Measuring your toe..

Ahead of the imminent launch of our asymmetric fin range -the ‘Ezzy’ line, I’d like to ready you all for the necessary evil of measuring ‘toe in’.

I’ll try and make this as simple and pain free as possible!

Asymmetric fins need to have more toe in than symmetric fins. In fact the optimum amount is around 2-2.5 degrees of toe in.
Our new fins will come with either +1 or +2 degrees.
Your board may have straight boxes, or they may already have some toe in.
My Simmer Fly boxes have approximately 1.2 degrees, I therefore need to use the +1 degree K4fins to give me 2.2 degrees toe.

The diagram below shows how you can make an approximate measurement of your boards toe in. At some point I shall be compiling a list of toe in for all the popular boards in production by measuring accurately with a vernier, but you can measure this yourself and perhaps help fellow windsurfers with the same board.

Hope that was easy to follow, click image to enlarge. You are basically finding the offset of the box from one end to the other, and dividing that by it’s length, to give the inverse ‘sin’ of the toe angle. (to find the inverse of ‘sin’ use ’2ndF’ then ‘sin’ on your calculator)
Feel free to email me your boards toe in!

So how important is accurate toe in?
Well, it’s not super critical, and in fact as with everything there are compromises and changes in feel which can be personal. Surfboards can have over 3 degrees of toe. I’ve sailed my board with both 2.2 and 3.2 degrees, and the higher toe was still in some ways acceptable. I was able to do some ridiculously tight duck gybes at full power, but it did feel slower in a straight line, I still managed to go 33 knots though!

-Higher toe will give easier tighter top turns but less speed, more acceptable in slow waves.
-Lower toe will give better drive through the bottom turn and more speed, obviously better for jumping or fast riding.

As a general rule you should be aiming for at least 2 degrees and less than 3 degrees.

Asymmetric fins are giving significant improvement in all areas, being more efficient, so don’t expect these to go away!