I'd like to talk about fin configurations. I am having my first custom board shaped for me. It's a 7'6 x 23 x 3.1 egg-ish shaped board. The fin set-up is a 4+1, with 4 Futures slots in a quad configuration and a longboard fin box in the middle. With this set-up, I can supposedly ride it as a quad, fiver (quad + "nubster"), thruster (with a small fin in the center box), 2+1 (larger center fin with side bites), or a straight up single. For the basic quad config, my shaper has recommended a particular Futures set that I am going with as my baseline. I'll probably order a little nubster 5th fin just fun. For single fin mode I have a 8.5" Rainbow flex fin that should be fun to try.
My main questions are about the difference between the thruster configuration and the 2+1. For a board this size is there any reason to run a 2+1 config instead of a conventional thruster with 3 equal size fins? What would be the performance characteristic of the larger fin with side-bites compared to the thruster?
Set-up will be something like this:
