Trifin

[mchaco1]

I was cleaning up my old boards and looking at my poly board that Ive been waiting to get good enough to use... Its about 90-95L and from the ealry 90's probably. Ive only tried it once with a single fin and I think it was too underpowered that day. I was wondering what effect using the all three fins would have on it, mostly in regards to upwind ability and ease of getting it up out of the water and on a plane. Are the extra little fins going to drag it down or is the extra bite going to help get on a plane?

[isobars]

Thrusters (those small side fins) aid maneuverability at the extremes, not planing or pointing/pinching upwind.

Mike \m/

[mchaco1]

Will they hurt early planing though or just not make any difference

[isobars]

I'm no fin theory expert, but I'm pretty well convinced afters scores of thousands of Gorge miles on thrustered boards, then thousands more on the same shapes without the thrusters, that their primary -- essentially only -- effect is on tracking and control when pushed beyond the maneuvering limits of single fins by ordinary sailors with imperfect technique. Pushed to only 90% OR ridden by truly expert sailors, they make minimal difference of any sort. Once I brought my skills up to the ballpark of boards like these, the thrusters became moot most of the time. Their most obvious boosts then, for me, were for superior control at high speed in extremely overpowering conditions in extremely harsh terrain, sticking sideways jump landings deliberately with no spinout, preventing and recovering from spinout when I screwed up, and carrying bigger sails with full control than could other boards of similar volume. Generally speaking, the primary function of thrusters is to boost lateral bite when the board is way up on one rail pulling high g's in rough terrain.

Caveat: I'm talking small thrusters like you probably have, not newer boards with three or four bigger fins. But even then, in my own professional head-to-head comparison of half a dozen thruster boards for a high-performance Gorge gear magazine on a full-nuke day at the Hatchery, the differences among those boards was night and day due to design; thrusters alone do not transform an ordinary hull. Shape still matters very dramatically. Also, my comments apply mostly to one specific brand and style of thrustered board; I never found any other marque that even came close when my lead foot and amateur skills pushed them in any of those performance regimes I mentioned.

For your goal of planing sooner, your path includes bigger sails, bigger fins, far better technique, tons of TOW, and sufficient volume. Sure, hulls designed for earlier planing plane earlier, but around here you don't need to spend $2,000 to plane; the much cheaper path above should suffice, and won't beat you up in the chop.

[westender]

So you're not going to try it to see for yourself ?

Some people spend half the day screwing fins on and off?

?

[mchaco1]

[isobars]

To give you a target, once you get used to 90-something liters, a 6.2 day -- 20 mph average -- is plenty.

[U2U2U2]

A 3 fin will go upwind better
You can start closer to the beach. It will have more drag less top speed
BUT their are too many variables on things to make more specialized comments.

IE. the board..size fins..toe in ..fin shape...fin profile...

[noshuzbluz]

For you OO riders. If you want to go without the side fins, check with Brian. He will have plugs to fill the void. Basically a base without a fin that work pretty sweet.

[WMP]

I went with thrusters installed on my 8.2 OO for many years without taking them off... happy camper. Then I took them off one day and never looked back.... much happier camper now. It's a looser feel without the thrusters, it just works better for my style of sailing.