Does anybody know why flare has such laughably small stock fins. 22cm for 110+ litre versions, when sail sizes are up to 7.0.

With slalom I use 37cm with 6.5 sail.

Reason I'm asking: I'm about to by Flare and trying to figure out what kind of fin I need for 6.5. I intend mostly to freeride, maybe later try some basic freestyle.

What I understood you have to get us box fin and modify it to get decent grip.

you might be buying the wrong board.

Flare is a freestyle board. It comes with a small fin because theyre made to slide backwards/sideways etc a big fin doesn't help with that.


most freestylers i know cut down the ridiculously small fin because its too big.


if you intend to try freestyle later keep the the 22, and get a bigger fin for the meantime. For a 6+m something around a 34 should work. Keep in mind that the flare is a freestyle board though, so not orientated to cruising around on. Probably acceptable to ride around on if the intention is to freestyle later. Enjoy the broken ankles

You're going to be better served by a FSW then, with a fin one size bigger than standard maybe
Then learn your first freestyle on that with a cut off wave fin.

If you like it, then a dedicated freestyle board.

Caveat: I don't freestyle. But I do get my FSW up to freeride board speeds no probs.

I have tried bigger fins and sails on freestyle boards before - not worth it. They may have a "slalom rocker", but without outboard footstraps, a bigger fin and sail just create more drag. BTW, the Flare was the worst board I've ever used and I like freestyle boards. Both the JP Freestyle and Fanatic Skate are much better.

Interesting thread.
I have two freestyle boards and the Flare 101 I have - from the green era - is fine for free riding. Maybe the early yellow ones weren't.
Then again I use it with a 5.2 as the biggest rig because it's so much more fun with small sails - rather than overloading the board with a big rig it was not designed for.
22cms is a big fin for freestyle boards , especially if the fin is a wide one.

Once you get bigger than say 5.5 in rig size you usually have to go up a mast size and maybe boom size too, so that means a much heavier rig which is worse in that it spoils the fast acceleration the freestyle board offers, plus it's too big a rig to chuck about - which is the point of owning a freestyle board in the first place.

The other issue to watch out for is that many freestyle boards in recent years came with US boxes or Slotboxes - neither of which is great for using fins over 28cms on length. If you want to sail a board with a long fin - 28cms or bigger - then I'd say find a board with a powerbox or Tuttle box.

I've been riding 95l FSW this winter. I realized I'm always the first one to drop off plane, and need minimum +0.5 sail compared to others.
So somebody told me to get more volume under my feet, which I'm doing. 110 might be a bit exaggeration but the board was cheapish and had to buy quickly. If it's bad, I'll just pass it on and consider the price drop as rental rate.

With the slot box I just have to live with. I guess you can modify Us box fins to fit in.

If it is a slot box, and youre in WA, speak to Severne aka revolution board sports. They may (emphasis on may) be able to help you out with a bigger slot box fin. The dyno im pretty sure used to come with a slot box centre fin, Theyve since changed to powerbox i think, but they may have something floating around.

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pondcruiser said..
I've been riding 95l FSW this winter. I realized I'm always the first one to drop off plane, and need minimum +0.5 sail compared to others.
So somebody told me to get more volume under my feet, which I'm doing. 110 might be a bit exaggeration but the board was cheapish and had to buy quickly. If it's bad, I'll just pass it on and consider the price drop as rental rate.

With the slot box I just have to live with. I guess you can modify Us box fins to fit in.

The Freestyle board will get you planing much quicker than athe FW - generally speaking. That said, Basher is right. The are not designed to be loaded down with large sails & big fins. That board will be best with 5.2-5.8 & the stock fin or if you want to load it up a bit more you could run a little larger FW fin but less than 28cm I would say. If you have a light powerful Wave or Freestyle sail around 5.8 & good technique, you will get going stay going better than a Freeride 6.5 & the FW board... IMHO...

Possibly the wrong board. Your fin discussion, if this does have a slot box, or even USBox, from a structor standpoint they only take so much load, they aren't designed for long fins. That's the way it is. You could adapt a USBox fin, to the slotbox , if that's the case with the box. My limit on this would be a 27cm, either way, USBox or slot box.
a 6.5m sailor this board would be the max I would do. And a 36+- cm fin about right.
with a smaller sail this board could be the bomb.

I used to use a 6m on my Flare on light wind days and still only us a 18cm or 21cm fin, if your spinning out your sailing the board wrong, you sail them with your weight forward and more on your front foot, almost on the point of being catapulted using the rail instead of just smashing big fins in it.

If you are buying a freestyle board with intentions of using anything other than a wave sail or freestyle sail, your buying the wrong board.

Previously with my 6.0 wave sail, when the wind drops, I changed from 95l fw to 110 slalom (with the 6.0). But it doesn't really handle chop/waves. So I wanted another early planer. 6.5 was more like a crazy idea, which I probably even wont try. I'm really looking forward to not being the guy with biggest sail on the bay.

Anyway thanks for the numbers. I think I'm safe to start with the stock fin (which turned out to be 19). I'll probably get more fins in the future.

I'm loving this board! 70cm 116l means it's the first to plane and last to drop off plane. It gets you back when others start swimming. So far used 4.5 - 6.5 sails, no problems in either end.
The board is somehow very stable. Eg I can cancel spinouts just by pulling back leg. Tail never sinks even slow non planing jibes. Handles chop and jumps easily.
Only downside is that because of the width I cant sink the rail properly. For me it's more important to have good upwind capability to get to areas with higher wind, through channels when needed. And of course the s**box system itself, prone to drop fins.

Though it would be nice to try out some big wave board just for comparison, perhaps in future.