Joe Blair 9-8 SUP with 6 inch Center Fin – Video

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Blair-9-8-and-6-inch-center-01.JPG

Here’s a short video I took of Joe Blair’s 9′8″ SUP custom board which he made for my friend Jeff and I ‘borrowed’ for a while. The board has a slightly pulled in nose, round pin tail and originally had three 4.5″ fins on the bottom. I’ve had pet peeve about the Blair boards that I’ve ridden. Although they surf amazing and are super stable, it takes a bit of getting used to due to the way it yaws side to side when paddling. After thinking about this, I decided to replace the middle fin with a 6” cutaway in the center fin and leave the 4.5″ side fins. I tried it at Diamond Head a few weeks ago and at Leftovers on the North Shore the following week and the difference was night and day.

The board paddled way straighter and it had much more drive for me out of the turns and was easier for me to turn. I thought that the longer fin may stiffen up the board but that wasn’t the case. I made a short video to show the new fin setup.

 

Blair-9-8-and-6-inch-center-10.JPG 6″ Cutaway for the middle fin and 4.5″ sides

 

Blair-9-8-and-6-inch-center-02.JPG Side of Blair SUP 9′8″

 

Blair-9-8-and-6-inch-center-04.JPG Nice full nose

 

Blair-9-8-and-6-inch-center-05.JPG Blair SUP has lots of nose rocker for steep drops

 

Blair-9-8-and-6-inch-center-08.JPG Joe prefers rounded pintails

 


(click thumbnail to launch video)

 

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6 Responses to “Joe Blair 9-8 SUP with 6 inch Center Fin – Video”


  1. DW 1DW

    Evan,

    What board do you surf the most now?

    Have you demoed the 9′3 C4?

  2. Evan Leong 2evan

    Well, now is all relative. I’ve been traveling around 3 of the last 8 weeks. The last month I’ve been mostly riding this blair 9′3″ since most of my surf sessions were on the north shore in overhead waves. I surfed my distance boards a couple days in town in small surf. The majority of my SUP these days are on a distance board of some sort. This week it’s a new blair 12′6″ race board that is super fast.

    I’m waiting to demo the C4 sub vector…hopefully soon. I heard it’s good.

  3. Tony 3Tony

    That’s the one thing that brings me down on the Blair 8′8″ that I have. It yaws to an extreme degree, making hard to paddle into waves. I’m going to play around with the fin set up when I get back to Hawaii, cause once it’s on the wave it’s super fun.

  4. Evan Leong 4evan

    Tony – Try the bigger middle fin. You will be surprised at how much better it gets. For bigger guys like us, the bigger center fin gives a much more positive feeling during turns and way more drive.

  5. Adam 5Adam

    Would the middle fin switch make as much difference for a lighter person (150lbs)? Looking at the Blair 8′11″

  6. Evan Leong 6evan

    I think so

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