just got hy hands on a 9'0" longboard which has an 8-inch cutaway center and 2 sidebites. anyone have experience riding longboard with just the cutaway center (as a single fin) or do i need to get a different fin?
I ride my 9'6" with a 9" cutaway center and no side bites. It allows me to keep the fin back in the box, but I can still turn fairly easily because of the cutaway. So I don't lose the thrust and I don't have to dislocate my hip to turn it. I used to ride a regular rake about .5" from all the way forward. It was nice and lose on the turns, but I lost too much thrust.
what kind of tail? That matters a lot. At one point I had a 9'2 G&S Redfin, triple stringer, thick glassed, squash tail, fairly heavy board. I swapped out the fin that came with it for a Rainbow Wingnut Cutaway Fin - result was great - loosened the board up nicely
I think you have to consider the style of of long board it is and also how you want to ride it. With the side bites I imagine it is a performance type so if thats how you want to ride it but as a single fin you will just have to mess around with the placement in the box (forward=looser). A other option is to buy a fin that give you the best performance riding it as a single because the cutaway might be meant to be paired with the side bites. I love single fins and when it comes to long boards I always go strictly single and I just bought a 9'6 Bing and changed out the stock fin with a Greenough 4A. So with that fin it loosened it up but also didn't affect how the board was to glide with 50-50 egg rails. To get a idea if you want to try a different fin to ride your board as a single check out True Ames, they have every style of long board fins that you can think of. http://aol.trueames.com/index.html
thanks for the feed-back. and nice location stoney. don't think many people get it but i cracked up (42 yrs at the jersey shore)
