on cutbacks or climbing up the face ala a tri fin, not as much, no way, but you get the benefits of the quads speed with a little more bite.
most edges go further forward than the side fins...but hers a little test for ya to try....
sand off the tail edges in any of your s/bds you currently ride...and see if the bd works.....or does it just go so slow, no speed and feels like the bd is dead...??
if edges grab ......we should not have them on bds anywhere......
its too low a rockers that grab!!
The edges grab allowing the board to be steered. Many turns are not restricted to pivoting off the tail but driving from behind the mid point. That's why the edges go further up the board. Ask Caml about surfing boards finless. That's why Hynd has hard resin edges, to drive off.
MR has just shaped a 1978 Freeride replica twinnie for Matt Biolis .....will be glassed with a hard resin edge from nose to tail.
I actually think it was MR who said...its not edges that catch it bad rocker!
have been lucky working with matt that I get to see all the MR's models too...as Lost manage MR and I........
I think the twinnie was one of the most advanced and fine tuned Hull shapes that has so far been designed.....worked in 2' crap and Backdoor ...great barrel riders!!!
Hi Brutus,i had a board in the 90s that had an edge half way up the board,i found the board used to track and was told by the shaper to sand the edge back till it felt right.Well after getting it back to where most edges are these days say 4 inches in front of the front fins it stopped tracking and turned into one of the best boards ive had.Any thoughts on this.
samba can you remember how tucked under the edge was??
na too long ago,only know as the edge came back the board stopped tracking.
I did a tucked edge nose to tail on my last wooden board, which is a 10-5 with nose to tail single concave... there was no hint of tracking or catching at all, I think that tracking comes from an unsuitable plan shape and rocker combination, and possibly from fin cant/toe in anomalies.
It would be interesting to have 2 boards made with only these 2 variables changed and see what the difference is. I was told by a shaper years ago that the hard edge in the tail was for release and more speed.
Yeah although it's only needed in planing tails ( almost all surfboards have planing tails) with a displacement tailed pintail all the release is at the apex of the pintail so no edge is needed although it can still be used.
in the early 80's in France I took the edges off my favourite bd so there was no edge left around the tail...had 2 waves on the board it was slow sluggish and seemed to take a lifetime to respond to any push in turns......went straight back and put em on...bd was magic again.......
Once again it depends on if you want to surf faster and do quicker turns..
Simba....your experience might have been that there was not much tucked under edge.....which makes bds track...really hard to say not seeing the board.....so by softening the edge......you did get more release if there was minimal tuck!
I hear what you are saying re the hard edge all the way from nose to tail, so why do nearly all boards only have the hard edge in the last 2 foot or so?
thanks Brutus .So on your own boards they have a shit load of concave so when you talk about thickness say in the middle for example at 2 1/2 is that before after concave is cut in?
yeah I use a lot more concave than most.......and have tried bds with really deep concaves...am getting them to a point now where I describe them as catamarans and they all have hard edges Nose to tail......
and the thickness is with the concave in it...if it says 2 /12 its 2 1/2..........
I rode a standard hp type board a friend had shaped years and years ago that had no hard edges through the tail, he was a great surfer and could rip on it, but i found it very hard to ride very slippery feeling lacked control/bite/grip through any turns, i surfed it at a reform right where you take off in whitewater and the wave reforms, and even laying down it was harder to control and lacked bite you would kind of drift sideways easily, a bit like if your fins were tiny, but the fins where standard size.
I rode quite a few of his other boards he shaped with normal hard eyes through the tail and they were fine.
blowin ! what do you want to ask about finless craft sir ?
my experience has been with countless amounts of boards usually big ones that if the board doesnt tube ride good and slides down the barrell then you sand the edge off and then it can become a good tube rider . many boards also have been improved by sanding the edge off but these are high volume boards . not thin hi performance models . not to mention tho a few shapes had full on hard edge all the way to nose that were incredible for tubes and cutbacks . in particular a col smith channel bottom full conc . so there theres always a rule change to be found
I'm saying hard edge at the back - good for drive and control, hard edge past the mid point very unforgiving, prone to grabbing and bogging. Except maybe in barrels where the hard edge allows you to stay high and drive when you're weight is often further forward.
I made a post on the Kelly Slater / FireWire thread only a few days ago where I rode a FireWire with hard rails towards the nose and it kept digging in on me.
I referred to you're finless efforts Caml as you were saying that soft channels were useless and hard edge channels gave you control in lieu of fins.
Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I've taken from my experience.
I wouldn't have thought it was rocker too flat causing the problem as I usually prefer a board with minimal rocker.
blowin i mean if your going to have channels you have em so they have an effect . if you cant feel em gripping whats the use . if its speed u need then theres easier options
I ride quads and thrusters different boards for different fins from Mitchell Rae at Outer Island. the secret is most boards are set up for a thruster. so when you want a board to work 100% QUAD you angle the Quad fins at different degrees.A lot of surfers are wanting boards shaped as a thruster but with the added boxes for a quad. what they don't realise is if the board is set up for a thruster if they change to a quad set up it wont feel right. It will tend to float like Kelly says. If you are going to ride a quad get the fins set up on the board for a quad first then ad the tail fin box in. Quad fins angle at different degrees to a thruster. Some times I leave the back Quad fins and take out the front Quad fins, then add the tail fin Different ride again ....... I listen to the Guru from Outer Island it is logical science....OH we are talking about the fin set up not the Edges or concave's of a board. Leave the board plan alone concentrate on the Fin angle set ups. If the quad fin set up is correct for each individual board it will hold in a Barrel no matter how deep you are.
ok gotcha . i didnt mean hard or soft edges for channells i meant deep and shallow channells .
Kerry 1, So if you set up your board as a quad then add a box to surf it as a thruster.....does it work as a thruster....?
Mitchell Rae from Outer Island surfboards....ive always wondered who's boards you ride.
Of course. I have a 7'8" Coral Reefer Quad thruster set up and I decided one day to take the back fin out and set up the quad as middle Bombo Beach was hitting fast 6 to 7ft screaming lefts down the beach. It paddled in and hard bottom hard turns it did not float and the SPEED was incredible. Off the top down the line and cut backs were smooth as. I won't be riding that board as a thruster now. the Quad performed 10/10 as far as I was concerned and better than the thruster. but yes his boards fin boxes are set up for both Not made for one then two added, but all boxes are at the correct angle for all choices made. cheers Udo :) Oh I am 60 and still ride a 6'8" Carbon Flex tail Thruster squash tail. Have a look in Google for Mitchell's website OUTER ISLAND SURFBOARDS. You will be impressed I hope :)
Kerry 1, I just read the article in The Daily Lama.....good stuff.......until I got to the bit about the surfboards magnetic field and how it reached out 14 meters from the handshaped board while a machine shaped boards magnetic field only reached 2 meters......WTF.......what a load of SHIT !!
But very nice boards.
interesting how people try and get a 5 fin set up not knowing that its just a bit of a sales pitch to sell more fins and boxes.....that's the conspiracy theory hehe....
I know a lot of shapers ,like myself will not put them in performance bds as you have to compromise the side fin set up.....
EG; stock 6 0 x 18 3/4 x 2 3/8......Thruster side fins @ 11", 7/8" off the rail ,1/4" tow in @ 5 degrees...back fin 3 1/2
.......Quad side fins @11 1/2" , 1 1/4 off rail 1/4" tow in
@ 6 "...2" off the rail pointed at the nose.....
So where do you put the forward side fins without compromising either the Tri or Quad fins??
Yep that's what I was getting at. [trying to ]
slater is a freak he could probably find room for a 6 fin.......
Spooner (I think) won a comp on a 6 finner some years ago...
Add to the conspiracy theory Brutus, glen winton used to ride a 6 fin set up.. He had 2 further forward fins on a quad arrangement..
Good design.. Huh.. Commercial pragmatism.. More fins.. More bucks
Who's got 7..
Barracuda back in Perth in the '80's.
I remember those, regular thruster with two smaller fins forward of the sides and yet another two even smaller ones forward again.
I am actually working on an 11 fin bd for my retirement hehehe
Yes as I understand it a full set of plugs (5 finner) adds nearly $100 to the cost of the board.
Roy,Brutus are you familiar with Greg Griffin in Hawaii 5 fin set up ,has his own set of measurements for the cluster of 5.... I think the boards only work correctly with his own fin template and foiling.
Just had a five fin shaped by Greg Griffin in Hawaii. Flat bottom, hard edge to the nose, large fins up front, 3 smaller fins in a row at the back. Feels like it planes on top of the water - fast, floaty, controlled. Check out Griffin Surfboards - he's the master of the 5 fin, been doing them since the early 80s. Fins are shaped by him too, all in epoxy.
Just to put this baby to bed , one way or the other, how are you finding the hard rails to the nose ?
They look beautiful did u have it shipped over to Aus?
Bohdi, stick some pics up. Flat bottom even thru the fin area ?
Will do. Still learning about this board, but definitely enjoying the feel so far.
Five fins? Somebody ring Tom Hoye in Western Australia. Five fins are his signature "Da Claw". Pulled one of his boards out on a big day at Currumbin Alley and someone remarked, "that looks like a board from the future"...
Tom's getting on (was California champ in '69?) -rad guy, smart and deserves some cred for never selling out. He's able to explain five fin setup in quite accurate engineering detail -but you had better note the rocker, rail and bottom contour details.... Complex shapes! sheesh...
Tom has to be one of the best big wave shapers alive? -the man deserves cred (despite being so reclusive and shy).
I seem to remember that Tom was also responsible for introducing the twin fin to Australia.
Vintage surfboard collector UK ,has a pic of one Toms mid eighties 8'6" 5 fin guns and a cool 1970 pic of him with a twinnie -fins in boxes.
yeah I often see greg Griffen in Hawaii ...know him for years in fact he used to do my bds shit.....20 yrs ago in Hawaii.....he is a very good shaper and has his spin on 5 fins .......
and yeah big respect to Tom hoye......he is a master shaper......
and why do Shapers not use edges all the way up or just in front of the fins...bloody good question.........I think that they are more forgiving ,slows ya down a bit......and possibly is a compromise in design in that it compensates for other design short comings.....
I've had a few quads and always find them to skip out on a deep bottom turn. Too often this will lead to a mistimed barrel or even foot positioning, loss of speed. I know this has been written a lot in forums over the years. The only quad I had that didn't do this was a tomo v4 firewire which I creased pretty quickly. That's another story! The v4 was a machine as a quad and oddly with the old fcs h2 fins solid for those deep holding turns. Wish I understood why as lots of weird angles and rockers at play in the equipment. Fifth fin I never found did much of anything and although had great waves in 5 fin setup in indo not anything gained by that stub.
Love if anyone had advice on a quad they feel has that 'no skip' feel and not a compromised five fins setup. Might try again on a few used boards
I think that you ré ON The right track with h2's, larger fins could solve your Issues. Have a look at The size of the front fins on a neal purchase quartet, there is no slide or skipping on Those. Soar have a Nice Billy tolhurst fin which are quite large & work well
Larry Bertleman was using nubsters in the early 2001.