A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Alexandre, João (Dapin)

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Rudder-like device attached to the surfboard's rear bottom surface, singly or in a multifin cluster, to give directional stability, control, and maneuverability. "Surfers as a rule take fins for granted," surf writer Devon Howard noted in 2005, "But nearly every quantum leap in board design has revolved around the fin and its various configurations."

Before the development of the fin, surfers gained a small amount of traction and control through the use of convex hull shapes, and were able to make slight directional changes by dipping a foot in the water alongside the board's tail section. "Sliding ass" was the expression used to describe the way the tail section of a finless board often slipped out of its track and swung to the fore, almost always causing a wipeout.

Santa Monica surfer Pete Peterson is said to have attached a fin to his board in the early '30s, but Wisconsin-born surfing innovator Tom Blake is generally given credit for inventing the surfboard fin. In 1935, while living in Honolulu, Blake removed the metal keel off an abandoned speedboat and bolted it to the bottom of his surfboard. The fin was about one foot long and four inches deep. "My first wave revealed the truth," Blake later said. "Never before had I experienced such control and stability." For reasons not entirely clear (although some thought the new addition was dangerous), the fin didn't catch on until the 1940s, when Southern California surfers began gluing (and then fiberglassing) low-profile wooden fins onto the tails of their balsa-core boards. A few surfers—most notably California surfer-designer Bob Simmons—experimented briefly with two-fin designs, setting a pair of fins near the board's edges, equidistant from the tail.

The slightly swept-back fixed-in-place glass-on fin was a universal board design feature by the mid-'50s, with most fins measuring about nine inches tall and nine inches along the base. The all-fiberglass fin, followed shortly by the injection-molded hard plastic fin, began to replace the wood-and-fiberglass models in the mid-'60s, while the fin's silhouette began to resemble the dorsal fin of a dolphin—a shape that made turning easier. Surfers in general paid little attention to the shape of their fin until Australian Nat Young won the 1966 World Surfing Championships title using a narrow-based "high-aspect ratio" fin created by California kneeboarder-designer George Greenough. Young's fin gave him an advantage over the competition in the 1966 championships, increasing both the sharpness and strength of his turns, and Young later credited his world title victory to fin-maker Greenough.

Although big-wave surfing pioneer George Downing of Hawaii invented a removable fin system in 1951, the idea didn't become popular until 1967, with the introduction of the Water Apparatus and Vehicular Engineering Interchangeable Fin System (or W.A.V.E. Set), developed primarily by California surfer-designer Tom Morey. The original W.A.V.E. Set line was composed of six different molded polypropylene fins, each of which could be bolted into a slotted hard-plastic "box" installed flush to the board's bottom surface.

Fin experimentation, amplified by the late-'60s shortboard revolution, went off in a number of interesting but for the most part dead-end tangents in the '70s and early '80s, including the attenuated keel fin, the V-shaped butterfly fin, the wide-based fin, an assortment of flexible fins, the boomerang fin, the slotted jet-ducting fins, hollow fins, and more. The Bonzer design was the most complex fin setup of the age, as it featured a standard single-fin flanked by a pair of long, low, triangular fins, alongside a pair of deep channels running from stern to midsection.

The twin-fin was reintroduced for a brief period in the early '70s, then returned in 1977 to become a hugely popular small-wave board; Australia's Mark Richards won four world championships in a row riding twin-fin boards. In 1981, surfer-boardmaker Simon Anderson introduced the Thruster, his version of the three-fin board. Anderson's board had two side-mounted fins and a trailing fin, each about five inches in height. Within two years, the tri-fin setup was standard on virtually every high-performance shortboard and big-wave board.

The mid-'90s brought a new generation of lighter, stronger, more convenient removable fins, most notably by Fin Control Systems (FCS) who, by 2012, had a line of 35 different fins. FCS uses a pair of circular board- mounted "plugs" to anchor each fin; other companies use slotted boxes.

The quad-fin, which had found a small number of adherents starting in the '90s, grew increasingly popular in the mid '00s, on both high performance short boards and big-wave surfboards, including tow-surfing boards. Five- and six-fin designs have not proven as popular, though eleven-time world champion Kelly Slater occasionally rode five-fin designs in competition in the early 2010s.

Professional surfers occasionally give instructions as to where their fins (or fin boxes/plugs) are set on the board, but the vast majority of fins are set according to the specifications of the surfboard shaper. In the standard tri-fin setup, fins grouped closely together allow for sharper turns, while a more spread-out configuration increases stability. Surfers choose their fins according to wave type, board type, and personal preference. Increasing or decreasing a single aspect of fin design can amplify or mitigate the performance characteristics of other design aspects. Basic fin design definitions are as follows:

: The fin's maximum height as measured from the bottom surface of the board; the distance the fin penetrates the water. More depth increases the board's hold on the wave, but can also make the board harder to turn. Average depth for a shortboard tri-fin is between four and five inches. Average depth on a longboard single fin is about nine inches.

: The length of the fin where it meets the surfboard; increased base length adds forward drive, but can stiffen the board's turning characteristics. Average base measurement for a shortboard tri-fin is between three and a half and four and a half inches; base on a longboard single fin is about six inches.

: the amount of distance between the fin tip and the trailing edge of the fin base; defines to what degree a fin is "swept back." Increased rake adds traction; less rake allows for tighter turning arcs.

: The fin's horizontal curve as measured from front edge to trailing edge. A cross-section of a modern surfboard fin is similar to that of an airplane wing—thicker at the front and tapering down to the rear.

: The upper third of a fin; more tip area provides better hold in turns; less makes the board more pivotal.

: The fin's pliability; rigid fins are faster; more pliable fins give a softer and more forgiving ride.

Fin lacerations account for nearly half of all surfing-related injuries; rubber-lined safety fins are available but not widely used. A small number of seminovelty fins remain on the market, including the winged-keel fin (a single fin with flared-out wings at the tip) and the Turbo Tunnel Fin (a traditional fin with a pipe- shaped cylinder running in the middle, parallel to the base).

By 2011, an estimated 84 percent of shortboard surfers in the United States used some form of fin systems, and 16 percent used glass-ons.

From the mid-'40s to the late '60s, fins were often called "skegs."

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews