Weed fin reccomendations ?

vector speed weed fins...solid....fast Black Project fins look good haven't used them but have used their normal speed fin which a very nice....a lot cheaper too.

I have been using a 24 Choco weedspeed in my speed board and 90 litre slalom with 5 and 5.8 sails must say rock solid never lets go so gives a lot of confidence to push hard, speed wise have had just under 42 but mates have had 44 and 45 on the same fin. gets upwind with ease to do more runs, going to get a 30 soon as well. have had mates borrow it and they bought one straight away. (second wind, perth)

On the freeride board with powerbox have had select freride weed fins and are ok used a 24 and 30 they are good in the sea, done 38's with these in a old torquay board, use a 36 Jp weed as well my 6.6 and is great but really not much top speed but go upwind well and are good for cruising the bay..

one thing I will only use 45 degree fins 40 just dosen't cut it.

Hamma has Vectors and must they they absolutely rock as well.

Might try a black project but haven't heard much about them.

des i think its got something to do the width of the tail, leo's using a 19cm because of the narrow tail width, im using a reboxed 33 = 23 on a ca44 , i assume there is a formula tail width = fin length, work that out and you wont have a problem

Over the years all i have used is weed fins, and one thing that is a must in a good weedy is stiffness, if they are to soft they don't point and don't create enough lift to get your board to release and accelerate. For those boards and sails i would use something between 26-30 cm depending on hard you are on your feet. At the moment i am using Maui Ultra fins. The slalom weed has pointing abilities better then any other weedy of used. I use a 28 in my 90ltr with my 5.5 and 6.3 and a 30cm with my 7.0. The 28 has done 39.7 and 30cm has done 37.5 knots. Not bad for a fin of that size, and good price to with the Aussie dollar.
What ever you decide to get make sure it is stiff, not overly thick in the foil and proven, there is heaps of weedys on the market, but not all of them will give you the performance you want.
A good weedy is as fast and relaible as any other speed fin around.

Ok now I'm confused. Looking at the choco site and the posts above the 24 weed speed seems the right size. However if I look at the Choco slalom weed fins the 32 is the rec size and the smallest fin for slalom.

So what is the difference? Is it that the speed fin is designed for a narrower tail board or is it just super stiff to compensate for the smaller size?

keeping in mind that I'll be using the fin on my slalom board.

Leo thanks, I may have to try and borrow a fin to get the best indication of size.

i did a bit of research on the web last night and the reccommended size for a given sail size varies greatly from brand to brand. So I can only assume there is a variation in design that accounts for the difference in recommended sizes.

The speed specific fins are generally smaller but I feel they may not be the best option for a slalom board. And I do want to sail back and not walk to my launch spot.

Thanks for the offer of reboxing. I do have a fin I could re box but it may be too small, as I have already had it reboxed once and chopped down.

So whats the process of stiffenning an existing weed fin? I thought I could try it on my freeride weed fin. Would I just slap a layer of carbon cloth on each side?

Below is my Free ride weed fin -its an oldie!! For the (old) locals, I bought this from John Halls shop on the norther beaches!

Also, when you lay the carbon up, use peel ply and wadding. I lay the peel ply on, then the wadding, then put a flat board over the top of the wadding and lay a 30kg bag of cement (that I have in the shed) on top of the whole deal, which gets rid of any air bubbles and stops delam.
After the lot dries, I sand it back, then clear coat. When that dries, I use wet and dry to smooth the fin back to, as close as I can get to the original profile.

Just reiterating Ian's comment from above - for the Lake you must have a 45 degree weedy! I bought a Black Project Weed Speed 28 recently but its rake is only 40 degrees and , of course, it caught on the Lake weed. It feels very nice when going - stable and fast, but almost impossible to get going in the "fast, calm" shallows, because of catching and dragging weed. I have reboxed the fin to give a 45 degree rake - hopefully I get to try it out this week.

Hello Ian, I'm at Lake Illawarra & looking forward to tuesday. Bit concerned as a result of this thread as the max delta I have is Daffys 22 Lessacher. Might stick a bit of teflon tape down the leading edge. Will be good to catch up with a few of you anyways.
p.s. Just thought, teflon glue is a bit of an oxymoron.

How do people re-box fins?

I have tried the plastic converters but they seem to have too much movement.
My next attempt will be to use an old board as a mold, stick the fin in and pour epoxy around it.
Will this work?

Ive seen some conflicting info on the rake angle of fins. So this may be dumb question, where do you measure the rake angle. is it the leading edge relative to the board or is it from a line perpendicular to the board to the leading edge?

To markdemol
I have done exactly what you have mentioned using my current board as a mould (also I had made plaster casts previously) I just coated everything with releasing wax plugging up the screw hole then positioning the fin at 90deg in the hole with tape then pouring tinted resin with glass mixed in. The fin slips out easily and fits back in nicely. This was for a powerbox.