I thought it might be interesting to see if those of you who have played around with fin setups have had success. Or was the standard factory set actually the best all along. There have been numerous topics on this forum dedicated to fiddling with fins for specific setups but I wondered if many of you went back eventually to the originals.

Its fun to try and cheaper than a new board to keep things interesting.

What percentage of SUP surfers mess with fins?

I will start this topic off

My Walden 10'10 came with a ugly 9" factory fin which I replaced with a 9" FCS Soulflex pushed all the way forward. It instantly improved the drive/speed and totally changed the way the board turned. It needed much less effort and turned much tighter. I would highly recommend this to others

My current Starboard Hero has seen a few set ups now and I will still try some more, but as yet the standard Starboard fins seem hard to beat. At least by much anyway.

It is curious I have played with many settings and fins no one setup is universal. Depends on the board. My experience:

PSH - Best with after market fins, you can get stock are average, smaller thruster fin at back works a treat, quads I like backhand but not forehand, yet to try the controller style

Jimmy Lewis - standard fins are great, centre forward on small days makes a huge difference

Starboard - no difference no matter what I put in the stocks were the same in performance, was hard to make a difference

Coreban - better in quad option

DW - prefer a surf styled fin the straight up and down windsurfer style fins catch heaps of weed. Wave grinder fin works well too

All good fun try as many as you can

In a previous job I worked for a major fin company.

Courtesy of this I have about 80 sets of fins in my garage and a bunch of blanks in case I feel like foiling my own.

My method has always been to use a very familiar or favourite set of fins in every new board. Fins make a huge difference, by using a familiar set I take away one of the major variables.

From that set of fins I know whether to go up or down, stiffer, more flex, more rake, more upright, Winged fin, H2 whatever. This is the short cut to the process.

If you simply use the stock fins you get with a board you are kind of back to square one and to dial in will take you much longer with unfamiliar fins. That's my tip, fins paid my family bills for over 4 years so I picked up a trick or two from some very knowledgeable people in that time.

And as above, you will probably find you end up a different set of fins for every board to dial into how you want it to feel.

Totally agree with you CMC always start with what worked before and make changes from a known point.

Th eother point I would suggest is borrow fins from mates and try out different types until you work out what you like.

A different fin set up can make what appears to be a dog of a board into a real winner.

phill

Changed the fins set for all my SUP to 6in centre fin from tail future fins and 9ft 6in sides at 28in from tail up to 32 in from tail for 11ft to 34in from tail for 14ft surfing gunSUP. Changed everything. Went and hire a few sups to retry old factory set ups with tri set ups and found them soooo stiff.
If you guys are getting customs stick with thrusters drop the big centre fins and try moving the front sides up you will be amazed how loose it makes even the longer sups.

So I have a fanatic 10'6, fins straight out the box, am a reasonable surfer, what fin set up could I try? Its a thruster set up. If I wanted more speed would I drop the side fins? If I wanted more turn, what set up? Smaller centre fin?

I like the way my board handles, but am keen to explore its limits,