Around 20 yrs ago, There was a fin that a friend bought for his single fin longboard and he told me that the drive and top turn speed exceeded what he had gotten used to from single fins.
The fin was an 8.5" or 9" fin that was shaped like a V and fit into a single fin box… Not to be confused with single fin Cheyne Horan type fins that have a base that extends downward ( when the board is in the water) and then splits into a foiled Y or T … This fin split into 2 fins directly out of the box, to form a V.
I spoke with the designer of that fin one time when he was in the shop and I think he’s Barry Jones and he designed other fins for Velzy.
Has anyone seen or used or is able to provide info on a fin like the one I’m describing?
I tried a few searches and so far am finding nothing.
Like Mattwho I made my own but I rode the commercial ones first and found they don’t really engage like a standard upright fin. Did mine with a cant starting at 12° at the base to 4° at the tip.
I think the curved blade gives drive across a wide range of angles.
We’ve learned a lot from actually getting out there and riding boards with multiple fins. I’ ve talked about what “crossing up the Toe on fins can do. I don’t think at the time Dale considered the negative effect that two canted fins at the center of the board might have. That was because he had nothing to compare it to.
I had a similar question fairly recently (see above).
The Velzy fin available today is nothing like the butterfly fin that Halcyon wrote of years previous in the thread. The clip in the thread of me on my 1st LB with the Halcyon-owned fin (literally the self-same Halcyon owned fin) is with the out-of-production fin. I bought one of the Velzy fins, with great customer service from Mrs. Velzy, and it is functionally completely dissimilar from the cast and now out-of-production version. The Velzy is a lot bigger, different cant, different material, doesn’t perform the same function(s) or in the same ways.
That is probably the one offered by Mrs. Velzy – hawaiian floral print inlay (or faux inlay), at least on the one I was able to get.
The older one that is out-of-production is much lower aspect (maybe 2-3 inches), cant more around 45* each side (the current production one is more like 55* or 60*, but I’m unable measure right now, am not in the same place the fin is).
They two incarnations do not ride at all alike.
If you have a slow, plowing board, the out-of-production one may improve it; the current production one…not so much. I found the old/out-of-prod one made a plowing 9 footer I made ride better.
" They two incarnations do not ride at all alike. "
it’s amazing how a minor angle change completely alters the ride.
if you can accept that lift is perpendicular to the fin surface and based on the AOA, a change between 45° and 60° is light years of difference. I felt that a particular cant had a particular effective angle, a single works best when the weight is down thru the board, twins work way off the sides, thrusters work across a wide spectrum or board/rider angles.
Indeed. Between the two versions, the surface area of each fin of the Velzy seems (I’m not looking at them now, and maybe this is exaggerated by my memory/mis-recollection) almost twice as great per fin, the templates are completely different, depth, rake and base are different, and cant is different. The only thing the two versions have in common, really, is the main idea (“v-shaped twin fin, both fins sharing a base, for a center/single box.”
There IS some similarity in the personality of the two versions of the main idea, but they are so dissimilar that the board that works well with one is (imo, based on my experience) unlikely to work well with the other.
I’ll try to post some pics, with the two types side by side.
Thanks again for the hook-up earlier, Surffoils – the fin you pointed me to is the one I have that is of the earlier, out-of-production run.
Something I remember, when I had the opportunity to have a brief conversation with Barry Jones (I’m pretty sure that was his name) who made those; He told me that it’s critical to have the base of the fins angled downward slightly in the front. Am I iremembering this correctly?
I’d like to try building a fin like that just to find out what it’s about
