Sailing at Safety Bay yesterday in about 18-20 knots.
6m sail,
107 Litre FSW board
28cm Weed fin
96kg
I was having trouble getting planing and when I was I could hardly go up wind at all.
(made much worse by the guy who could hardly kite going up staight up and down the middle of the pond)
I always seem to have problems at Saftey Bay pointing upwind unless it is really blowing.
Is my fin too small? I think the board came with a 31cm (non-weed fin) Is there a definitive conversion between weed and none weed fins?
Or am I just too fat and rubbish?
I have changed to a waist harness this year would this make much of a difference?
I was sailing Sbay yesterday.
6.3 Loft Blade
83L (49.5 wide) speed board
27cm weed fin
75Kg
Just about powered in the pond (15-18 and 20 in the gusts) but nicely powered outside. So your sail possibly a bit small and go out of the pond.
2 things.
1. make sure that you adjust your mast base for a weedy vs a regular fin.
Centre moves back and base moves back. Improves upwind performance.
2. bear away to get up to speed then go upwind. weedy needs to be powered to point
Also you may need to adjust your lines
I thought maybe a weed fin is supposed to be longer due to the rake ie: a 31cm non weedy translates to about a 33-35cm weedy?
I dunno I don't use them but thought I heard that...?
I run a similar setup but a shorter fin, 23cm weedy. I find I need to be really powered up for easy upwind gain, if I'm just cruising I really need to rail the board to keep tracking upwind. Do you run 3 or 4 straps? With 3 straps I barely have my back foot in to get more pressure onto the rail, it seems to help me. Standing more upright and sheeting out a little bit and looking way upwind also works for me, I think everyone has something that works for them.
I sailed Safety Bay yesterday too.
5.8 Koncept
85L board
24 weedy
56kg
It was a cruisy sail for me on the 5.8 but I'm almost half your weight. This is the smallest fin I've ever used, no trouble pointing high upwind.
I'd say you were underpowered in the sail department.
In general use a weedy that is a bit smaller (5cm) than the equivalent pointer.
At 45 degrees it's 1.41 % of the length. So a 50cm pointer will make a 35.46cm weedie, mind you if rake it a 40 degrees it provides more lift but loses a bit of weed shedding ability. That comes out around 1.39 % of the length, which is a better option and you'll find that a lot of manufacturers have gone for 40 degrees recently.
you need a longer weedie to achieve the same depth (from board to tip measured perpendicular to board)
That's what i thought
Cheers for all the replies..
I was sort of hoping for some advice that involved buying a slightly larger weedy (cheapish fix)
But in reality I knew the answers would be "bigger sail" or "lose some weight" . Just got to decide If its gonna be easier to part with some cash or some weight.
Just trying to Clear the weedy v non weedy stuff up.
My weedy is quoted as 28cm ( Which is its depth perpendicular to the board)
And measures as about 40cm along the leading edge.
So what does this equate to in non weedy terms??
well there are weedys and weedys, some are crap some are OK. so it's hard to say.
Any flex in a weedy will seriously impair it's lift, whereas with a pointer, a bit of flex just changes the plane of lift a bit.
A lot of weedys are just pointers boxed at a greater angle, these are most likely to be the crap ones, to flexi and not enough thickness to chord ratio.
I think if you have a stiff pointer and a very stiff weedy of the same thickness to flow ratio. they'll have similar lift properties even though the weedy will have a bit more area.
Geez, that's an awfully complicated reply.
Just tell him he's fat. It's a much simpler answer. 
(sorry. This is an awfully nice shiraz. IT seems to be improving as I get furhter down 
)
at least you would have to be trying pretty hard to get
a mast and sail wrapped up in the power lines 
)
There was a guy out here yesterday, in 12-15kts with a 5.7 wave sail and a floaty board with a 15cm!!!!! freeride weedfin. he was planning about 80% of the time and he was no light weight, only doing short runs inside the reef and wasn't loosing ground.
How do they do it????
it looked like nai'a on this site.
www.makanifins.com/collections/windsurfing-race-fins
So to maintain similiar performance, across and upwind from a pointer to a weedy what lengths should I be looking at to replace a 38cm and 42cm pointer ?
I've laminated some carbon onto each side of my fins, which stiffens them without adding too much weight. It also thickens the foil and provides more lift when the most I can really get away in rake is 40 degrees. The Pepeweed collection:
)actually I already do by beachstarting on weedy rocky thingies & hitting bottom and ruining the tips..
