i bought my knee board in 1985 and it came with a winged keel fin, I wonder if this would have an effect on a SUP it did on the knee board!
Now of course they make them bigger and longer so your board actually leaves the water, who would have thought it would come to this???

Get it in there Dave ..I have a friend who uses them on his surf sups ...a little bit bigger though 200 ml long I think .. For me
it didn't improve the turning ..but it did lift the tail up a little .not for me ..I like the tail to dig in ...Go the 80's ...I had my first drink in 1980
never looked back Since .. Hic.

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Tardy said..
Get it in there Dave ..I have a friend who uses them on his surf sups ...a little bit bigger though 200 ml long I think .. For me
it didn't improve the turning ..but it did lift the tail up a little .not for me ..I like the tail to dig in ...Go the 80's ...I had my first drink in 1980
never looked back Since .. Hic.

Well it's better to have you say you had your first drink in 1980 mine was legally in 1978, so many people I talk to in my job say they were not born in 1980,lol

If you remember Cheyen Horan, also 80's - he used these fins in the McCoy's he used to ride.

Unfortunately I have to say that I not only remember the 80's but the 70's and a good bit of the 60's too.

I had several surfs with Shane Horan in the early 80's at a place called Broulee in the NSW south coast. He was living an alternate lifestyale for a while with a bunch of other dudes. Nice guy and I clearly remember that he could make a very average wave look very good.

Those winged keels were also popular on longboards around 88 through the early 90's. A couple of guys in the Noosa Mal club back then used them with a reasonable amount of success. One Californian guy used them on both 8' and 9' mals.

Plenty of of stories from back then and lots of history to tell.

ET.

Working together of one of his board in the 80', have been learning from him that the wings work as a rail . the wing is acting like side fin to the actual thruster cant or long board side fin for a modern 9' single fin.
We still share here some good memories of him , too

I've tried it and the drag and performance drop is noticeable.. The only good thing that I can see about these fins is that they are safer.

Hi OldDave,

For a modern take on the winged keel fin check out future fins.com.au. They have carbon kevlar 'ELEVON' quad fins... They look unreal.

I also remember the winged keel fin craze thanks to Ben Lexon's brilliant design.

eighties.


Im trying to remember last week

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Antho said..
Hi OldDave,

For a modern take on the winged keel fin check out future fins.com.au. They have carbon kevlar 'ELEVON' quad fins... They look unreal.

I also remember the winged keel fin craze thanks to Ben Lexon's brilliant design.

I will have to have a look!

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laceys lane said..
eighties.


Im trying to remember last week

A bit of old timers creeping in?!

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E T said..
Unfortunately I have to say that I not only remember the 80's but the 70's and a good bit of the 60's too.

I had several surfs with Shane Horan in the early 80's at a place called Broulee in the NSW south coast. He was living an alternate lifestyale for a while with a bunch of other dudes. Nice guy and I clearly remember that he could make a very average wave look very good.

Those winged keels were also popular on longboards around 88 through the early 90's. A couple of guys in the Noosa Mal club back then used them with a reasonable amount of success. One Californian guy used them on both 8' and 9' mals.

Plenty of of stories from back then and lots of history to tell.

ET.

I bet the stories are good!

Oh the 80's bless.


Sups weren't around in those good old days

Or longboards

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Ted the Kiwi said..
Or longboards

good one ted

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DavidJohn said..
I've tried it and the drag and performance drop is noticeable.. The only good thing that I can see about these fins is that they are safer.

Agree with DJ on this one. The fin seemed to take more effort to get on the wave and when it did it was unpredictable & slippery. I spent more time in the water than on the board due to the slipperiness. I demoed a FCS 3DS fin for a bit and firtst thought it looked cool. Once in the board and on the wave it seemed sluggish with the occasional burst of an unwanted turbo or being a novice motorbike rider finding that peak powerband level on a scramble bike.

A better surfer than me (which is basically all surfers) may be able to make it work though.

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Sailhack said..

DavidJohn said..
I've tried it and the drag and performance drop is noticeable.. The only good thing that I can see about these fins is that they are safer.

Agree with DJ on this one. The fin seemed to take more effort to get on the wave and when it did it was unpredictable & slippery. I spent more time in the water than on the board due to the slipperiness. I demoed a FCS 3DS fin for a bit and firtst thought it looked cool. Once in the board and on the wave it seemed sluggish with the occasional burst of an unwanted turbo or being a novice motorbike rider finding that peak powerband level on a scramble bike.

A better surfer than me (which is basically all surfers) may be able to make it work though.

Remember these were ridden as single fins back then and boards didn't have the 'lift' that a thruster's side fins provides. Against modern gear it will seem seem less than.

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HGFish said..

Sailhack said..

DavidJohn said..
I've tried it and the drag and performance drop is noticeable.. The only good thing that I can see about these fins is that they are safer.

Agree with DJ on this one. The fin seemed to take more effort to get on the wave and when it did it was unpredictable & slippery. I spent more time in the water than on the board due to the slipperiness. I demoed a FCS 3DS fin for a bit and firtst thought it looked cool. Once in the board and on the wave it seemed sluggish with the occasional burst of an unwanted turbo or being a novice motorbike rider finding that peak powerband level on a scramble bike.

A better surfer than me (which is basically all surfers) may be able to make it work though.

Remember these were ridden as single fins back then and boards didn't have the 'lift' that a thruster's side fins provides. Against modern gear it will seem seem less than.

Um sorry but this is on a thruster, no such probs on a knee board but maybe a stand up!

HGfish said : Remember these were ridden as single fins back then and boards didn't have the 'lift' that a thruster's side fins provides. Against modern gear it will seem seem less than.

Completely true, HGfish

Cheyne did explain to me what McCoy said to him before that the winglet from Ben Lexon's brilliant design has to work with rail . So, Mc Coy made a very flat bottom very flush with water level to make work the whole thing, board and fin. The whole system work when it goes fast, just planning over with just the fin having pressure on water

I reckon this would work on a SUP . I all ready have the fin made from stiff fiberglass which is very unique .

I also still have an original Star Fin, as in Kami 's post,not fibreglass ,but a production version. Whent really well in one board, an Al Bean shaped
5'11" rounded pin, that was fairly flat through the tail and vertually double ended. Ironically Al was shaping under the Star brand for the Star Surfshop at the time . I surfed that board for years, it was fast and very positive off the bottom. You could also make it really snap off the top. Sometimes kicking out backhand I would end up stradling the board backwards. It magnetically attracted any seaweed in the water and was nearly unsurfable when it found some. The board met an inglorious end when my mate backed the HK station wagon over it, but the fin survived!

My understanding of of the concept both the yacht keel and the surf fin is that the wings were for lift. There is some great film of Cheyne Horan at Bells ( I think ) were he is driving his board hard through a long tube, the fin is virtually the only thing in the water! I doubt us mere mortals could generate that kind of lift.

Further on the same tangent, I spoke to a bloke in the surf last week who is part of the development team for a fin he called The Q Fin.
It had three normalish fins all splayed outfrom the one base. They had done a heap of hydro dynamic modelling and testing And he reckoned it could generate more than 65kg of lift. That's me lifted out of the water

I have a production Starfin, and it worked interestingly with SUPs: unlike prone surfing, the leash is less in the water while waiting so it doesnt tangle easily in it like for prone surfing

The winglets are not for lift (otherwise they would be horizontal), they are here to remedy the main drawbacks of single fins: the fact that they lose grip when the board is banked on the rail: with the starfin, when fully on rail, a winglet is vertical in the water and providing proper traction. That's why they worked on sailboats (and they were profiled to provide downwards lift)

"Because the yacht is heeled over when sailing upwind the leeward foil is closer to vertical and provides additional side force, reducing the leeway angle, hence making the boat sail upwind more efficiently. Winged keels are generally found on high performance sailboats, if they are not prohibited by class rules. They are only of benefit for yachts sailing upwind where stability and the ability to produce side force are important and if the draft is limited by the class rule. Downwind the extra skin friction drag is a hindrance."

On my SUP, it provided a very snappy ride, due to its single point of pivot and high leverage, the board pivoted on a dime, but controlled curves were very hard to perform. Plus it was very sensitive to tail rocker (if the tail rocker didnt match the winglet angle, it would drag a lot).

I guess an interesting variation could be side fins curved outwards: the opposite of the existing design which does not seem logical, as the tip will become horizontal, thus inefficient, when banking...

**** the 80s

We need Roy.

. I'll take your point Colas about the additional lateral resistance provided by wings when banked over. I searched around a bit for info on the Q Fin the guy was surfing that I was talking to. It's marketed as the Quantum fin, there is a couple of videos where the engineer shows his computer modeling showing lift forces and drag. It was showing significant lift generated by the interaction of fin and board, nothing horizontal in the design. I guess it was legitament.
Geez I forgot how much my leggie use to get caught around that fin

While we are speaking of the starfin... Geoff McCoy doesnt seem to like them... despite Cheyne popularizing the McCoy Lazor Zap + Starfin...

www.mccoysurfboards.com/mccoy-fins

"McCoy Ben Lexcen Fin Disclaimer This statement is to inform people that the Ben Lexcen designed keel fin is in no way my fin of choice. I do not recommend it to be used in any of my Geoff McCoy designed surfboards. Never have I had any involvement with the design and I certainly have not and do not recommend its use in a surfboard. The original Lazor Zap fin is a refined Dolphin fin design. In recent years I have developed and recommend my Gull Wing fin."

And an interesting idea: www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=wavefin&e=com

I saw a bloke surfing beautifully on a board in Manly a few months ago. He was drawing unusual lines but surfing with a nice style and good glide/flow.

I asked for a look at his board when he came in (followed him down the beach like a weirdo) and he showed me enthusiastically his winged keel fin. The board he was riding had a helluva lot of vee in it which seemed to work well with the fin.

I wonder what bottom Cheyne Horan's boards had?

Flat tail as a straight edge and rolled front rail nearly inverted one. Round outline nose and a large round pin tail. He call this kind of board '' comet".
In the 80's we shape a "special" board for the Newquay' waves to follow the tour in England. He explain me that water has to avoid board entry and exit flush at the rear of the board.

There are these also:

finsciences.com/


I remember in the early 90s there were all sorts of crazy fin designs in Windsurfing.
I'm still waiting for the Canard fore fin to make a comeback.
So huge at one stage.

In the end, I think it was figured out that the foil shape made much more difference than the plan shape.
A plain fin with a nice foil will work better than any gimmicky plan shape.
However different plan shapes are much easier to sell.

Small changes in foil shape on the fin can make a bigger difference than changes in plan shape.
For example sanding a flat spot on the side of the fin can really effect it.

A windsurfer is moving faster than a SUP board, so differences in fins is less subtle.

Ah the 80's, It was all going quite well until this happened..........

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maxeaus said..
Ah the 80's, It was all going quite well until this happened..........

Yes what a mistake that was!!