Surfing Waves

Advanced question (yes, I need help sometimes).

During a swell bump last week I tucked into a couple of barrels (didn't make it out). Started talking fins and the surfer next to me said that quads are better for barrels than thruster set up. A while back I actually tried both, and determined thruster was better, after using a couple of different setups. Am I wrong?

My normal quad set up is medium fronts with GX sides in back, but I use it only when mushy or not barreling. When it barrels it seems like it slips on the wave face, but much easier release (for beginners, that means it seems to slip into the wave easier as you're catching it ).

Is there a barrel set up for quads? I saw a surf video and noticed that Slater used quads in barreling Fiji, I'm no Slater but think maybe I missed something, maybe he is just weird that way.

Chime in if you know...

All I know is that quad setups are ‘faster’ due to less drag (and maybe more fun area). How much faster I don’t know

So I guess that’s what you want for getting out of barrels, given that barrels are usually very fast breaking

So set and charge

Quads are a very peculiar setup, it usually takes quite a bit to get them dialed in. I like them in smaller waves, or waves where you are just pulling in and racing for the exit.

First things first, what is the placement of your rears? Are we talking mckee, san diego? If you could post a photo of the bottom of your board so we can see whether the rear boxes are set closer to the stringer or closer to the rail, that would help, as well as how far back they are set.

The foil of your rears is particularly important. How are your gx rears (which I think are pretty small, unless you are a featherweight) foiled? If they are 50-50, then unless it's a san diego type placement you might as well ride a thruster. 80/20 is usually the way to go, or flat-foiled if you want to go bat-out-of-hell fast. You will however experience a bit of trackiness with flat-foiled rears, but I think it is generally the best setup to accentuate the speed of the quad.

As for fronts, if you want to race the curtain, I would pick something a bit raked, but not too raked. k3's are a good quad front option for barrels. What fronts are you currently using?

TLDR: what is the fin placement on the board, what is the foil on your rears, what fronts are you currently using

weight/board type would be useful info too!

I don't know about a particular fin setup for barrels but board design makes a big difference. Perhaps your board is not made for barrels? Things that i know help are narrow tail or even narrow rails all the way. The narrow tail allows the fins to contact the wave face better. Thin rails help as well because the more volume that goes into the wave the more it pushes back out of the wave face. I hear the pros saying they use quads for barrels when it's a fast barrel and they want to avoid having the wave overtake them but they use thrusters when they want to stay deeper in the barrel. If your board has a wide tail then only 2 of the quad finis will be in the water so you might try bigger fins . I surf only quad setups. I just don't see the value in thrusters it always seems like I get less power out of the turns with a thruster. I like powerful turns but maybe if I could find bigger thruster fins I would like that

So just to expand a bit for a tube riding board ideally you want a board that will hang higher up on the wave so thin rails as in the thickness help as more volume in the rails pushes the board back out of the wall. A straighter rail so in the outline especially from the tail forward a straighter rail will help because curves cause the wave to push the rail back out. A narrower tail so the fins stay in the wall better and help to hold the board from falling down the face. All these things help but aren't necessary for getting tubed or making it out on most waves. Long ago I made a board with really straight rails and a thin narrow tail swallow tail as well to help keep the rail straighter. It was a really good tube riding board but not too great for anything else. But it would hang very high on a steep wall making it very good for negotiating steep walled waves but it took a lot of force to make a hard cutback on a not so steep part of the wave (could do it but not as easily as my other boards). Every board design has pluses and minuses. As to your question, I am not sure what kind of fins to use but if you are slipping down the face then bigger fins might help especially if the board has a wide tail. I generally use the biggest fins I can get on my boards and always in quad setups. My fins are generally foiled outside and flat on the inside. Don't know if that makes a difference since I buy any other types of fins

It not so much the fin(s) as it is the RAIL, that determines slipping down the face.

It is not so much as where the fins are placed but more where you place your foot and position your body in the tube.

Look closely how riders on FINLESS boards, position their back foot on the inside rail, and still hold their line in a barrel.

I used to ride a finless paipo board and that thing was fantastic for getting up high in a steep wave. But partly that was because I was lying down so less clearance was needed above the board. None of those waves were very big so hard to say how high it could get on a face standing up. Certainly that goes to show that it ain't the board so much as the rider. I have seen videos of Brad Domke riding a finless skim board on huge waves and holding a high spot on the face. It's similar positioning to surfers who use other boards except Kai Lenny who gets really high on big wave faces (and maybe Billy Kemper or JJF or Slater or Albee Layer). I would guess that that board would be like a boogie board which seems to have trouble getting high up the face of steep waves by virtue of most riders not doing that. but maybe I am wrong.

Currently I am using size M performance core in front, I thought of getting some GAM for more hold. The rears are GX sides, not as small as GL but smaller than a center fin. The fin placement is near the stringer, shortboard style. I have hard rails to the center of the board so it bites just fine.

However, and to clarify, I do fine with thursters, just wondering if there is a better set up. I too only use the quads for mushy or small days, like most of my buds, but keep thinking there is another set up I haven't tried, so was wondering what people use.

I am not complaining about my barrel rides, through truth be told I only catch a couple a year, just wondering if anyone out there has a quad set up for steep/barreling waves. I tried M5 sides up front and M5 sides in back a few years back, the board was way too slow, so that is not it.

Thank you for the replies

So the bigger fins slow you down? Interesting, most of my speed comes from turns and I find the bigger fins have much more drive so I get more speed from turns. I think if I could find bigger thruster fins ones that would equal the surface area of the quads I would like it better but I really like quads. I haven't been working on my tube rides lately because there haven't been any waves to get tubed in but my wider tailed boards have more problem staying high on a steep wall than the narrower tailed ones using the same fins (always quad). One of the reasons I went to a shorter board was that the long board I had wouldn't stick on a steep wall. It would initially then the nose would drop after a couple seconds. Is that what you are experiencing? Or are you sliding sideways down the face? I think my 8 foot board will drop the nose after a few seconds but it's much better than the longboard was and typically it doesn't affect me making the wave or not.

oldmansurfer wrote: One of the reasons I went to a shorter board was that the long board I had wouldn't stick on a steep wall. It would initially then the nose would drop after a couple seconds. Is that what you are experiencing? Or are you sliding sideways down the face? I think my 8 foot board will drop the nose after a few seconds but it's much better than the longboard was and typically it doesn't affect me making the wave or not.

The board slides sideways down the wave on steep waves on my quad.

That's interesting IB_Surfer. One of the things I used to do with a single fin board was to slide sideways down the face of steep waves. I would takeoff and angle the board down the line and the fin would be out of the water making the board slide sideways down the face but as soon as it got to some curve at the bottom the fin caught and then the board already pointed sideways would shoot forward and I would avoid getting axed by the lip. For several years I would turn at the top and not slide down the face and get tossed with the lip. Although about a year ago I managed to slide sideways on a smaller steep wave. I also did an approximately 8 foot air drop on takeoff because I initially turned sideways the recognized my mistake and straightened out, actually landed it and kept going on the wave. But I was really happy once I quit attempting to turn at the top of really steep waves. My board with a narrower tail (7' egg) hangs much higher on a wall. The other boards depend on the speed and steepness as to how they do. The widest tail board wants to go to the very bottom even though it is quad and the same fins as the rest. I imagine it's a wide tailed board you have

oldmansurfer wrote:That's interesting IB_Surfer. One of the things I used to do with a single fin board was to slide sideways down the face of steep waves. I would takeoff and angle the board down the line and the fin would be out of the water making the board slide sideways down the face but as soon as it got to some curve at the bottom the fin caught and then the board already pointed sideways would shoot forward and I would avoid getting axed by the lip. For several years I would turn at the top and not slide down the face and get tossed with the lip. Although about a year ago I managed to slide sideways on a smaller steep wave. I also did an approximately 8 foot air drop on takeoff because I initially turned sideways the recognized my mistake and straightened out, actually landed it and kept going on the wave. But I was really happy once I quit attempting to turn at the top of really steep waves. My board with a narrower tail (7' egg) hangs much higher on a wall. The other boards depend on the speed and steepness as to how they do. The widest tail board wants to go to the very bottom even though it is quad and the same fins as the rest. I imagine it's a wide tailed board you have

As a thurster it doesn't slide, as a quad it does. I use M up front and GX back, wondering if maybe different back or fronts would work better

Interesting. I haven’t messed with altering the sizes of the fins other buying the largest ones I can find.

I wonder if the cant on the fins makes a difference? It seems like it would just not sure in which way

I just happened to randomly come across this video. He says when surfing quad fins you need to set the rail first. This could be what you are experiencing.

I was watching surf videos, at the end of this one they walk out of surfing Jaws with their rhinochasers, and both have quads. It looks like a set of 4 size 7 fins.



So maybe they use large fins for additional hold. I guess I could try that, thought i know it will take more paddling to get into the wave, but still...

If your quad fins are the same size and design as the thruster fins I don't see why they would slip when the thruster would hold. People seems to want smaller fins for quads. It is the surface area of the side profile of the fin that matters (besides maybe the foil and cant). If the surface area of the two quad fins is the same as two thrusters I would think they would work as good or better at holding onto a wall than the thruster because fin position will keep the fins in the wall better on a quad than a thruster. I am not good enough to notice any problems catching waves with bigger fins. What I do notice is a lack of drive in turns with smaller fins. I have not noticed tracking that people mention with too much fin also. If the water isn't choppy big wave surfers use smaller fins because they don't need drive from the fins they get it from the board/rails and the fins just need to keep the board from skipping out if they hit a chop.

Found an interesting read on this:

https://barefootsurftravel.com/livemore-magazine/surfboard-fin-setups-explained

"Surfers also use quads in big hollow waves, with the back fins placed further back on the board, for extra hold in steep waves. Advanced surfers enjoy the extra speed gained from not having a centre fin, and the additional hold on higher lines, due to having 2 fins near the rails."

So I guess I would have to ask my shaper if my fins are "further back" I have a 6'9" step up I use, I might just set it up as a quad with some size S on the back, see how it does.

I finally went ahead and tried bigger size back fins, size 3 (small) back fins with size 5 (medium) front fins. It was not barreling but it was big and steep. Before I tried GL and GX back fins

I dropped in WAY late on a couple, usually my tail slips out when that big and steep, but it held hard and whipped me into the shoulder, so cool. So maybe it will work better in the barrel too.

The only thing with the bigger back fins is that my turns were way more jerky, like oversnap from using my thruster. It took me a couple of waves to get used to how it turned.

The experiment continues...

Yeah I've heard that quads are the best HP setup for hunting tubes also. Single fins are supposed to be the best specifically for barrels, because they have the least amount of drag, but they have other drawbacks youre probably familiar with. But they've still made a comeback in recent years.

Depending on the board youre riding, the tail might be part of the equation too. Boards with a wider tail usually require more fin area than a standard tail would. Plus wide tailed boards also have a tendency to slide down the face in barrelling waves because of the size/shape on its own. I used to ride a pintail anytime the waves were steep.. but those were younger years