It has been nearly 6 months since I gave Brooko a Mach 2 which we both called “Swiss Cheese” because it had so many plugs in it. The Mach 2 was a board we both developed together a few years back when he was fresh off the tour and one of his favourites at the time. His fin set at that time was the standard quad set up, so I think this was the best board in which to conduct this trial. In true thorough Brooko style, he gave each fin set a decent nudge in all sorts of conditions and this is why it took so long.

Mother Nature can be a bitch! His appraisal is brief and simple to understand and it must be kept in context in that it is what he felt. Others may have a different take but I guess we need to have a great talent in which to push these designs to their limits in order to see if they can handle it.

Being a very talented aerial surfer I can see why he did not like the big fins in the back on the quad and also the 2 plus one set up where he said that although he did not like this fin set but added they turned easy when the board was not travelling so fast. This fin set does definitely help some surfers who need more help to pivot, so standing over an alpha single fin with less front side fin influence gives them all that freedom. I guess like he said, the surprise package was the four fin thruster mimic.

I personally thought it may cause a lot of drag with all that water being forced between such a narrow opening ; but not so, and the fact that it had a little more punch and speed than a thruster and a lot more pivot than a quad did make sense. It may well be for those hard-core thruster die hards I may have some chance coercing into a five finner with a fin set like this where they don’t have to lose too much of their precious pivot while in quad mode.  Muzz

—————————————————————————————————————————————————–

THE SWISS CHEESE

Overall I think the test was pretty cool. It is amazing what fin’s can do to one surfboard.  The range of surf I tested the board in was 1-8 ft. The boards shape I believe lends itself to larger waves and  really worked in the solid stuff !

KEY
Speed – 10 is perfect
Control – 8-10 is perfect, love a little unknown
Stiff – 5 is perfect. 10 too tight – 1 too loose

Brooko

—————————————————————————————————————————————————–

STANDARD QUAD

Speed – 8
Control – 9
Stiff – 5

I rode this the most at the beginning to get back into quad mode. Surfed Winki and Bells on a few occasions when hell was breaking loose and the board was really strong under foot. 5 degrees 6-8ft X 80km’s off shore one of the best surfs of my life !!!

—————————————————————————————————————————————————–
QUAD OPTION 2

Little fronts, big backs

Speed – 5
Control – 6
Stiff – 9

 

This setup large fins in the back, small in the front and a super tight cluster really locked the board up. Felt like I couldn’t get from rail to rail fast to generate speed.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————–

TRI Thruster

2x  little fins, 1 big forward back fin

Speed – 4
Control – 5
Stiff – 2

Not sold on this sort of set up. Having a large back fin makes the board delay on my bottom turns and top turns. At slow speeds the board was quite maneuverable and fun to ride but far from high performance. Easy to change directions. Maybe a summer setup

—————————————————————————————————————————————————–

FAKE TWIN THRUSTER (Fruster)

Speed – 9
Control – 9
Stiff – 4

This was the surprise of the bunch. Free’d up the board but had more sting than the normal thruster. This gave me the most out of the board in 2-3ft. I got the board moving quite quick and run over dead sections well and loose out of the top. My favorite of the bunch in below 4 Foot

 

—————————————————————————————————————————————————–

 THRUSTER NORMAL

Speed – 7
Control – 6
Stiff – 6

I used a small set of fins as the board in general was shaped for a victorian winter. Got some run in the smaller stuff but when there was a bit more juice the board felt strong under feet. Good old thruster, trusty thruster.

 

 

 

http://www.bourtonshapes.com/the-brooko-experiment/