Forward Wakeboard Magazine Edition 7 | Page 69

2014 NZ Gear Guide Page Sixty Nine FINS F I ins are pretty simple really. Theres 2 types of fin; moulded and screw ins. They come in all sorts of shapes and size’s, but the outcome is simple, they give you stability in the water, and stop you sliding out. Therefore its relatively safe to say that the bigger the fins the more stable you are going to be on the board, and the easier your landings are going to be. That may be good when your first learning, but big fins make surface spins damn near imposible! BASE t’s import to pick your base material well depending on what your going to be using your wakeboard for! If your going to be riding purely boat, then you can go ahead and pick the board that takes your fancy. However if your going to be hitting alot of obstacles then you need to have a good hard think about how long you want, or need your board to last. Traditional boards don’t hold up on rails, where as wood cored boards will hold up a little better. But to be safe you are going to need a rail specific board with a rail safe base. Different companies call these different things, for example Ronix have “Sintered Base” where as Liquid Force have a “Grind Base” - so its worth doing your homework! The base material and general board material are also going to affect how the board rides, and especially how much “Flex” you have. Older boards tend to be very rigid, with little in the way of flex, however newer boards with wood and composite cores will have varying amounts of flex, either throughout the board, or just in the tip and tail! Sounds complicated, although to summarise very crudely more flex is great for rail riding, however not so great when it comes to the boat as you can lose some of your pop through the flex in the board, although too stiff and you might not be able to flex the board enough to pop in the first place! There’s no right and wrong, try a few boards out and see how it feels with your style of riding. The test crew. By Craig Wright