Inland Surfer - Quad's and Carbon

I got some preliminary pictures and info on one of Inland's new products for '08. They are offering special order Blue's and Green's in a carbon fiber construction and an innovative new quad fin set up.

The quad orientation they are using is different than you'll find just about anywhere else. I looked at it and thought to myself "why did I think about that!" Sweet design.

This is a side view of the fins and if you look closely you can see the fin placements. It's hard to tell but the board is carbon also, not just the fins.

This gives a view of the underside and it looks like you can block off a set of fin boxes and run it as a twin or a quad. I'm guessing that the twin could be set up with fins in the back or forward and more towards the centerline.

You can also see the carbon on the bottom of the board.

Inland still uses their infusion process. Carbon needs to be vacuumed, it doesn't drape like fiberglass, so Inland's process is well suited to Carbon. Also, the dry layup associated with infusion gives the perfect ratio of epoxy to carbon for stiff and light laminations.

Infusion is somewhat different than the wet layup bagging I've done, infusion requires a higher vacuum, no doubt on the 30" range in order to suck the epoxy through the feed lines. At that level, lighter weight EPS cores would be crushed, so these boards, I'm surmizing, will be lighter than other Inland offerings and stiffer and stronger.

Can't wait to get my feet on one behind the boat!

Jeff, i'm curious about that quad fin setup. I'll bet it's stable downline but wouldn't it kind of make it hard for tricks and such?

Off topic. i know you ride Hogan, what's the water level like there?

Hey Razz, we haven't been up to Hogan in a few weeks, finally got snow in the mountains! so we are snowboarding most weekends. The last time we were there was before the rains, and it was significantly down. I'm hoping that with all the rains we had, that the level is up a few feet. On the BRIGHT side, not many people on the water.

James has a new 4 x 3 arriving this week, so hopefully we'll get a day or two on the lake over the next month or so.

I was just talking to some folks over on TO.com about the quad set up. There are so many variables, the interior fin toe-in and cant really affect the tracking and lift. If you look at the way that IS has set their fins up, they moved the interior fins in front of the rail fins and they overlap. I think that set up probably reduces the straight line tendency while increasing lift and drive. I talked briefly with Mark Sher and he indicated that the turn UP into the wake was enhanced.

Surface 3's are the HOLY GRAIL for most of us. The Green was a very flat rocker and is exceptionally fast. I have done 3's with 4.5" deep fins and have found that if you push on the tail when you go into the 3, the tail will float around pretty easily...then the extra fin area prevents it from over-rotating and if you get a little out of shape the extra drive from the fin area allows you to catch up to the wake.

You right though, breaking the fins loose, on most quads, takes more effort.

I still haven't ridden this board, so I'm just theorizing at this point. I like the location of the fins though...makes me wish I had tried it!

i like it because they didnt follow.opposite of the mainstream,against the grain...thats my style!i'd totally score one if i wasnt a poor kid from the hood.pro deal?

hello, we test this to the extremes - with our trick fin or our reg. fins it still spins like a top, but grabs like a knife for airs. This is because we added the extra fins and put it up front, weird "A"
go figure !

How gorgeous is the blue in Carbon? I'm still impressed with the quad configuration.

Beyond the looks of the carbon that four fin set up is interesting to me. Four fin boards have been around for ages. The quad configuration typically has trailer fins, that are smaller than the lead fins - but not always. The trailers are either toed in or straight - parallel with a stringer. Another four fin set up is referred to as a Twinzer. In the twinzer there are leading fins that are smaller than the main fins and "break up" the water flow and make the board looser...amongst other things.

One of the characteristics of the twinzer is that the front fins overlap the trailing or main fins.

I'm sure everyone will be impressed with my drawing ability:

Wow there is a LOT of white space in there - sorry.

Anyway...what IS has done is combine some of the characteristics of a traditional quad and a twinzer. The extra fins generate lift. If you've ridden a quad with the trailers straight you can feel this lift on the board.

The extra fins also generate more drive - so the board recovers and drives toward the lip much faster than a twin. The interesting thing about a twinzer is that it's typically considered looser than a thruster or a quad.

Theoretically what IS has done, is created a board with extra lift, extra drive, but without the tracky feeling that is associated with a quad.

I'd REALLY like to get my hands on one to give it a rip.

That carbon looks sick! Very cool idea on the fin placement.

These quad fins have been used on surfboards for awhile now. ...Lost Surfboards make s a board called the warthog or something that is a little fish with a quad set-up. Cool Idea. Jeff Paige is always thinking of innovation. That guy is GREAT

Another cool thing about the boards with the quad setup is that we ship them with "blanks" that go into the fin box if you don't want to use all four. This way the empty fin boxes don't create drag when you only want to run with 2 fins.

MARK you guys are so clever. How is everything goin. Is it freezin b@lls up there or what.

Just got 2 feet of POWDER at Crystal Mt yesterday. It was sick! No wakesurfing unitl May though

Oh, and the place that's about 45 min from my house has gotten 5ft in 5 days. The only problem is they keep closing the road! How's FL?