MyPaipoBoards Forums

Some of you take the fins out of your board, and ride it finless. Then you're riding a finless board that was designed to be ridden with fins. I propose a different approach to fins vs finless comparisons. Start with a board that was designed to be finless, and then add fins. Pictured below is a fine example of finless technology from the end of the Cold War Era. It has drop rails and a poop chute channel at the tail, all highlighted by black airbrush.
My original thoughts were to glass shallow keels right on the edge of the channel, and blend the fillets with the channel. The channel is slightly tapered, so that would toe the keels about 1/8th inch. Basically that plan was to make a nealy finless board...a shallow water twin fin.

Since than I've changed my mind. With all the discussion lately about finless amd finned board, I decided removable fins would be a better experiment. And I think quad fins would best suit the pig template of the board. The channel is about 5 1/2 inches wide where (I thnk)the rear fins would go on a McKee style fin arrangement.
The title of this thread is the Finless Board Challenge. A challenge for who? A challenge for the first person to call dibs on the board. The first person to reply with dibs in this thread can have the board for merely the cost of shipping...maybe about forty dollars inside of California. I just don't have a good place to work on glass boards anymore. The board has a few other issues at the tail, and a delam on the deck side that could be fixed or not. So who wants to take on the Finless Challenge?

Looks like a perfect board to fit a hooped fin.

My second last board was made to be ridden finless as well finned. I just went the safer route and rode it finned because I was enjoying the experience. I'm a bit unsure whether the next board will be entirely finless, another attempt at a bonzer or something that can be ridden both ways (I've never had a single fin bellyboard). So many choices.

Merry Christmas!
In my mind, the shape above would be a good candidate for a finned/finless "combi" (combination) because of what appears to be a WP location in the middle of the board. While I've seen both finned and finless p-boards in both WP-forward and WP-back shapes, my experience has been that finless works best WP-forward, and finned works best WP-back. For years I rode a Morey 7-7 with those small, cheap fins. They helped a little but not that much. I was still relying pretty heavily on using that forward rail, to hold a line. I'm currently toying with a finless p-board based on Greenough's latest hull design (Surfer's Journal v24.5). Its now a WPF shape, but this discussion makes me want to move the WP to center and add some fin boxes. Hhmmmm....

"Pig outline..." camera angle had me fooled! So, now I'm wondering how well it worked finless?

Here's my second latest board made to be ridden both ways - to me at least, the mid point is centre but when I try and put a ruler on it, the mid point extends both sides of the midpoint so it is fairly parallel for a while.
I must admit to seeing that Greenough board and thinking - how would that go as a paipo?

Bob

The Insanity is 42.5 inches long, and the wide point is 19 inches up from the tail. So sort of piggy.

Hi,

I did the finless board challenge some time ago http://mypaipoboards.org/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=485

In short all I really found was I preferred the performance of the board finless, adding fins just slowed the board.