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Technique with Travis – Choosing your SUP fins

April 25, 2018
Race

Whether you use your SUP for touring, racing or surfing, choosing your SUP fins actually determines the performance of your board. A right fin can make paddling, maneuvering and simply staying on top, that much easier. In the video below, Travis will discuss his two favourite choices and the impact a fin, its placement and size can have on your style.

NSP Race fins for Ocean race, downwind and flatwater

For long trips down rivers, across lakes or harbours, ensuring your SUP fin provides you with enough stability and helps to keep you travelling in a straight line is essential. As a general rule, the more area a SUP fin has the more stability it provides, but also the height of the fin plays a part too. So longer and all-round larger fins are more stable, but they will negatively affect speed and agility.

NSP Race 20, 22 and 24

Designed and carefully crafted to deliver the desired fin properties required in SUP racing: tracking, stability, efficiency, speed and acceleration.Suitable for pros and intermediates alike, these performance fins have been optimized to maximize efficiency:

– Foil design is optimized specifically for the speeds of SUP Race boards.
– Forgiving foil design that minimizes drag even at high angles of attack.
– Plane form minimizes tip vortices while stabilizing the board at speed.
– Flex properties produce smooth and stable board reactions, even in chop, bumps    and rough conditions.
– Generates forward lift when swell energy passes over the unique foil design, giving the rider a forward speed boost that is noticeable, resulting in faster runs.

All fins are designed and developed exclusively for NSP by Keith McCulloch B.S.M.E. and Mike Wazenski PhD, specializing in Computational Fluid Dynamics, CNC machining and precision finishing.

NSP Surf Race 20

Designed by Titouan Puyo, Travis Grant, Marcus Hansen, Alain Teurquetil and Trent Pedersen, the Surf Race fin is the final result of several iterations being developed parallel to the NSP racing program.

For beach racing, buoy racing and the ability to pull off consistent kick turns in the middle of a race, the NSP Surf Race 20 is the more appropriate fin. Or in Travis’s words; it’s the fin better suited for turning and surfing.

Also in this how-to series:

Technique with Travis – Recessed decks and what does it do? (scroll down)
Technique with Travis – How to do fast beach starts

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