Quad fin versus twin fin versus single fin post 1

Ok, I have done it, my first time of order custom board. The custom boards, two of them is orderdered from ocean4hawaii So then after a lot of mail the boards is finished. Ocean4hawaii is really professional with lots of advices. If you want a custom board or wonder about something else I really recommend you to contact them.

I am not a pro sailor, more a ordinary windsurfer who try to be at the water as much as possible catch some waves and “talk” with the nature. I don’t change my board every year, and if some new things arrive, I don’t have to run and by it right away. So as the name of my blog reflect the most important is to be happy out in the water, and the coolness factor have almost no importance for me. The decision of new board was taken last year on this day: testing Goya 90L


One of the hardest decisions on the new custom boards was: shall I go for single fin, twin fin, or quad. The best thing would be if I could have tested them first. But I want a new board before I arrive Maui this year so I had to do the decision by info in mail. I don’t either want to spend to mush time with testing out different board. I want a good board and become familiar with it as fast as possible. It was also important for me that ocean4hawaii understood that I am a sort of intermediate sailor and then the boards is shaped for typical Kanaha logo until mast high waves.

First evaluation: Single fin or twin fin?
A sum up from info: Twin fin shapes with looser tail than single fin are not only for the advance sailors, they are also good for intermediate sailors, but have the only drawbacks that twin fins plane a tiny bit later.
Ok if I had to choose between loose tail or early planning, I must admit that loose tail sounds nice but early plane is even more important. So then the choice here would have been single fin.

Second evaluation: Single fin or quad?
A sum up from info:
Quad (4 fins), those boards are nearly as fast as single fin boards and are very loose like twin fins. If you then go with a quad with a fast rocker - best of both worlds, loose and fast. Fast and loose sounds nice to me so then the choice here would have been quad.

And quad was the final choice, and the board is shaped with the fastest rocker of 3 different rocker, ref:

We currently offer 3 different models which are differentiated by rockers and their respective curves: (rocker #6, rocker #4 and FW rocker).
# 6 being the most turny rocker. 80% BACK FOOT.
# 4 being faster and most widely used as it is the most versatile for all around wave sailing. 80% FRONT FOOT.
FW rocker being the fastest rocker - for windsurfers who sail mostly in onshore and/or conditions with a lot of currents.

And about rocker if I had chosen a single fin it would have been with a # 4, so then with a quad and FW rocker they probable plane about equally.

With the assessment of the election of the quad is its possibility it will provide of manoeuvre qualities in waves. I hope therefore I with quad shall be even better to ride waves. The riding waves is the ultimate I can do compared to everything. As I understand by reading about it the fastness of quad fin is also given by the channel the four fins make in the water. The fins is smaller then ordinary fins, and the fin brackets is lighter, so the board is not much heavier then single fin. The quad should also work well upwind and therefore good for onshore conditions. In my opinion I think the quad is the next step after twinfin, so the quad to day is sort of developed from twin fin, and then maybe the only real alternative is quad or single.

The choice of twin fin and order custom from ocean4hawaii is also done because the boards is then shaped by Keith Teboul. I think he is probable one of the top 5 best shapers in the world, maybe the best, always out at Ho’okipa and testing out new things. I have also met him several times at Maui, and I hope and think he then have a bit knowledge of what kind of windsurfer I am…a happy one :-)

I look forward to come to Maui in a few weeks from now and test out my new boards. Keep up following the blog, I will later on ad post here about the testing of quad. All post about quad will be found under the articles tag on the top of the page.

I then hope this short quad versus twin fin versus single fin discussion would be useful for someone.