I recently saw a brand advertising a set of small adhesive fins to add to the rear of any board. They were not meant to replace the fin set up already on the board, just to increase speed and reduce turbulence. What are these called? Has anyone here ridden with any?
They are the same thing that you can glue to the roof of your car to increase speed and reduce turbulence , they are called bullshit .
Loosen up, and tell me what you really think! LMAO !
I’m with GBZA.
THere is some history here. THey are called Tuna Fins. A Sways contributor long ago was experimenting and selling them (Mark somebody?). I got a bucket of them from Greg Loehr maybe 15 years ago? I could tell no discernable difference with them. I think the relatively low speed of a surfboard makes them ineffective decoration.
I still have a bunch of them. I had planned to try a board with maybe a dozen of them as sort of a semi fin-less experiment. Then the C5 hard fins with real boxes came out and I thought that would be a better experiment. Never got off the ground once I realized that fins are good and bigger ones are better if you like control.
If anyone would like to do something with them, PM me to negotiate. I’ll need a firm committment to actually use them and report back here with results.
On a related topic, search for posts by Herb Spitzer and his little canard fins. What did he call them?
all the best,
They are made and sold by Kai Lenny’s " personal trainer " , Kai promotes them and has them on all his boards and he has many boards , what I said about cars is factual you can buy the same fins to glue to the roof of your car , Subaru owners seem to like them , this whole nonsense started by people looking at F1 cars without understanding what they are looking at , the little fins are part of the car aerodynamics , in case anyone reading this in not aware of it F1 cars travel at very very high speeds on land they don’t do well on/in water . Just because someone screws something to a fast car or fast plane or fast boat doesn,t mean you should screw it on a surfboard . Aloha
I think Herb called them "superchargers "
These are vortex generators. They do not work on surfboards (read at bottom of post)
The idea is to place them close to the end of a car roof and they create a downwash that keeps the flow more attached on the rear window. Therefore they reduce drag in regimes where the flow would start separating.
Watch this video to see them work:
However, this only work for submerged bodies, not for planing surfaces riding on the boundary of water and air. It make no sense to create “upwash” behind the boards tail, if it does something, it’ll increase the drag of a surfboard!
Do they do a 9 inch bullshit for longboards ?
Mid 1970’s I worked at Channin in Encinitas and Jeff Alexander (of Pickle Fork fame years later) made a couple little fins like that and stuch them on a single fin w/ epoxy. Pretty much everyone in the shop made fun of him but he ripped on the board and loved the effect.
A double Lol!! Yowza Sausa!! Ha! Ha!
Yeah I bet they do wonders for a VW Bug.
Yeah - i bet with the reduced drag, that bug will hit a top speed of 45mph now
(going downhill!)
Mark Spindler was the one who made and sold those “vortex generators”
Bought some and used them with and without Herb"s fins
Greg if you’re selling them let me know.
The white one’s were stiffer and the maroon ones were more flexible
I superglued them on
As you can see I started using stick on fins back n the early 70’s
Here’s my first custom isaac tanaka I tried to convert to a tri-fin 2+1 around 70-71
his boards were way ahead of the time, super light glassing with textured decks beveled rails and thin tails. we were using white candle wax back then
From what I remember, all it did was to smooth out the ride the board didn’t go faster, maybe paddled faster but felt “smoother” which is what Mark said he expected.
The same thing with Blakestah’s rotating fins and with George Gall positioning his front fins so the didn’t fight against the rear center fin to make paddling feel faster,
BTW I bought those automotive stick ons similar to what Kai Lenny was pushing and they were way smalller and stubbier than what either Herb or Mark made.
Seems like they would creat allot of drag on a surfbard versus a car.
