Surfing Waves

I just ordered a Bing Quad Fish which is a retro-style fish with a quad Futures setup. Stoked to try it out and have heard that a quad fish has a lot of speed but a little more hold than a twin and can get vertical more and project through turns a bit better. Probably just use the fins Bing is providing you start but change it up to something nicer down the road. Open to suggestions for good quad sets for a fish...

However, comparing the fin boxes in their twin models to the quad, it looks as if you could try a twin setup with the two fins farthest out and slightly in front. Ha anyone tried that? Curious about possibly my picking up a pair of either twin fins or keel fins to experiment with as I get comfortable with the quad setup on the fish in order to compare. However, I’m wondering if anyone else has done this? Also, if keels, which keel fins are the best?

If one were to compare Rasta keels, Machado keels, Christenson, Lovelace, McCallum, our wooden Donald Brink keels, how would they compare to one another? Do any stand out? Which twin fins stand out above the rest?

Looking forward to getting a fish to speed things up on the smaller summer days, but love playing around with fin setups and would love to practice riding a twin setup of sorts as well if I could.

Thanks for your help! Cheers!

I am not a fin person. I guess I need to go look up keel fins, no idea what those are.

SaltWaterHeart wrote: if keels, which keel fins are the best?

Not sure depending how you surf, where you surf, how you angle in, how you come out of your bottom turns, front footed/back footed, pump / grove, etc.

If there was one best of anything, say Motorcycle race tires, Ping Pong paddles, Golf clubs, wouldn't everyone just buy that ?

Since you have a Quad set up, I highly recommend the Speed Dialer shape. Basically a Keel that's been torn apart and spaced out.

I have a retro board, use twins on small days or big mushy days, use quads on bigger days or when it's steeper.

i catch more waves on Twins but get rounder turns, I get snappier turns on quads but not as easy to catch waves. But, either way, I catch more on my fish than my shortboard.

Hope that helps

Thanks everyone!

Got the Bing Quad Fish a couple days ago and took it out this morning with Rasta keels as my local shop didn’t have much for quad setups. Fun and loose. 4-5’ this morning with a lot of current and white water due to wind, but I’ll take what I can get this time of year in the North Atlantic.

Still want to get a quality set of quad fins. I was thinking about Lovelace quads but Pacific Vibrations (small company) has some nice speed dialer fins. Someone told me to consider McCallum and uses them all the time in Japan when not surfing twin. Between McCallum quads, Lovelace quads, and speed dialer, which would you all suggest and how would you differentiate the feel in turns? Thanks!

Here’s a pic of the fish.

Beauty!!

Nice wax job! Looks like you are only using one type of wax (no base coat). Are you surfing in warm water?

What are the dims on the Fish?

I have a Shane Stoneman 6'0" quad Fish and a 7'0" Long Fish with glassed-on twin keels. The twin fin absolutely flies down the line.

Thanks! No, it has a base coat and some wax in addition to it. I’m in Maine, so cold water up here. 32F-67F, but in the 64-68F range lately and beginning to cool again, so that’s as warm as it gets for us.

It’s fun with the Rasta keels, definitely a looser, skater feel. Tried as a quad last night with the cheap thermotech set they give out usually for free in shops and it was a little more difficult to paddle into waves but super fast once I did get in. Didn’t have anything very clean last night, so hard to gauge the quad feel. Cleaner today but I just took out my Josh Hall egg which I’m using as a 2+1 with a L-flex fin. Super fun.

Love the Maine coast. I grew up in NH but never surfed up there. I will have to plan a trip to Maine for the summer/ fall cause 32F sounds cold!

I've got the pacific vibration diallers and they are great. Loads of hold and drive, but I find they also turn really easily (I'm using them in a speed dialer board)

Nice. Yeah, I’ve been using the thermotech quad fins I got for free at the shop because I like the extra hold with the larger fins. It’s a fun board. Definitely have to be farther up than on a shortboard. I keep wanting to be on the tail and it stalls until I walk up it a bit and then have all the control I’m used to having from the tail. Looking forward to better waves this winter to play around with it as well as a new shortboard I got.

Update on fins:

I ended up getting a speed dialer set from Pacific Vibrations to use in my Bing Quad Fish. It was fun and very easy to paddle into waves, little resistance and fast, but super loose and very difficult, nearly impossible to turn and the turns you could make were big, not tight. This is in a beach break, so could fare different in a point or reef. I got some Captain Fin 2+1 fins for my Channel Islands Rocket Wide which transformed that board and made it a lot more fun than a thruster setup. I like the speed of the speed dialer s but felt the side fins were too small making it next to impossible to turn and just going uncontrollably fast. We haven’t had great waves where I’m at since end of December, beginning of January but a few little days so I thought I would swap the side fins in the fish to use the center speed dialer fins with the large sides from the Captain Fin 2+1 setup I had in my RW. Tried it the other day and had a blast. Not great conditions but my first wave in the first 5 minutes was a massive layback. Wasn’t sure how it would hold and used to a skatier feel, so when the fins held firmly it just sent buckets off the top and gave me a chance to get back over the board from laying out and gain some serious speed. SO much fun. I’ve not been a bug fan of a quad setup unless it’s bigger just for the speed, but this was the most control I’ve felt in a quad. Highly recommend swapping fins, mixing and matching, to discover a new feel and maybe something that works better than any set.

So, I’ve been enjoying my Bing quad fish and have grown pretty comfortable on smaller boards so that 6’2” feels pretty big with a fish that has thick rails and a good bit of volume. I’ve played around with speed dialer quads but the outside fin was too small and about useless for me and my size. I swapped the outside for a large upright twin with the center speed dialer and noticed a huge difference, in a good way. Control, hold, drive, and good pivot. I’ve been considering grabbing a proper quad set that might better suit my size and the board, as I use the two large twins in my shortboard on small days frequently. The larger, upright fins up front work best, but I’m not sure the speed dialer centers are ideal with it even though I make them work. Been considering McCallum quads, Neal Purchase Jr quads, and Lovelace quads, but not sure which set would be best for my board and my size (185-190lbs, 6’)? Appreciate any help. Thanks.