Still no wind in Korea on Tuesday, but the forecast is looking better for Thursday and Friday. Dan Ellis takes a day off his reporting duties, but promises us something special for tomorrow!

Monday’s Report

With no racing to speak of today, Dan gets the full low down on what fins the top guys and girls are using.

Dan is more than happy to find out whatever you would like to know, just ask him using the comments at the bottom of the post. As Connor Bainbridge did regarding fins, so here you go Connor, this one’s for you!

“Not much to report here today, the wind teased all afternoon staying between five and eight knots. Most of the sailors, including myself, took to the water to plane on and off as the gusts come across the bay.

With no racing to report on I sat down with Kurosh Kiani to get his scoop on the fin situation, as a full time PWA racer the last few years he really knows what’s what and who’s using what when.

KK “The world of fins isn’t what it used to be. There is not just one brand making good fins anymore. We are talking more than a handful of brands successfully making fins that are competitive on the racing scene.

Today in the PWA, you will see lots of guys on brands like Z-fins, Vector, Hurricane and Kashy fins in the bigger sizes. But, you will be surprised to see how many guys nowadays show up with fins, they either have made themselves or by some secret agent fin engineer, so the spread is simply too wide to say that there is one dominating brand at the moment.

In the smaller sizes, you will see brands like Vector, Techtonics, Hurricane and Mean Line. I have probably missed out couple brands, but this is what I see mostly on the beach these days.”

Also with us is Sean O’Brien, Aus120, who put the popularity like this,
1) Z-Fins

2) CA Fins / Kashy (tie)

3) Vector

4) mix of Techtonic, Mean Lines, Deboichet, Hurricane

Personally, I really like the Mean Line fins developed by Kai Hopf on Maui which are CNC G10, I only have these up to 40cm at the moment as we’re waiting to get a new CNC set up, which will do bigger sizes.

It seems most of the guys like molded fins in the 40 + sizes, and then will use both molded and G10 in 40 and below. This might be because carbon is better in the bigger sizes, or because no one has put a lot of development into big G10 fins in the last couple of years.

Where as, there has been massive development from all the above mentioned companies, with the help of top riders on the carbon/molded fins. I‘m pretty excited to put this theory to the test when I get back to Maui!”

See Dan’s previous report on page two…