After purchasing a Tabou 3S 86 and enjoying it lots I decided to get its larger sibling the 106 as my Port Phillip Bay seabreeze board. However unlike the 86 which I instantly liked the 106 and I have had a rocky start to our relationship. Why?..... well frankly the board felt very draggy, stuck in first gear and you had to really push it hard to get it to free up and fly. First 3 or 4 sails I was not a happy camper…
So I measured the board to see if there was any reason for this sluggish performance and the shape looked very nice to me. Has some tail rocker but not enough to really slow the board down, I could see no reason here for the board feeling sluggish and draggy. It,s not a slalom board but should feel faster and more engaging than it does. Has to be the fin!!!!
The 86 comes standard with a g10 freewave fin and it seems well suited to the board. The 106 comes with a moulded freeride 32 cm which certainly does not appear to be a particularly hi tech piece of equipment. So I have grabbed a couple of new fins for the board, a Black Projects 30 cm freewave G10 and a Tribal 32 cm Powermax G10 which I already know is an awesome fin, the freewave for windier, bumpier conditions and the Powermax for bigger sails and “blasting mode”
The weather gods conspired against me and I had two pretty crap sails with the Powermax in it, barely planning conditions and although I had glimpses of better performance the conditions were just not good enough to make a judgement. Last night however we got a good solid 20 knots at times up to 25 so had a chance to really try it out. Put the Black Projects 30 in it as it was pretty rough and matched it with KA Kult 5.8. Well as the tittle to this review suggests…..what a difference a fin makes !!!! The board instantly felt more free, gone was that draggy feel that it previously had which at times had me wondering if I had weed on the fin. The board started doing what I had hoped, getting up on its tail and using that generous V and concave to slice through the rough water and deliver a respectable speed. I started passing people something that I has previously struggled to do. Ah!!!! Big sigh of relief…. I have not made a mistake, this is a nice board. I am now looking forward to trying it with a 6.6 and the Powermax in good powered up conditions.
So the message here is….. Board brands. You spend countless hours testing, testing and refining to give us fabulous boards, why then throw a sea anchor in the bottom of them and destroy all your hard work? I am a professional designer and know all the cost balancing that happens bringing a product to market but compromise something as critical to the overall performance as a fin to save a few Euro???? I struggle with that. If you want to avoid frustrated customers coming in from the first ride on their new board and throwing it onto the beach claiming it to be a piece of #$%^&* then put a decent fin in it.

End of rant.

I will do a proper review of the board now I have the fins sorted when I have had some quality time on it.

I run slalom fins on my FSW boards, takes it up yet another notch.

I always ran a smaller FSW fin on my FSW boards. A 27cm MFC from the 95L model was perfect in my 105L Goya FSW
Its for sale BTW Mr Love

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ikw777 said..
I run slalom fins on my FSW boards, takes it up yet another notch.

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mr love said..
Board brands. You spend countless hours testing, testing and refining to give us fabulous boards, why then throw a sea anchor in the bottom of them and destroy all your hard work? I am a professional designer and know all the cost balancing that happens bringing a product to market but compromise something as critical to the overall performance as a fin to save a few Euro???? I struggle with that. If you want to avoid frustrated customers coming in from the first ride on their new board and throwing it onto the beach claiming it to be a piece of #$%^&* then put a decent fin in it.

I agree 100%, it's very disappointing to jump on a new board & it feels like a dud

The problem is you have to spend a shed load of money on various fins trying to make a board work.
Moat people will not and rightly so.
Some people are fin sensitive also whereas some people can run any fin in any condition & still fly

Maybe it's better to not supply a fin at all like slalom boards, I'm not sure.

Hopefully that's all it is Martin and the board is great

On the other hand I've tried the best of G10 fins in this board, until eventually, out of curiosity, I put in the OE. Up until then, because of all the negative stories, I hadn't even bothered trying it. Inch for inch it's the best, most favourite fin I've got. Yes it's a moulded 32cm free ride. The team riders at Tabou know more about matching fins to boards than I do.

But quality control is an issue, some more recent Tabou fins have failed on me in very short time. Tabou will send you a replacement but way out to sea that's not reassuring.

Thought i'd do some of my own R&D to see the potential of my RRD 96L FSW (love this board) and i wanted to see what sort of wind range i could get out of this beast. The 96L comes with a freewave MFC 28cm so i put a Exocet 32cm freeride fin on it and a 6.5M tushingham T4. Todays condition in the river was fairly ****ed to say the least for the gear i had. I went out because i thought it was going to be 16knts but no it was only 11-13knt but i drove a fair way to get there so not to totally waste my time i had to earn my beer. Anyhow this fin got me planing in bugger all wind, i was quite chuffed. Yes fins make a lot of difference. But in 11-13knt i grovelled in the lulls. At least i know the boards potential

I am 72kg wet

I also swapped my fins out on my Tabou Pocket 80L for some K4"s. By recommendation I did this for original fin preservation as Mettams is notorious for taking out fins. I went 12cm from 10 cm on the fronts and kept the rear at origonal 17cm. No more spinout and loads of drive but still able to turn with ease.

I'm heading out to Mettams tomorrow for some waves and if the conditions aren't ideal for the little board i might try a 24cm wave fin on the 96L

So yeah as many say, don't be afraid to experiment

^^ it was the 16knt gusts that got planing

I have many many, fins and have used or altered nearly all of them over many years.
Trust me on this, one a favourite fin could work extremely well in one board and quite poorly in another.
Things like rocker and conditions you wish to use them in, can change what work best.

I fully agree most board manufactures have NO idea what fin to put in a board.
However in their defence a fin one guy loves another may hate.

As said before take the time and effort to alter fins and fin positions.
It will ultimately reward you.

Ian, Glad you like the stock fin, just goes to show how it can be quite subjective when testing gear, what one person dislikes another likes. The stock fin grips well, no issue, what I dislike alot about it is how "draggy" it feels. The 2 other fins I am now using in the board feel much more free / slipery and as a result the board is much livelier to sail and is faster, the GPS has confirmed that. I like a fast,spirited ride and a slipery, efficient feel over a very composed / cruisy ride, my thing ( my ageing knees however are telling me to re- assess this!!!) and I found the stock fin was holding the board back.

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mr love said..

Same thing happened to me. I brought a new board a few weeks ago, and tested it out properly yesterday. OEM fin draggy and hummed. I knew something was up. I tested with different fins and became a different board.

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mr love said..
Ian, Glad you like the stock fin, just goes to show how it can be quite subjective when testing gear, what one person dislikes another likes. The stock fin grips well, no issue, what I dislike alot about it is how "draggy" it feels. The 2 other fins I am now using in the board feel much more free / slipery and as a result the board is much livelier to sail and is faster, the GPS has confirmed that. I like a fast,spirited ride and a slipery, efficient feel over a very composed / cruisy ride, my thing ( my ageing knees however are telling me to re- assess this!!!) and I found the stock fin was holding the board back.

I had a weed fin that felt draggy ...sanded the sheet out of it till it was a lot thinner ..(sides) wow what a difference
I like it now ..is the fin very thick mr love ? Might be worth a sand so it doesn't become a wall piece .