The Wavegrinder Surfboard Fin, The Fin With Winglets
The Wavegrinder surfboard fin
Looking for more speed? Want more maneuverability, and quicker turns? Want greater adjustability so you can change gears if you feel like it? Or do you just want to catch more waves? Want to give an old board new life? Well, look no further.
We designed the Wavegrinder surfboard fin to do all of these things for your longboard, shortboard and SUP. Even kiteboards have used our fins.
But the Wavegrinder fin is not magic. And it’s not a gimmick. It’s based on solid science.
We have accomplished what we set out to do: make surfing better by increasing speed, increasing turning ability, and increasing the range of adjustments that we could make with the fin, while decreasing drag that might otherwise keep us from catching waves.
Ever paddle like crazy to catch a great wave, but instead end up watching it slide by underneath you, feeling like you missed it by a half stroke? Have you ever done a sharp cutback, only to lose the wave because your tail sinks in?
Probably you are experiencing a fin with lots of drag, or a fin that stalls prematurely because it turned beyond its capacity to maintain laminar flow, which is the smooth flow of water on both sides of the fin.
The Wavegrinder fin was created with a reductionist philosophy in mind: if you have enough fin (primarily surface area) to turn as you’d like, everything else (surface area beyond the amount that is just enough) is excess drag that slows you down, that hurts your turning ability, or that makes it harder to paddle or harder to catch waves. If you can decrease the surface area that you’re pulling through the water, while still having enough ability to turn, surfing is more fun, and you can do it longer.
The Wavegrinder surfboard fin is the product of a summer-small-wave day in Southern California, a day that was less about surfing and more about asking this question: Why do most surfboard fins of today look just like they have for decades even though hydrodynamics and aerodynamics have produced airplane wings, sailboat keels, and NASCAR spoilers that have changed dramatically? Could we apply the lessons learned in these other sports to make a better surfboard fin?
The answer is yes. Of course the Wavegrinder fin doesn’t look like other fins. But the airplanes, sailboat keels, and NASCAR spoilers of today don’t look anything like those of the 1950s and 1960s either.
A lot of fins today look just like other fins. And generally speaking there is little-to-no explanation of why it is that they look the way they do. Instead, on balance most fins claim better hold or just the right amount of looseness, without any real basis other than the fact that Pro-X likes them or designed them.
But the Wavegrinder fin combines volumes of NACA (the predecessor to NASA) data about foil shapes, NASA-proven winglet technology, and America’s Cup sailboat-proven hydrodynamics principles in such a unique way that we obtained a patent, patent no. 7,244,157.
Chief features of the fin that distinguish it from others:
- Hydrodynamically engineered, and CAD designed from lessons learned from NACA, NASA, Boeing, America’s Cup and NASCAR
- NACA double-zero foil shape (to prevent stalling during turns)
- High aspect ratio planform (upright and narrow to maximize lift per square inch of surface area)
- Low sweepback angle (rake)
- Short fin base (to decrease interference drag while maximizing fore-and-aft adjustability in the fin box)
- Bulbous forward fin projection at the fin base (to minimize interference drag like ships’ bows)
- Cutaway at the fin base (to decrease interference drag)
- Lexan polycarbonate (the same material used in bulletproof glass and fighter-jet canopies)
- And, of course, winglets (to prevent stalling during turns, and to make the immersed surface area more efficient)
Winglets work for NASA and Boeing. They’ll work for you too. The Wavegrinder is different. By design.
The Wavegrinder is very adjustable
The Wavegrinder surfboard fin has winglets
The Wavegrinder fits most fin boxes
The Wavegrinder's cutaway heel and bulbous forefoot
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