| QUOTE (bflaherty1998 @ February 21, 2008 04:16 pm) |
| Its all so interesting. Fecking love the mechanics/fluid dynamics of it all. I recently got myself a TK Flex 9.5" and a MD3 9" for my Fireball. I had a full day on Friday on mellow enough shoulder to head high waves and the TK Flex was perfect. It felt very smooth and suited the conditions. The next day however I took the same set-up out on a punchy head high beach break and it was terrible. Caused me to get nailed a few times. I had surfed the same spot during the week with the standard 8.5" McTavish fin with tiny TurboTunnel side bites and got on much better. The TK Flex seemed to "give up" when you cranked hard on the bottom turn and caused me to get nailed a few times as the board seemed to just bog down in the tail and I just stood there waiting for the lip to arrive. I suppose this must be the fin over flexing?? I had to nurse my board through the initial turn and couldn't sit as deep on the peak as I would have liked. Now I know I should have had the MD3 on but was just too excited to get in the water to change fins!! These yokes feel great on the Fireball with its standard 8.5" fin (from my limited experience) http://www.turbotunnel.com/product.asp?productid=165177. No drag compared to the larger side bites while adding a little extra bite on bigger punchy waves. By the way does this explanation of the TK Flex make sense or am I just imagining things??? |
That sounds like a bit of over flex going on. Delayed reactions and sometimes not happening at all or spinning out.
Imagine the load on a fin when doing a good bottom turn, you have your weight, the board weight, the water pushing against it, and your speed/momentum all trying to bend the fin. I think sometimes this is just too much for the more flexible fins and they do not snap back into place. Like I say, I have fins with stress fractures running through them, so I know it happens.