Surfboard Fins

The Right Fins Give You A Performance Edge

Your surfboard fins are key to your surfing performance. Thruster Fins, Quad Fins, Twin Fins come in sets, each with their own distinctive characteristics that can match and enhance your surfing.

We have an extensive range of fins and the expert advice to help you choose the set to take your surfing to the next level.

Manly Surfboards keeps a wide range of fins including the very latest technologies

Control, Speed & Power

Your fins give you control, affect your speed, and impact the power of your surfing moves. Changing to the right fin setup, the right fin sizes and fin materials, will directly improve your surfing performance.

For example if your surfboard fins are too soft, made from soft plastic, they’ll over flex and wash out with the wave power. You won’t be able to drive forward on the wave and will fall behind the foam bogging down.

Fins from the big brands, FCS and Future Fins, and also a wide range of speciality fins are in store for you to see, feel and talk through with our team

Alternatively if your fins are too stiff they’ll give you a good forward direction and speed. Yet when you want to turn, your board will continue to track in one direction. Pushing too hard will bring on an overbalance, loosing energy and you’ll likely fall off.

To maximise your performance you need fins matched to you, your board setup, and planned surf conditions.

Fins To Match You

Shortboard fins sizes are described in two general ways.

Small, Medium, Large can be used to describe fins. Every fin has corresponding dimensions in millimeters. These can be used to compare sizes between fins. For example a small fin may have 110mm base and 112mm height. A bigger fin can have a 120mm base and a 114mm height.

Fins are categories by their dimensions, base and height. Fins are also categorised according to the surfer’s body type weight such as Small, Medium and Large

Fin size can also be categorised in terms of the characteristics of the surfer they’re suited to. For example a fin with a category of Small is suited for a surfer up to 65kg. Medium for a surfer 65-80kg, Large for a surfer 80+kg.

The two major fin brands provide the following categorisation based on your weight:

• Small | FCS 55-70kg | Futures 47-70kg
• Medium | FCS 65-80kg | Futures 65-88kg
• Large | FCS 75-90kg | Futures 80+kg

So a Small surfer generally doesn’t want to be matched to a Large fin as they’ll not get the dynamic response for power surfing. The fin will be too big and stiff. Similarly a Large surfer doesn’t want to be matched to a Small fin as they won’t get the drive and response they need. They’ll keep sliding out.

However it’s not necessarily that simple as the fin materials, your surf style and board shape also have an impact on choosing the best fin.

Fins To Match Your Board

Your surfing ability is normally reflected in the board you’re riding.

If you’re a Beginner you’ll normally be on a longer, wider thicker board as this is the type of board that will give you good floatation that equates to good paddling and easier wave catching.

You’ve got your own surfboard and there’s a huge variety of surfboards. No one fin will give you the best performance. You need a fin matched to you and your board and the waves you surf in

If you’re an absolute Beginner soft plastic surfboard fins are a good option. The fins are softer so if your fins have an impact they won’t cause too much damage to whatever they hit.

Once you start to progress you want fins to give you speed and direction. So if your weight is in the fin category Small go for a fin a size above, so a Medium size fin. If you’re a Medium size go for Large size fin. This slightly larger fin size will give extra speed and direction. You’ll make longer rides and get around slow foaming sections.

As an Intermediate and Advanced surfer you could be riding anything from a fat Fish, high performance shortboard, to lean Gun. Which gives you a lot of alternatives, not all will work best.

Some board shapes work better with flexier fins that will flex into your turns. Other shapes need stiff fins to give the board pivot into and out of your turns.

So at Manly Surfboards we’ll discuss what you’re trying to achieve in your surfing, assess your board, and show you a range of recommended fin options.

Fins To Match Your Waves

In choosing your fins general logic would say that you’d match small fins to small waves, big fins to big waves.

However this is not the case.

The wave on the left shows a carving line being taken. A fin with a lot of rake or sweep will work best. The wave on the right shows more top to bottom surfing with pivot turns. A more upright fin will work best

In small waves you need to get the maximum power so bigger fins are a good option. They have more area to harness more of the energy of the smaller wave.

However there is a drawback with big fins, especially in the Thruster 3 fin configuration. The 3 fins can create turbulence under your tail and slow you down. You can feel this as it affects both your paddling speed and speed on the wave.

The solution for you could be to use bigger side fins and a smaller rear fin. This rear fin could be a little smaller than your side fins, or a fin called a Trailer that is very small. What you choose depends on the width of the tail of your board. So get our experts to talk through the best option for your board setup.

In big waves there’s so much wave power that you only need smaller fins as they’re there for control. In terms of control the shape of your fin becomes very important. For example if the big waves you’re surfing are fast and running down the line then a fin with rake or sweep, sloping backwards, will help you do longer fast drawn out turns keeping pace with the wave.

Alternatively if the waves are fuller with open faces a more upright fin, with less rake, will give you good pivot so you can do lots of turns positioning yourself wherever you want on the wave.

Our team knows local and overseas breaks so they’ll make sure you get the best fin setup for wherever you’re surfing.

Fins To Match Your Style

Surfboard Fins also impact your style.

So who do you like as a surfer? Who do you want to surf like?

Who do you want to surf like? What fins do they use?

If you want to surf like Kelly Slater it makes sense to look at the boards and fins he uses. For a long time Kelly used side fins that were much bigger, more upright and had more area, with a leaner smaller rear fin.

If you want a more cruising style how about Twin Fins. How do you choose them?

Do you want your fin materials to optimise flex or pivot?

Fins have a lot of science behind them. Talk with our team and let them help you come up with the best fin

Come in, bring your board, talk to our experts and see and feel the full range of fins options to maximise your surfing performance.

Fins & More

At Manly Surfboards we have the leading FCS and Future Fins fin brands, along with other speciality surfboard fins and all the accessories you need such as fin keys, fin pullers, fin wallets.

We have everything you need to take your surfing to the next level.