New T Belly Board

[soulglider]

nothing to do with thickness. nothing to do with length either. its the plan shape, well maybe. boogers know this, the wide point has to be behind the elbows and face or your gunna get pearling, face full of water and bogging. moving back on my boards when in the flats gives me more speed, i make myself 8' or 9' long as opposed to 5' long when in trim. sometimes (most of the time) what works for stand up boards is the opposite of what works in prone sleds. i have went through 8 different, well known, great surfboard shapers (38 boards in a couple of years) that havent "got it right," for me, it wasnt til i really started to analyze what would make the board work or not work, for me.

[rodndtube]

There are always so many trade offs in optimizing a design. It is good to have you on this forum discussing these issues, Thomas. In JW's case (all of us for that matter), experimenting with different fins can make a huge difference in performance behavior of the board. My 2" side bites are my everyday standard but I move between 4", 4.5" and 5" center fins and their placement fore and aft in the fin box (std Fins Unlimited) depending upon the wave size and type.

[jbw4600]

Thanks for your input. I will focus more board position with different maneuvers. I have noticed that holding body weight back at time has helped quite a bite.
I usually turn right when I get on a wave. I only drop straight down when I catch a wave too late or I catch a bad wave and I don't want to get pulverized. When I first got the board I tried dropping in real early and going around the foam like a longboarder or some shortboarders. It usually doesn't work.

I have gone back to using the bigger fins Futures T1 (5.14 high by 4.8 wide). The smaller ones had little drive. The T1s have plenty of drive and don't seem to impede turning. I can turn on a dime. I still want try some smaller and bigger fins. I'd like to try some more fishy fins. But my current feeling is to use the biggest fin that still turns.

[soulglider]

I started using a 10" flex tuna style fin. Works awesome. No side bites. It gives tons of drive a can be turned on a dime. Changing it up and trying things that seem drastic sometimes turm out to be way fun. Learning to listen to yoir instincts work so umbelieveable a lot of the time.

[nomastomas]

jw - that confirms my experiece with twin fin set-ups on bellys. The Hobie Fish template is the de-facto standard for mod fish boards. Its a modified keel, with asymmetric foiling and a little rake.

SoulSlider - How far up from the tail is the trailing edge of that 10"er? How much rake? Your Pumkin Seed has a definite Greenough-influenced foil so the Tuna fin is a nice compliment and is definitely consistent with the "hull" design. (I have some more thoughts on your Seed, but haven't taken the time to articulate them yet. I like that shape. I'll post on that thread when I do)

Has anyone tried a "Wave Grinder" fin on a belly?

Too many ideas, not enough time to play with them...

[soulglider]

10.5 fin box set 6" from tail. Tip is about 2.5" from tip of tail. Its a 10" vely that I refoil to my liking. Will post pic on other thread. The hull is a reverse of gg velo in tjat the thinnest spot is in the nose, because its to hard to flex a spoon properly while prone.

[nomastomas]

Yes, but what is the distance from the tip of the tail to the trailing edge of the fin? Put another way, how far up do you set the fin? And, how far does the tip of the fin overhang the base of the fin?

[rodndtube]

<snip>
Has anyone tried a "Wave Grinder" fin on a belly?

Nope. Do they come in sizes other than... 10 inches (they look to be very long). I would love to try one in the 4 to 6 inch range.

Too many ideas, not enough time to play with them...

You are right about that!

[soulglider]

buy it and i'll try it!

a photo of the fin i've been using is on the other thread tp. i already hi-jacked this thread enough and i'm really sorry about that. wish i could do it over again, my sincerest apologies.

[Cuttlefish]

I've been running FCS C-GRV fins for a couple of months now.
Very happy with all aspects of them.