Have a smik twinny from when they first released it. It's getting tired so an easy decision, just buy a new one as for me it's the perfect board. But now there is two versions? In real world surfing what the difference between the tails? Anyone surfed both versions?
I did not try these boards, but basically: - go for the pin tail if you want ease of going rail-to-rail smoothly, trading acceleration for fine control in turns, and have the board tail kind of finding naturally its best fit in the wave curve. You want to be able to better manage the wave power. - go for the swallow if you want a more positive tail bite and acceleration in turns, at the expense of some stiffness and a coarser control. You want to generate more speed.
So it depends on what you are after. For instance, you may want a swallow for weaker waves and a pin for hollower ones.
I have the 8'6 pin and it has been a bit or a learning curve due to not having any experience with twin fins. I does have a bit of rocker and is a slow paddler, you can feel the drag from that curve and the big fins. But it picks up a wave with ease and holds real well in a steep take off and face. The rails at the front seem rather big but manage to hold where it counts and that took a bit to get used to as I was waiting sometimes for it to let go but it hung in there. It is stable enough and that's me coming from a bigger board. I would like to know if anyone has changed out the stock fins and what you have changed them to, as driving the board down the line only seems to happen for me on more sucky waves. Or maybe this is part of the "learning the board" curve. Over all pretty happy with it but would love a bit more glide in the paddle out.
