NEW FCS II Screwless Fin System! You guys seen this?

[meatloaf]

soooo dope sick right now

[Legacy]

Waaaah Waaaah only 4 types of fins. You nerds that think you can tell the difference between a fin made of carbon fiber bee's wax nut skin and recycled aluminum tire tread are fashion victims to the goddamn placebo effect. I.E. there's no difference, it's a ****ing fin.

Go put you Mick Fanning signatures on, I'm sure that's why he pulls the hits he does at snapper, yeah it's the fin. Meanwhile stick to flailing down the line, hoping to connect two turns before collapsing I,,nto cardiac arrest like the rest of us.

Hope that's not directed at me there chap...? I'm not here to start a flame war either.. :-)
Admittedly I'm new on here and but I'm not new to the intended. dea of different fin templates and designs.. But I see where you're coming from the idea that anyone could tell the difference between a glass flex M5 and a performance core M5 just by surfing "blind" does raise some questions for sure you'd have to be on the same board all day on perfect waves (imo) to notice the swap and only if you are a pro surfer.. Where the differences apply are where the specialist fins come in.. For instance the 3ds range, c-drive and the crv range and big differences in sizes, I personally am in the group that the couldn't tell between different fins of the same template but I can certainly tell the difference when things start to get a bit exciting I wouldn't spend a lot on something very similar to something I already have but I am all for trying something new, which they won't technically have in the fcsII range..

[GhOstFaCe]

FCS has the best fins out there. Fins have come a long ways. They know what they are doing!

that's your opinion! not a fact!

[GhOstFaCe]

soooo dope sick right now

good for you...loser

[travy]

But what happens if I hit reef? The fin will pop out, plain and simple.

this is the biggest issue for me.. in general fcs fins have a bit more flex at the tabs than glass-ons and futures. i use flexy fins anyway so i prefer futures. also one less screw. but i tend to rotate two sets of fins; flexy for smaller surf and stiffer for larger stuff and yes i can feel the difference. ymmv

[PhiloSurfer]

Seems to me like FCS is trying to claim back some of the market share they're losing to the third party fin makers. A while back, FCS sued SurfCo claiming that sale of third-party knock off was patent infringement. Unfortunately the appeals court disagreed. It almost made its way to the Supreme Court, but this is what they found instead:

"The court of appeals correctly concluded that Surfco's sale of replacement surfboard fins facilitates a permissible modification of the surfboard owner's property and does not infringe FCS's patents for a surf craft with a removable fin system. That fact-based decision is correct and is not in conflict with any decision of this Court, with any other Federal Circuit decision, or with any decision of any other court of appeals. Further review by this Court is not warranted." Judgement found here

FCS also sued OAM (and possibly others?) in similar infringement cases and lost. My guess is that they've devised this new screwless technology and patented it in attempt to boot profitability. Say what you want, but from a pure business perspective it sounds like a smart and necessary tactic.

[Roy Stuart]

I have a screwless fin system... put the F*cking fin into the board in the right place and leave it there.

[Roy Stuart]

Seems to me like FCS is trying to claim back some of the market share they're losing to the third party fin makers. A while back, FCS sued SurfCo claiming that sale of third-party knock off was patent infringement. Unfortunately the appeals court disagreed. It almost made its way to the Supreme Court, but this is what they found instead:

"The court of appeals correctly concluded that Surfco's sale of replacement surfboard fins facilitates a permissible modification of the surfboard owner's property and does not infringe FCS's patents for a surf craft with a removable fin system. That fact-based decision is correct and is not in conflict with any decision of this Court, with any other Federal Circuit decision, or with any decision of any other court of appeals. Further review by this Court is not warranted." Judgement found here

FCS also sued OAM (and possibly others?) in similar infringement cases and lost. My guess is that they've devised this new screwless technology and patented it in attempt to boot profitability. Say what you want, but from a pure business perspective it sounds like a smart and necessary tactic.

That would make an epic surf movie, better than all this hipster guitar plinking dribble, and there'd be no nose riding since it would all be filmed in court.

[Roy Stuart]

By the way the most efficient way to install fins ( hydrodynamically and structurally) is to set them into the board (glass in) and have a 2 to 5mm diameter fillet at the base.. no big glass on fillet and no drag inducing hardware and boxes.

[LBCrew]

By the way the most efficient way to install fins ( hydrodynamically and structurally) is to set them into the board (glass in) and have a 2 to 5mm diameter fillet at the base.. no big glass on fillet and no drag inducing hardware and boxes.

"...the presence of fillets can decrease the overall drag of the fin, even though the viscous drag is increased due to the added surface area, the smoothing of the sharp edges between the fin and the board causes pressure distributions to be spread over a larger area. However, this decrease in drag is restricted to double-foiled fins such as the middle fin, and there is very little noticeable difference when fillets are added to the side fins, possible due to the fact that the whole inside edge is flat, so the effect on drag of filleting the base is less pronounced than for a double foiled fin (middle fin).
However, even for the middle fin the total drag decrease is so marginal that it is unlikely to be noticed in practise, even by expert surfers, but the fillets do create a substantial increase in vertical lift, which may partially explain the more buoyant, lighter feel to glassed-on fins, and their preference in use by surfers on the professional circuit."

From "Optimization of Surfboard Fin Design for Minimum Drag by Computational Fluid Dynamics" by Lavery, Foster, Carswell and Brown, 2005.