Thank you Kelly Slater. I’ll admit, when you started marketing the 5-fin surfboard, I was very skeptical. How can a board have a perfect quad and a perfect tri-fin setup? How can bottom concaves be so important but these big fin plug holes don’t affect the board?
I figured you were just padding your retirement account by promoting a product that required people to buy VERY expensive fins. Buy your VERY expensive signature fins.
But then you started winning contests. You backed up your product with undeniable performance. Now you had my interest.
Surfboard design and fin experimentation has gone crazy since the closure of Clark Foam. It’s been hard for the average surfer, with the average income, to keep up. No fin, single fin, twin fin, tri-fin, quad, bonzer and now even the five fin trailer…when does the average person have the time or money to surf all this stuff?
I’ve been fortunate to dabble in a few. I have a Liddle flex fin stubby for the points south of Point Conception, I’ve tried surfing finless at a playful point break in Mexico, done the plywood twin fin thing, and even bought a quad. But these were all novelty boards on novelty waves. My daily driver was still a high performance short board with glass on tri-fins.
Then I found myself surfing my quad more, and thinking “I wish I had three fins on that bottom turn”. Other days, back on the thruster, I found myself saying “I would made that tube if I was on a quad”.
Maybe Kelly was on to something. I asked my shaper. He confirmed it was the real deal and people were happy with their 5-fin set up. So I ordered one.
And I love it. 5’10” x 19” x 2 3/8”. I’ve surfed it all summer as a quad, and just switched it to a 3-fin set up for the first south swell of the year. The quad set up works fine, and so does the tri-fin. I cannot notice the bottom being affected by the empty fin plugs.
Now I must admit, I’m having more fun then ever.
Thank you Kelly Slater.
