Hi all,

Surfboard/kiteboard 4 fins vs 3fins
Why are most of all the production surfboard/kiteboards coming out with 4 fins/quad? What is the advantage of this?
All my surfboards are 3fins thrusters.
Is a 4 fin better for Kiteboarding on waves or bay?

dont belive the hype

...and youll see this season most new boards are donning thrusters again. Just incase you bought a quad last year

I must disclose, I am a board builder, but I'm not trying to sell anyone a new board, I have been kiting for around three years now and have not yet made a kite specific board ...for about the last twelve months I have been experimenting with whatever I can find....I have been sticking together all the old broken boards in my shed and sinking fin plugs everywhere....and by far the quad (IMO) is the best...it is better to wind (big plus in the waves), it seems smoother to ride, and comes out of the turn nicer,...I have been using bigish fins...FCS YU's...flat foil front 1/4" toe and a fair amount of kant...rear are foiled (centres) and are parallel and vertical...the quads feel really nice, don't right em off till you try one, I may be wrong but I don't think they are a fad and they will be around for along time...I sure haven't finished playing wih them... fin placement is paramount...get that wrong and they wont go.

Have been riding both Quads and thrusters for a few years and I'm definitely into quads for now.

The language of something as complex as the seemingly simple act of surfing a wave is interesting too. We use terms like 'drive' and 'snap' but these may mean different thing to different people...... but read on and see if any of these musing make sense

Pros that I see

more stable at speed- a lot of kiting happens at higher speed than surfing on account of kitepower. Thrusters start to squirrel and feel unstable at speed esp if the thruster [side] fins are flat foiled, quads seem just more locked in the faster you go.

controlled slide - as my quad set ups are all smaller fins I seem to be able to bust them/ slide them out whenever I want, and then pull them back in when I want. Practically this means i can break the fins loose to snap off the top and I have more control riding across white water. It also means you can still snap around a relatively flatter rockered board. In turns flatter rockers increase stability at speed, acceleration and are better upwind . The thruster definitely wants to hold in longer. Thrusters I have ridden can suddenly let go and harder to re-engage.

These are two distinct entities, the former of which really helps in big waves, the latter in small. Hence my one 6 foot quad seems to excel in 2 foot and 8 foot , just in different ways, so one board does it all it seems.


Down sides

Loss of grip means loss of drive - Some say Quads have more drive but i think they are confusing drive [where you push against the rails /fins to create speed while changing direction] with stability at speed which quads do better than thrusters. but when you push hard off the bottom , perhaps because the fins are smaller overall, I definitely feel a bit of slide slip in the quad compromises drive and i dont get to compress as much before projecting out of the turn. This is less of an issue kiting than surfing as the extra power from the kite makes it less important, but I like to zing my kite around lots when riding for extra power and if you do more of a pure surfing park + ride style I supect you would miss the drive more.

Also I could see that when why quads are proving popular with the big wave surfers where stability is more important and drive less so.

And I thought we were mates TAXI haha

Hahaha I need more than an extra fin mate!
Actually maybe I should run a single fin pinnie..Yeeoow!!