VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

Who makes the “best” windsurfing race fins? Is there someone building unidirectional carbon custom fins and are they better than CNC G10 (or G11)? Are the bases potted? Has anyone molded the entire fin and pot in a single piece for super light, stiff and proper flex performance. I am about to begin my next generation of kite boards and want to drive the weight way down on the race and the touring board. I will be hot wire cutting 1 lb. EPS with uni-carbon PVC stringers, with interconnected boxes (for the race board) and plan to build my own fin boxes (lighter and less expensive than Larry Tuttle’s sets). I would sure appreciate any nudges toward the most current WS Race fin technology. I feel pretty confident with my new board construction but I believe that the Tectonic and Rista Kite Race fins I have could be improved upon. Help much appreciated.

KayakDoc wrote:Has anyone molded the entire fin and pot in a single piece for super light, stiff and proper flex performance. ....Help much appreciated.

Geoffy is likely your guy other than that I can only recommend you get in touch with the Black Project guys, Chris Freeman, to help you out on a demo/ r&d relationship

Kus, The response I was hoping for. Thanks. PS. To others, keep it coming.

Sooo is anyone using molded uni-carbon race fins? Is F4 current, or out of business? I like the concept of the outer skin fibers of the fins being continuous (unlike G10 where the outer skins are shaved off i.e. cut along the cord), but is this really current stuff? Seems when I look for current fin design the rocket guys are using stone age technology to produce glass fins. Would love to get this discussion going, especially with the windsurf gang. Do not want to reinvent the wheel.

Hmmm - this is something I dream of spending my retirement doing on Maui and have the ideas/technology, just not the funding and time to put into a project that's revenue negative!! We've done two similar projects, an aircraft prop and just a few weeks back a set of turbine fan blades. Both were all carbon over tailored core with direct molded load paths (uni and off-angle) back into root. Prop was RTM'd and turbine blades all pre-preg, both worked well as far as loading goes.

Trick is to design the correct flex (or more correctly - to know what loads are and what flex you want without huge commitments to trial and error). Second and easier part is to get the load transfer at minimum weight, certainly designing a board around a tuttle box, then a fin around a tuttle box, then fitting the two together is inefficient, so you're miles ahead there KayakDoc being able to do the two together. Black Project Fins appears to be limited to CNC glass/epoxy, their technology is in the foil and planform but who knows what they do in the development arena, worth checking. MFC does both CNC G10 and compression molded s-glass/polyester fins.

GE developed some great technology for the GEnX line that are molded inlet vanes - some good ideas in their history. Also check out Albany Engineered Composite LEAP Fan blades for ideas.
Cheers;
Sparkley

There's a guy in NZ named "Boogie" who appears to be manufacturing high end race fins on a custom basis. Company is C3. Notorious for being difficult to reach though. Just thought I'd add one more top name to the list. Guys that have his fins seem to rave about them.

Thanks Geoff and Chris, I am not convinced that the Kite Racing crew is really on top of this. The very best rider seems capable of winning regardless of fin finessing and has therefore settled on a ubiquitous fin design with limited length changes only (flat vs choppy conditions). The rest of us trade and move fins around without much attention to rider weight, board design, etc. Doesn’t seem to change the outcomes. The only concern in the ranks is when the conversation moves to changing fin tip flex.... then panic ensues. The switch from quad to thruster has made a difference in directional stability on the downwind leg, but there is very little data on the performance of a larger single fin (windsurfer) vs thruster setup (kite) over an entire race course. As Geoff suggested all it would take is a pot full of money and lots of free time. Kind of sounds like the America’s Cup. Keep the comments/insights/experiences coming.