i been riding a quad the last year and its extremely different but super fun. I find especially on back side you can get all that power on your tail and throw some really good turns. With out that center fin i feel i feel my board slide out which i like its super loose and able to do crazy turns. Also the reaction speed of a quad is super fast and turn on a dime. However i found in really hollow/steep surf just didn't work. that can also be me the rider but i always prefer a thruster for that. i have ridden my 5'8 19 1/4 quad in almost every condition this year they are super fun but i would just prefer a thruster in hollow waves.
since twins were thrown into the mix, i just have one word: bonzer. no set up i like better in good surf. but as for the original question, i prefer thrusters over quads in general. i have a fishcuit that i like, but it took a lot of messing w/ fins to find the ones that really helped light it up. hp quads & i do not get along. i guess i need that center fin...
Like most people my age, I learned to surf on single fins... and a lot of crap boards, too. It was a time when design was rapidly evolving, and although the end results of the process were revolutionary, there was a lot of absolute DOG designs being produced in the interim. Like they say, 99% of experiments "fail." But even a failure gives you insight - at least you learn what doesn't work! One success, obviously, was the twin fin. My first new board was an MR twin. My surfing improved about 300% in a single season. And I'm not talking about the fish... I'm talking about true twin fins, which quickly progressed into the Simon Anderson thruster... which we all know and love, and is the standard in today's surfboard market. Bonzers are another branch on the evolutionary tree. They pre-date thrusters, but never got a massive following, in spite of their clear advantages over singles and twins, particularly in good surf. Why that is I don't know, but if I had to guess, I'd say that they're a much more sophisticated and complex design, and not easy to get right. So unless your last name was Campbell, you probably had no idea what you were doing if you tried to build and market them. A decent thruster is much easier to build than a decent bonzer.
Quick side story on point. Sometime in the 1990s I was driving and saw a surfboard sitting with a pile of junk in some guys front yard. Grabbed it while the guy thanked me for saving him from hauling it to the dump along with the other crap. It was a early-mid 70's Surfboards Australia single fin pig...maybe 5'10' and 3" thick in pretty good condition and with soft round rails. Paddled out and the older guys saw and were laughing while they said "It didnt work then and it doesnt work now!" Ended up trading it to Malibus SS for a pair of xcel booties.
Bonzers...Yep. I picked up a Pavel Bonzer dirt cheap ($200) like new. The concaves the flow...your right NJ42. The boards are just the remedy for someone wondering what to ride when it's big and clean or walled.
I TOTALY prefer to ride a thruster. i feel like they driver better ddown the line, and alll quads i ride seem slower, maybe just a mind game though
you're absolutely right...bonzers are crazy complex designs & if you're shaping one & skimp on it any step of the way, it's not going to work properly or the same as a "real" bonzer. & i think that's what has kept them from becoming more popular. not a lot of shapers do them...when was the last time you saw one stock in a surf shop? & most of the time, the ones you DO see are the more retro type shapes...eggs & such...even though there's nothing "retro" about a bonzer. i think if more shops carried hp style bonzers they'd get a bigger following. but you can't turn off the fins & "flick" a bonzer...you have to use the rail & TURN the thing. if you're gonna get a bonzer, you need to go w/ a shaper who either invented the thing (campbell bros.) or who the inventors taught how to do it...& the bros. campbell were pretty free w/ that info, so there are quite a few out there in every region. brian wynn is one of those for us here in nj. the interplay between the concaves & fins (whether 3 or 5) is what makes the board work & the placement of that center fin is key. i had one that if i moved the fin back 1/4" it was a dog. 1/4" forward, a dog. it had to be in exactly the right spot & i think most people don't want to deal w/ that. it amazes me how little most surfers think about their fins & what they do. banxsurfer, my hp bonzer is what i grab 99% of the time when it's shoulder high or better! i absolutely LOVE the thing! been riding bonzers since '06...but when i'm not riding a bonzer, i'm usu. on a thruster.
I've got a 6'2 firewire quadraflex and i love it. slower then all my thrusters dispite being a quad. but it turns on a dime and has amazing grip in larger surf
