RIP Mikey
As I’m sure many of you already know, talented windsurfer and one of the hardest rippers on our team, Mikey Clancy, tragically passed away last week aged 22.
We wish to share the link below -a tribute from Mikeys father Michael, and hope that it may prompt others to seek help when facing similar choices.
We miss you Mikey
MIKEY CLANCY FAMILY STATEMENT.
Check out this epic review of our Bubble Freestyle fin in this weeks Boardseeker mag..
K4fins rider Lewis Merrony and the South Wales crew have just scored an epic day in deepest Welsh territory (down a lot of slow roads!), check the report here..
http://welshwaves.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/good-as-it-gets.html
EPIC!
If you’re wondering where the K4 asymmetrics are, well they’re just around the corner, not long now. In the meantime here’s a more simple guide to measuring your boards boxes ‘toe angle’ with this quick table…
Difference in span between the ends of your front boxes in ‘mm’ and the angle of toe your boxes have (taking a 10cm box length)
DIFF 0, TOE 0
DIFF 1.75, TOE 0.5
DIFF 3.5, TOE 1.0
DIFF 5.25, TOE 1.5
DIFF 7.5, TOE 2.0
I’ll put this up along with more tuning tips in the ‘tuning guide’ when the fins are ready.
We’ve scored ourselves a double already! K4fins rider Andy ‘Bubble’ Chambers has won the British Freestyle championship and Jamie Hancock has won the British wave tour! Well done to you both from the K4fins team.
Bubble has been using the k4fin he developed himself -the ‘Bubble’ 18 to take the freestyle title.
In waves we had a really strong showing; Bubble himself in 6th place, James Cox in 4th, and Jamie Hancock winning the overall title to become British wavesailing champion for 2012! Most of the guys now using ‘stubbies’ in the varied conditions on the tour, and Jamie using the ‘Flexies’ in white.
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!
Nope, the fins are very definitely still yellow, but how green are we?
I’m not going to suggest we’re good for the environment, no manufacture is, but we do what we can. There is inevitably some waist or scrap material from the manufacturing process, and like most composite fin manufacturers we recycle this material by ‘regrinding’ it and using it again. We actually found though that the regrind material wasn’t good enough for making our fins with, as it compromises the strength and aesthetics. Luckily we manufacture a lot of other things such as lorry parts to lap timer casings, so our regrind goes to other places where strength is less important.
The K4 Harness mount for the ultimate Gopro camera angle.
Super lightweight construction (250grams standard mount), saltwater corrosion resistant (A4 Stainless Steel fittings, now with added longer bolts), easy carbon rod detachment for travelling – epic shots!
Tested in BIG surf and over 45 knots!
Only £65-00 for the standard mount (85cm carbon tube) ready to clip the camera straight on. (camera not included)
£25-00 for the extension only (40cm carbon rod to join to the standard mount) or just £85 for the full extended mount (85+40cm)
The mount in action on the speed strip..
Check out and like our FACEBOOK page for more action and info, or to upload your own pics.
If there is no option to buy on this page then please go the K4SHOP
Loads more pics on our FB page http://www.facebook.com/K4fins
And check out his Boardseeker article and video ‘exploring Leucate’ if you missed it.
