There were a few right hand peelers coming off a bank at the side of the bay and they looked an ideal testing ground for some new fins I’d procured. I’d been wanting to try something other than the big keels that came with my Ectic Chubster for a while and eventually picked up a set of MR TFX twin fins on the cheap. I whacked them in the forward position of the three FCS plugs on the basis of going for looseness and maximum skatey feel.
First wave the board felt so different it was almost like I’d swapped boards, as I popped up and looked to arc right down the face of the wave I noticed a serious lack of speed and drive and a major increase in looseness as I looked to lean on the inside fin to climb back up the face after a swoopy’ish bottom turn. To be honest it felt so loose and skatey to the point of being unstable. A few more waves in and I grew accustomed to the hyper-sensitivity to directional changes the fins had given the tail but I couldn’t get over the comparative lack of speed. There were at least a few waves where I knew I could have been 5 yards or so further down the line if I had the keels in and therefore covering enough ground to connect sections at a shifty’ish beachbreak such as Widdy. Now possibly shifting the MRs to the back two FCS plugs may cure this but for now I’m yearning for the drive of my keels so they’ve been schlotted back in ready for the next session….. Got to try these things though, you don’t know until you go.
