removeable vs nonremoveable fins question

[mctriple]

i'm looking to get my first board, and this guy has a used "chris birch" one pretty cheap. it's a 7'2" shortboard type in pretty good shape.. but the 3 fins are nonremoveable.

how bad is that? how often do fins break, and how much of a pain is it to get them fixed? seemed to me like removeable would be way better.

would it be best to pass this board up and get one with removeable fins? for ~$100 i may have to get it anyway.. it's by far the best deal that i've found for my first board.

[Guest]

You'll be fine with this board. Go to it.

[mctriple]

thanks!

yeah im at the beach this weekend and went to some shops. i was talking to a guy at one of them, and he said that, if they break, they generally make it clean and smooth and put plugs for removeable ones in it anyway.. and that, if you get hit hard enough to break a glass fin, that same force will generally pull the plugs out of the board anyway, so you'd still need to get it fixed.

sounds pretty good to me. this board has been repaired in two places.. one small ding on the upper half of the board, and quite a bit of fixing at the very tail of the board. it's kinda discolored, but he said he's surfed it last summer and this past winter without it leaking, so it should be good.

is there any way to easily check it when i get there to make sure that its sealed well? will just about any break make some of the board discolored, as water gets in right away? it's only discolored at the tail, so it looks like water didn't spread all over.. and maybe it's also partly the glass he put on there (repaired it himself, although he seems to know a shaper who says the repair is solid.. according to the guy selling it)

[Guest]

just pick it up & feel it, does it feel like a surboard should considering it's made from foam & glass...or does it feel abit heavier? If its a generally consistant colour, a consistant shape & no weird things going on visually, no big stickers covering suspect areas...it's all good. it is a $100 beginner board after all.