Finally got to try different boards, what a revelation!

[adywind]

[jingebritsen]

i sailed today in 20-30 side shore that slowly turned side on. 2 others with me. i was on a 5.8 doing my typical front side stuff. single fin board with a fairly flat onshore wave design. did 2 upwind runs to regain the up to 1/2 mile down wind rides either on one wave or sections of multiples.

the next most experienced sailor was on a 4.5 and a 3 fin box kode. he slogged a lot. he complained about his 5.3 being too much. the board was slow. he rigged down too far because of it. ended up slogging 40% of his TOW. multi fin boards stink in most app's. see it all the time. tried it myself.

unless one has super steady winds, and ginormous, fast breaking, jagged waves, multi's add more drag. makes people rig down for planing only in gusts. more BS to sell more boards. never mind the anemic performance in less than perfect conditions.

slowing a kit by making the board stick just adds misery. the point of windsurfing is to let the forces meet equilibrium, if one is putting on the brakes when the sail says come on, let's go, the sailor suffers. sport is in a terrible tailspin with all these intuitive traps, and BS marketing.

[isobars]

So because one dood is not a good sailor, multifinned board suck?
"unless one has super steady winds, and ginormous, fast breaking, jagged waves, multi's add more drag. makes people rig down for planing only in gusts" in particular is just nonsense, as is claiming that multiple fins make boards "stick" ... whatever that means.

[adywind]

The thing with multis is that you need at least a size bigger for the same conditions compared to the singles.

[jingebritsen]

selective reading?

you missed my line: see it all the time. tried it myself.

worst of all, lots with multi's quite often sit on the beach and bemoan, "the wind is too ____, the waves aren't coming from the right angle, etc." usually though, they just stop coming to the beach.

multi's have their places. in lakes??? rivers? estuaries????? again, on huge, fast breaking waves, they may enhance the ride. but, what happens if one cannot get out past the break to begin with? if one is not blessed with a reef, point break, or shifting sandbars with lovely channels to sneak thru, one gets denied more often with these multi fin things.

my obsession with planing is simple: what good is turning if one impedes planing and glide to begin with?

[isobars]

You keep presuming that multifins inherently increase drag significantly AND somehow make their riders rig smaller AND suck in most wave venues. How many ranked pro WSers agree with those claims? I surely don't, after having put scores of thousands of miles on multifinned boards from ponds to the Pacific Ocean.

[isobars]

[jingebritsen]

again the selective interpretation.

multi fin boards do not apply to the majority of we who do not sail in perfect conditions.

do some want legalese on these forums?

folks that sail in competitions may need the in world class breaks, but the 90+% of us do not. they may be inflicting a glass ceiling onto themselves.

[Waterat Pat]

You guys are so focused on planing your not looking at the real advantage of multi-fin boards. Any multi-fin will be more stable in the foam ball of a breaking wave whether going out or coming in. Surfers have known this for a long time.
Another advantage not hitting the bottom when sailing shallow reefs.

I will gladly give up a small amount of planing effeceincy for these benefits.

[isobars]

I've never bought into this idea of relying on shorter fins to clear obstacles. Rocks that close to an irregular surface are a hazard I'm not going to sail over anyway ... at least not with a fin *I'm* paying for.

I'm more impressed with your other, broader advantage, which I've always related to something like lateral traction. If a single fin loses it, we slide sideways, aka spin out. With multiple fins, EVERY fin has to break loose to slide. Sure, technique and conservative sailing also reduce spinout, but the former is never perfect and the latter is boring. I LIKE all the things multiple fins let us do that require greater finesse ... aka care and constraint ... on one fin. As you say ... the often-OBVIOUS boost in performance is well worth some hypothetical 1% increase in drag ... if the latter exists at all on a board that lets us use a much smaller main fin because its two tiny thrusters are there to back it up.

Drive in white water, deliberate sideways landing from jumps, ignoring chop when blasting upwind, reduced spinout AOA and quicker recovery, covering up and recovering from mistakes, faster improvement from intermediate to advanced sailing in challenging terrain and extremely gusty wind, harder cutbacks halfway down a bumpy face, and better footing during survival sailing in giant gusts are just a few of the benefits multiple fins offer to many people in many venues ... all for the cost of a hypothetical extra square foot of sail if one's extra fins add drag.

Throw me in that briar patch any time, Uncle Remus.

Above some minimum proficiency threshold and below some maximum challenge limit, multiple fins offer no advantages. How many of always sail that well AND choose to confine the challenge to single-fin limits? Most of us COULD sail all day and never break a fin loose accidentally, but how many of us WANT to sail that carefully?