I've just arrived on one of the Isles of Scilly. As the helicopter landed I could see a reef break to the north west of said island going off. Let no one tell you there's no surf here. Harry and I are gutted that we haven't brought our boards.
But what kind of board would be best for the reeling right-hander I saw from the sky? Here's Mark Tyers with an insightful piece on the merits of quads and thrusters.
Like
skinny jeans and fluorescent items of clothing, four finned boards (aka
"Quads") aren’t a new thing. They
first appeared in the late 80s, before they were re-popularised over the last five
years by Bill “Stretch” Riedel and
other progressive shapers and surfers, all looking to four fins in their quest
to push the boundaries of the possible in waves big-or-small.
Yet
despite a large number of pros (particularly the currently injured Nathan
Fletcher) experimenting with quads during free-surfing sessions, Anthony
Tashnick’s victory in the 2005 Mavericks big wave contest and CJ
Hobgood's victory in the 2007 Surfbout contest (held at Lower
Trestles in tiny conditions) remain
the only major surf contests which have been won on quads. The reason for this is simple: the vast majority of pro surfers still prefer
to ride thrusters, especially when it comes to the business end of their livelihood - impressing the
judges. But are they doing so out of a
lemming-like desire to copy the world championship winning trends of Slater,
AI, Fanning et al, or do they genuinely believe that three fins offer significant
performance advantages over four?
One point, on which Kelly Slater, Jeff Clark and most
other pros and shapers who have experimented with four fins agree is that quads are faster than thrusters. This is because they generate more drive
through a turn and are able to hold a higher line (whether being pumped or not)
on steep wave faces. This performance advantage
of quads is due to their greater fin surface area, which results in quads
slipping sideways through the water less easily than thrusters (they “hold”
more, resulting in more of the rider's energy being redirected into forward
momentum). In other words, quads are
simply more efficient and so better than thrusters when it comes to holding a
high line and doing rail turns.
This means that quads perform well in particular
conditions where a surfer needs as much speed as possible, such as in big
waves, deep barrel sections and tiny, “gutless” beach breaks. This also goes someway to explaining why CJ
Hobgood was by no means the only competitor to ride a quad in the 2007
Surfbout, why a large number of the 2008 Eddie Aikau invitees brought along
their quad guns to the opening ceremony and why Kelly Slater opted to ride a round tail
quad in his first round heat on the Gold Coast recently.
The Quad’s efficiency in turns also makes it
particularly suited to power surfers who want to hack-n-hold their way through
full-rail turns, cutbacks and lip-smashes like Taylor Knox. However they’re not so good in conditions
which favour a new school approach. This
is because their extra-speed and
fin-surface area makes it harder to perform release-and-recover manoeuvres such
as tail-slides, air reverses and any other moves which require the board to slide sideways or backwards. In comparison, the thruster’s relatively
inefficient fin-set-up makes its tail much freer when the weight is taken off
it, allowing riders to perform new-school moves with greater ease.
So
if you’re a big wave rider looking to maximise the chances of you making a
giant section, a committed competitor searching to gain the edge in two foot slop,
a power-surfer (and proud of it) or more likely a local simply looking for faster
ways to go down the line at your local break, four fins (or even five) might just be the way
to go. But for all other applications, three
still simply hasn’t been bettered.
With thanks, in order of appearance, to:
