I’m always blown away how much difference fins can make in a board. The ability to swap fins is hands down the best thing about fin systems, but I meet people all the time who’ve only ridden one set of fins in their board. If this is you, beg, borrow or steal as many sets as you can. You might find the fins you were riding only realized half of your boards drive, speed or turnability.

I’ve blogged about 101 Fin Co’s bamboo fins tons of times and it’s because they’ve unlocked unbelievable performance in my fish. My set of 101 bamboo CI template are easily the best fins I’ve ridden in my LoxBox-ed twin Gary Hanel.

Sick Photos by Maggie Marsek. Click for larger image.

Here’s a breakdown of the fins I’ve ridden and their characteristics.

GH Lowboys (fiberglass): These are a low profile keel like template. For a tall guy like me, these fins lack drive. Lots of guys lovem though. It’s all relative. Not light, not as heavy as the CI Turbos.

CI Turbos (fiberglass): Big deep profile, with little rake. Turbo foil and I believe an exaggerated cant. Fast fins, good feel through turns as well. Heavyiest set of fins I tried.

CI 101s (bamboo): Same template as my Turbos, but without the super exagerated foil. They seem to have all the drive and speed of the turbos though. These fins have a special twang and deliver a squirt of energy 2/3rds of the way through every turn. Super lightweight. I can’t recommend these fins enough.

I’m always looking for more fins to try, so if you want to have a surf and swap for a ride on these, drop me an email. Be warned though, they don’t leave my sight. HA.

What do you get when you give parko a 16mm film camera and a open barrel? The smoothest virtual barrels ever:

Update: Ok, so these might not be the smoothest barrels ever, but it definitely provides a view from the barrel you don’t see often and seems to build on the stills shot by Skindog in last month’s Surfing mag.

Thanks JP.

This Saturday (March 1), Nat Young will be speaking at Patagonia, so head on down, find your homies in the crowd and enjoy hearing Nat be Nat.

On Saturday, March 1, join shortboard trailblazer and five-time world champion Nat Young at the Patagonia Surf Shop (http://www.patagonia.com/usa/patagonia.go?assetid=5172 ) in Cardiff, where he will share slide images of pivotal moments from his newly revised book “The Complete History of Surfing: From Water to Snow,”. Following the show, Young will have books available for signing. This is an outdoor event but should the weather look questionable, it will be hosted indoors or on the heated patio. Doors open at 6:45 pm.

I love the cinematography in this trailer. The filmmaker is headed to Austrailia to film more and he’s got footage of typhoon lagoon with Chris Christenson and others, underwater. I’m going to stop posting and beg him for that clip right now.

I found these stellar wood carvings outside Seaside market in Cardiff by the Sea. There aren’t any pics up on the site, but if you are interested, you can find his contact info at mysurfart.com.

The annual Ground Swell Society (how freaking great is that name?) conference is this weekend! The event is a 2 day gig, with Saturday tapping the craniums of the kind of surf folk you wish you had access to all year round. The academic portion of this years event is solidly formed around south swell, with talks ranging from swell generation off New Zealand to Baja Pointbreaks. You can tell the karma on this event is great as it’s attracted an out of season south swell, from New Zealand of all places. :D From the event’s press release:

Did you know there’s a place where ocean swells roll for over five thousand miles? Where there are standing waves big enough to swallow container ships? Where yesterday’s mariners could be “caught inside” for months and today’s surfers get the longest rides in the world?

If you were worried about spending your weekend indoors, fear not. Sunday is reserved for riding an array of environmentally sensitive equipment from BioFoam to a Peruvian reed craft.

Jeff Canham is responsible for tons of design and art throughout the surf world. Here’s a time lapse movie of the sign he painted for Mollusk Surf Shop.

The organizers behind the Currumbin Alley Fish Fry in Austraila really have it together… they’ve got the best logo of any Fry, past or future a pretty nice blog and they’ve been organizing this thing since forever. I even saw a poster for it at Surfride Solana Beach, Ca, USA of all places.

70 has a few friends headed over for a three week tour of Australia, with one of the stops being this Fry. With any luck, I’ll have some pictures of some sweet fishy sliders to post.

A mat man (unnamed due to the sensitive nature of the spot) sent me these pics of a great little peak and some pocket sliding action. I have to confess though, I’m still waiting for the mat crashup durby shots, the bigger surf, the better.

It’s hard to find information on Steve Pendarvis, or his flex tail boards. I think it’s because more concerned with innovating than marketing, and has been since Greenough put flex in surfing. I got the chance to meet him and check out some of his boards at one of Richard Kenvin’s Festivus events.

Steve blew me away with his enthusiasm and the depth of the boards he had at the show. He ran me through the concepts of a flexed out fish, then he pulled out a single fin and explained how it all works when the fin is optimized to flex with the tail. Before those two sweet rides had entirely sunk in, I found myself in the parking lot holding a thruster and then a sick sabertoothed finned twin. I have to admit, it was all a blur and made me a bit dizzy, but that could have been the PBRs as well.

To get a feel for how Steve’s boards work, there’s no one better than the man himself. I appologize though, this is the abbreviated version…

You could apply that ‘mad scientist of surf’ analogy but it’s too cliché for Steve, so instead I’ll say that the guy just leaks stoke. I’m serious. Try talking to him for 10 minutes and see if you don’t find yourself swimming in the stuff.