Firewire's Deviant trailer fin

I was just 'lurking' on the Firewire Surfboard forum and read about their planned introduction of a thruster trailer fin. I believe they indicated a February '10 release date.

The propaganda reads as follows: We kept it really simple - there is a barrel hinge built into the base that stops the cant at 7 degrees each side. The water pressure as you start to turn 'rolls' the fin over immediately and holds it in position. The moment you start turning the other way, the opposite occurs. There is no resistance as we preferred zero lag between 'cants'.

New life for thrusters?

some more fins

How much more does the fin box weigh compared to other fin systems?? Pretty cool idea, now I just have to think about how it actually works! Thanks for sharing, Jon T

@ JL - I love all those RFC stained glass fins. Absolutely gorgeous.

@ jon - no changes in existing fin boxes. From what I read, they will introduce fins for both the FCS and Future boxes. Straight swap for an existing thruster trailer fin. The concept is as you're turning, the cant of the trailer fin will approximate the cant of the rail fin that is on the inside of the turn.

The fin that JL attached above - before the RFC fins - that guy was saying they were messing with that 15 years ago! It adjusts toe with water flow. Blakestah has a rotating fin system which is similar and I installed that in a board a few years ago. The bumper system didn't work behind the boat, too stiff.

So what would this do really?

I would assume less drag due to less side pressure when the fin is not in line with the direction of the board ie. when you are carving.

It seems like it would act somewhat like a fish tail, giving more "thrust"/drive.

The Firewire folks announce the product here:

http://www.firewiresurfboards.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=242&page=1#Item_0

Deepcove has the concept. I don't know that it will work behind the boat well, we don't have real significant top and bottom turns. From that forum, I cut 'n pasted:

Here's how it works.

Forward fin cant (how the fin tilts in relation to the bottom of the board) is normally set between 6 and 9 degrees, increasing speed through turns and drawing tighter arcs than more upright fins.

The DEVIANT fin applies that same principle to the rear thruster fin. The DEVIANT automatically adjusts 7 degrees of cant in either direction (14 degrees total range of movement) and noticeably increases speed and responsiveness by reducing rear fin drag, loosening the tail, and shortening the turn radius of a thruster fin set up: your board will feel more maneuverable.

We've been riding the prototypes for a couple of months now, from San Diego beach breaks to Hawaii and Tavarua and felt the benefits of the canted rear fin immediately.

The DEVIANT will come in FCS and Futures compatible versions and there will be demo fins at all Firewire Retailers. You don't have to take out word for it, just try it. I think the logic behind how it works is pretty easy to grasp. I'm sure someone will comment about the possibility of increased drag from the wider base. However, in all of our testing across a wide variety of conditions and surfing abilities, if there was any extra drag created by the base, it was more than offset by allowing the rear fin to mimic the front fin cant through turns. All we felt was increased responsiveness and speed through turns.

Surfdad

Is this fin loose or does it spring back to neutral when not under pressure?

From what I understand there is no resistance, it just flops back and forth and my guess is that means it doesn't return to neutral either.

Blakestah has the Surf Trux that have a return to neutral feature. The fin base has rubber bumpers on either side and compress with force, but then goes back to a "home" position.

http://www.blakestah.com/fins/