Choosing Your Twin Fin Set

As most of you probably already know, getting your fins right can mean the difference between your board going insane or not working for you at all. And with such a wide selection of twin keel fins available these days, there's fantastic opportunity to get your twin keel fish dialled. Also, because my boards are very finely tuned, they will be very responsive to different style fins. Sometimes it can be a little frustrating to find just the right fin. But when you do and your board is purring like a well tuned Italian sportscar, the effort is well worth it. To keep it really simple, if your board is feeling a bit unresponsive and resistant to turns, try a smaller fin. If the tail is drifting too much through turns or letting go, try a larger fin. Below is a selection of fins that will work well with my current Twin Keel designs.

Futures K2

At just 22.5" in area, this fin is substantially smaller than any of the other fins and probably not really suitable in my twin keels for surfers over 70kg.

Futures Rasta

At 24.5" this fin is most suitable for surfers 85 kg or less. Note that it has an inside foil that produces extra drive which can prove tricky at times as my twin keels already have a lot of inbuilt drive.

Tru Ames Danny Hess Noriega

At 24.5" this is another fin on the smaller side really only suitable for surfers 85 kg or less. Note that smaller fins will allow the tail to bust out easier if that's your thing.

Futures Rob Machado

The new one from Rob Machado, with an area of 25.4", this is a nice mid sized fin that will suit a lot of surfers anywhere from 75 kg - 105 kg, depending on how you want your board to feel. It has the same area as the old K1 which was a very versatile fin and worked for a lot of different sized surfers.

Futures Al Merrick

This new one from Al Merrick, is a nice mid sized fin. Very similar in size to the Machado with an area of 25.45" but with an increased rake which will make it less pivotable less pivotal and produce more drive in longer turns than the Machado. This fin will suit a lot of surfers anywhere from 75 kg - 105 kg. It has the same area as the old K1 which was a very versatile fin and worked for a lot of different sized surfers.

Tru Ames Hobie Fish

The largest keel fin in this selection, at 26" in area, this fin more suited for larger surfers 90kg plus or surfers who are looking for extra drive. This is the fin I use and that I really like. I'm 105kgs.

Krypt Powerdrive

I have yet to try this fin, but crew who have been putting it through it's paces are raving about it with my Magic Carpet Twin Keels.

Please Don't Use These!

This is your classic MR 70's style twin. My boards are not designed for these sort of fins and you'll be missing out on a lot of the performance potential of my twin keel designs if you use a fin like this. My boards are designed around the keel fin and really need the keels to complete the design.

Go the Magic Carpet or a MKV?

The Magic Carpet Or the MKV?

The Magic Carpet or MKV? I love both boards equally and do swap them out constantly, they are very similar when it comes to glide, speed and stability. However when it comes to response there's some slight differences.⁣ The Magic Carpet has the smoother response of the FLV that allows the board to sit up on its rail more and glide marginally better on open faces. The MKV still goes like a bat out of hell with fantastic glide but has a bit more of an immediate response from it’s single concave.⁣

The more immediate response of MKV’s concave also makes it very at home in tighter hollower waves, feeling very similar to a concave quad or thruster. If you’re coming off a concave shortboard or it’s your go too board, this response married with the drive spot being right between your feet will have you clicking with this board very easily.⁣

In saying that, the FLV has its own thing going on. The feeling off the FLV transition and speed you get as you roll the FLV over on it’s rail is something else. Although both go insane on a big open faces, you'll find the Magic carpet has a slightly higher top speed when you really push them... not that it needs it!⁣ ha!⁣

At the end of the day both boards are amazing to surf with a glide and hold that makes them very easy to ride. No matter whether it's knee high mush or big solid faces. So if your looking for quick response and a more concave thruster/quad feel, go for the MKV. However if you’re looking for a slight smoother surfing board and like the sound of getting a board up on it’s rail, the Magic Carpet with the FLV is a feeling that’s pretty addictive.⁣

⁣The magic carpet recently got reviewed by a big board distributor in UK, check out their thoughts below.

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Why our Twinnys are Easy to Surf

There is no doubt that our twin keel fishes are performance boards that can be pushed as hard as you want. But at the same time they are also very easy to ride. Probably why we all like surfing them so much. No matter how you surf them, whether you're just cruising or pushing critical turns, these boards really do make it all easier. But they weren't always like this... When I first started riding the twin keel fishes, they were easy to surf. All that width and the low rocker made them very stable under the feet. Until the waves got going.... And then I discovered the full retro 70's style twin keel boards wouldn't respond like I wanted them to. Often I couldn't get the drive and carve that I like in my boards, and so on bigger faces I found myself nursing the boards thru their turns rather than driving and carving. And then in tighter parts of the wave, the super wide tails and flat rocker felt clunky and difficult. They were still great fun to surf, but there were some serious limitations. And so I went to work. First step was to add a deep concave to add drive and improve control on the bigger faces and in hollower waves. Next I started reducing the width of the swallow tail to improve hold thru turns. While I was at it, I also modernized the rocker from the more primitive 70's style rocker so that they felt smoother, more responsive and more balanced under the feet. The next thing was to up the tail rocker so that they would fit into tighter parts of the wave better. Now a really funny thing happened as I upped the tail rocker. It's pretty widely accepted in surfboard design that as you increase rocker, you lose speed. Not with these puppies! As I upped the tail rocker, they just started getting faster and faster! Already they were pretty fast, but now I really had something going on! To deal with all this speed the boards were now capable of, I pulled the rail down, keeping it low and fine, but soft so that it wouldn't catch. This allowed the rail to penetrate further into the face of the wave, massively improving the board's ability to hold onto a steep face or hold it's line thru turns. During this process, I also played with the fin positions a lot. Moving them back and forward until I found the balance point so that they no longer felt clunky or drifty under the feet. But this didn't happen overnight. It's taken 14 years and more than 3000 hours of R & D later, to get to the highly evolved Magic Carpet and the MKV twin keel fishes that we now have. Two highly refined, high performance surfboards that are really easy and fun to surf. If you haven't got one, you are missing out. 2019 Custom Order Book closes this Tuesday

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