Slalom Fins

Saw this comment on the Tabou forum, its in relation to the Manta slalom boards. Its from Maciek Rutkowski, a Gaastra/Tabou teamrider. The comments on the custom fins surprise me, can anyone confirm or refute what he said?

There's a lot of good slalom fins on the market at the moment. For example Deboichet, Techtonics, Hurricane. Everything depends on your style and how you like your board to feel. Also on how much you weight. Guys are using a lot of different fins and being fast on them. There's only one little problem with carbon fins like Deboichet or Hurricane. Every fin is different. And I don't mean the difference between SL2 and SL4. I mean SL2 44cm can be way different than another SL2 44cm. That's why a lot of people turn to Techtonics (G10 material if I get it right). Those are almost equal so if you buy one you don't hae to be lucky to get a good one. Personally I don't use the 85 Manta, just have the 79 as the biggest and with this board I use Techtonics Talon 46cm. The fin get's you plenty of lift but also good control. I won the Youth Worlds in Almanarre earlier this year on this combo with a 8.4 Vapor so it cannot be that bad .
For the 85 you for sure need a bit bigger fin I guess around 48-50 if it's a Techtonics which I recommend or a bit smaller if it's a Deboichet. From Deboichet the lightwind ones are probably R16 and SL2. SL2 is the safest all around fin. But if you ask me - buy Techtonics.

He's on the mark regarding some popular carbon fin manufacturers. But not all moulded fin manufacturers are inconsistent with their product. It comes down to quality control. Its a little more time consuming to get it right, and requires skilled labour to finish to an acceptable degree. Its easier using G10.

The more fins being pumped out, the harder it is to avoid employing unskilled labour to do the critical finishing... At least one very popular moulded carbon fin manufacturer uses team riders to do the sanding work. So you never know what you are going to get...