I had a curious first time experience this arvo at Peli Point:

Planing at speed on flat water, I put pressure on back foot and the WHOLE BOARD rose from the water and kept sailing as if on a cushion of air. Only a part of the fin was in the water and it was strangely easy to keep this effect going and controlled if I stayed on a reach. If I worked up wind, there was no control, the back just wanted to slide out (cathetation effect as mentioned in a previous post).

The question is: Is this hovering effect desirable? Does a deeper fin diminish or amplify the effect? Has anyone else felt this 'lift off'???

Think it's caused by fin flex, introduces some vertical lift into the equation. So a stiffer fin might not do it as much, but this is just a theory. Not sure how desirable it is, did you enjoy it????

It was only a short fin I was using.

Did I enjoy it? It felt weird more than good. The most noticable thing was the absence of the splashing noise of water on the board and the smoothness of the ride from floating above the chop. I assume I was going faster too because of the reduced friction.

If speed is aim, why not pursue 'the hover' effect?

Someones' been watching back to the future II.

This was done about ten years ago. I remember someone making a 'hydrofoil' fin. There was an article with photos about it in 'Freesail'. The guy could ride continously with the board almost a foot out of the water. Looked pretty freaky. Would be great at Sydney airport to deal with the chop though.

That's awesome, just like what I was doing the other day...

kind of.