This panoramic view shows the contents of our fin shed.

Starting on the left is a work bench where we stage the fins and perform all of the finish sanding. In the center of the room is the actual foiling station that is surrounded by a rack on the left holding all of the sanders and grinders. These range from 3.5" to 8" in diameter, with the smaller ones being used primarily on the hollow foils. All of the sanders hook up to a dust collector to try and keep the dust under control.

To the right of the foiling station is a dust collection system that is hooked up to the chutes below and to the right of the foiling station. This system is also hooked up to all of the stationary tools on the bench to the right. There are a series of gates in the dust collection system to control where the dust is being collected. This foiling station is also used to cutout the fin blanks using a jigsaw equipped with special diamond grit blades.

The bench on the right has a combination belt and disc sander used to profile the fins and bases. An oscillating drum sander also used to profile curves. Router table for machining notches in the fin bases using end mills instead of router bits. Finally, a drill press primarily used to cut notches in GEARBOX fin bases, but also used to drill holes for pins and screws on regular center fins.

Additionally, there is a table saw that is used to machine base thicknesses and cant angles on canard fins and FUTURES bases. Plus a thickness sander that is used to machine fin blanks to a consistent thickness when machining FUTURES bases and making regular center fins. These tools are to large to fit in the shed so they are located outside the shop.

Small compact shed but really fun to work in as everything needed is close to hand! Literally a one man shop.

Hanalei has experienced a very severe flooding event this last weekend.

This event has impacted our custom fin production due to flooding in both shops. We are in the process of cleaning up the mess that was created. The hope is to be up and running by Monday.

The photo shows the start of the event as the waters were rising for the first of the two floods. That is our car slowly being inundated. It has since been flooded twice with the worst being to the bottom of the door handles and is now totaled.

We have experienced flooding before but never as severe as this with the worst part of this event being that the water was very muddy and has left behind a toxic layer of mud on everything. So we have to clean this up and disinfect everything to prevent mold.

The shops are in the disinfecting stage and should be all done today. This will then allow us to put things back where they belong so we can start working.

Mahalo for your patience as we work through this we will get your custom fin orders out as soon as possible.

Thought it might be interesting if people could see the timeline of where the design for the WTF-425 fin came from and the progression of the shape.

It all started in a time long ago with the original design for the HAMMER(HS-S) fin. The idea behind this fin was minimal base for speed an turning, large blade for drive and control, and lots of blade extension for hold. This fin was a revelation in it's day!

This then progressed to the H3-S, which is still in service.

One day I was looking at the H3 wondering how I could add a little more feel into the design and came up with the original WTF-S template. The idea was to build on some of the characteristics of the H3, but shift some of the blade area into a more distinct tip at the back tip of the fin to enhance the feel. This lingered for awhile as there was some magic ingredient missing.

In the meantime, another H5-S hammer design came about with a more pronounced but shorter blade. the other design change to the design was the introduction of a hollow foil on the inside face. Up until this design all of the hammer designs had flat inner face with 70/30 leading edge foils.

Then I got side tracked by a design that had been lingering around for a couple of years that I resurrected as the DS-400. At this time we were starting experiment with the flipped tips based on the foil board wing designs we had done. The decision was made to give this design something special, which was to flip the entire blade out by 6º. The idea behind this was that it would really help the fin transition through turns as there would be two distinct surface to work off.

No sooner had one of these been made that the original WTF design came to mind and we realized that flipping that design would be the missing piece of the puzzle. So the v2 version of the WTF was foiled. It had a 6º flip in the blade and another 16º of flip in the tip. The tip was flat on the inside face. This design worked well but it was not as versatile as it could have been.

So finally we came up with the WTF-425 v5 (it progressed through a few variations and minor refinements) that had a large smooth tip, the base and mast of the DS, a little more area to the blade, and the same flip angles as the v2 version. A hollow foil was added to the tip. Also the hollow foiling on the inside face was radically tweaked to try and force the water to flow out the tip as the pressure built up on the blade. This was it! We spent a lot of time testing it (mahalo Mitch, Kevin & Chance) with a wide range of other fins in quad and thruster setups. No matter what was thrown at this fin in terms of wave size it just handled it, super fast, really a lot of drive through turns, and stable with lots of feel. In a way it is like a super canard fin in a quad setup, when setup as the front fin, where the fin really helps transition the board onto the back fin.

Sorry about the length of this post but thought people might find it interesting to see how a design like this evolved. It certainly was not created in a vacuum. Lots of talk story!

We are in the process of preparing the latest additions to the HRD-KORE line of fins. These new templates are based on ones that we have been testing all winter in Hawai'i.

The range currently consists of three side fins that can be used in quad or thruster combinations, and one center fin. There is also an additional side fin that will be added to this range at a later date.

These are by far the most radical fins in our collection and at the same time they are also really good performers. All of the side fins featured flipped tips for increased performance. The WTF fin in the lineup has a double flip with the central blade flipped outboard, as well as the top tip.

The image show a rough idea of the branding and coloring of these fins, this range will be an AMBER TINT color throughout the entire range. This will help differentiate this range from the other fins in the HRD-KORE lineup.

All of the fins will feature SORIC cores with dual carbon bases.

Needless to say we are extremely excited to be moving these fins into production as we feel they are going to provide surfers with an extremely viable alternative to the normal fins available in the marketplace.

Below is a rough timeline for the delivery of these new fins. Unfortunately, it takes a little time to gear up for production but rest assured we will be moving forward as fast as possible.

This is the primary combination of fins that we have been testing this winter in Hawaii.

This combo of new fin designs has been seeing a lot of testing this winter, with a number of refinements being made in between rounds of testing. This setup is a total winner and the testing reinforces that feeling. The testing started out with both fins being from the XTC family, but then the WTF was introduced to the process and there was no looking back from there.

These fins have been tested in a very wide range of conditions, from 3' faces all the way to +25' faces! The range of boards used for the testing have gone from small fishes and tow boards to guns. Conditions ranged from small and sloppy to super clean perfect Hawaiian surf. No matter what the conditions or board these fins just shone through providing dramatic improvements in handling, responsiveness and speed.

All of the testers felt that this combo really improved their surfing. Everything felt positive with lots of drive and an amazing amount of speed. The overriding comments were that the WTF fins really help the board transition through the turns before delivering control to the XTC fin which would then drive the board through the rest of the turn. There was little to no loss of speed through the turns.

Another surprising aspect of this fin combo was that they were largely completely agnostic to the fin box layout, tight clusters, spread clusters, close to the rail, further from the rail. None of these layout changes seemed to bother the setup and it just kept working in a really predictable and positive manner.

The WTF-425 is 4 1/4" and the XTC-500 is 5.00", in height.

Finally, the WTF was also tested with a smaller version of the XTC the 4 1/8" XTC-413. This combo still worked really well, especially in smaller waves, making for a loose fast combo.

Needless to say we are extremely excited with the results of all this testing and are now comfortable putting these fins into production. This is going to be critical for the WTF fin as it is a really complex fin to make by hand, not only does it use a lot of material, it is very complex to foil. The goal is to have these in stock by mid-May, stay tuned.

NOTE: the fins in the photo have been foiled and are ready to be hand sanded and then branded and finished. We felt it helped to see the fins in their raw state as it shows off more of the details.