Quad fish surfboards?

Question

What's your opinion on a quad fish surfboard?

Advantages and disadvantages?

Answer 1

There are a couple of advantages but a "quad fin" depends on what overall type of board you got....thus, let me try to answer....

Keeping things simple, if you took a normal shortboard and converted it to a "quad", the main thing you would likely experience are more drive, more straightline speed and more release out of turns.  You would likely lose some of the quick directionality that the 3-fin thruster would provide as you are simply losing the fin on your pivot point under your backfoot.

Now, drop four fins on a traditional fish and you can get some magic.  These boards with flatter rocker start to act like skateboards.  A old skool fish would typically have two big "keel" fins in the setup.  A "quad" version of this widens out the total fin area and creates a tremendous amount of drive and release.  For reference, check out Rich Pavel's Speed Dialer design...its pretty sick.  

Lastly, many guys (including Kelly Slater & other ASP pros) have been riding quads lately.  Guys riding Mavericks around here in Northern California have been riding quads on 30+ foot waves.  The speed is insane and you don't have a ton of trade off on the ability to turn.....

Thus, I would sum it up this way:  If you want to gain down the line speed, check out a quad.  If you are used to a single fin, the quad will haul ***.  If you are used to a thruster setup, you won't have to pump as much in flat spots on the wave.

There you have it....