Muzza's Trippin' - THE NEW 5 FIN BONZA
The Purpose of The BONZA
The idea here is to modernize the old Campbell Bros Bonza
design so that it could match the performance of today’s
high performance boards.
Board
Specifications
DIMENSIONS: 6.0 X 12 X 19 X 14 _ X 2 _ Diamond
bat tail
Muzza's Ramblings
The original bonza was a tri fin concept sporting 2 long
low profile keel fins on the rail punctuated by a deep single
fin in the centre further back toward the tail. These fins
were sitting over a deep double concave put there to create
lift and forward speed.
Firstly the general rocker and profile
of this new bonza is totally modern so it is going to be
more manoeuvrable than its older counterpart simply for that
reason. Since I have ironed out the bugs on my quad designs
and understand the correct fin positions it was prudent to
me to use two sets of small fins rather than a long stiffish
keel as was used in the past.
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Thankfully FCS came up with
exactly what I had in mind which was a quad set of mini keels
in two sizes of which I placed the larger set forward to
get maximum rail bight up front. Remembering the forward
rail bight would not be a deep as a normal thruster as the
front fins on a thruster are a lot deeper than this keel
so the feel I am hoping to achieve is a front fin that is
less decisive and in fact one that will release with less
persuasion so that most of the directing will be left to
the dominating centre fin which is further forward than a
normal thruster tail fin but would be in turn supported by
the two rear smaller keels which are positioned more or less
adjacent to the centre fin.
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Complicating matters even more
is the extremely deep 6ml double concave through the whole
finned area which is designed to lift the tail up and make
the board flighty in the tail particularly because of the
shallow depth of the keels. To minimize cavitation or sudden
tail sliding I have built this deep double concave into a
3ml vee to help reduce the pressure on the shallow fins.
The centre fin I chose was the Future Hatchet fin for the
reason that it had a narrow base as I think all the area
in the base of the 4 quad keels was more than enough to keep
the board driving forward. All in all the centre fin will
be the focus on direction change and to how much power is
applied in this endeavour, so it will be critical the depth
and position of this fin
Prediction
I am not too clued in to what the Campbell bros were trying
to achieve with this design to be honest but I am clear on
my purpose for this design. Rather than feeling the decisiveness
of the larger front finned thruster design which tends to
pull the rail in deeply I am hoping there maybe merit in
a dominant single fin feel with all it’s little helpers
(the other fins) that will keep the board running in and
out of turns so there should be no loss of speed as there
would be had the design be just a single fin. My prediction
is when I get this design wired we may have a board that
can be stabbed harder on rail at higher speeds without too
much rail being dragged in making the manoeuvre less precarious
. A lot of pros do a few little stall turns when they hit
the bottom too fast so they do not spin out or catch a rail.
It would be good to lay it over at higher speeds but I fear
the double concave may be too deep for more powerful waves
but up to 4 feet I think this design will be comfortable.
Results
Well this design certainly caused a stir! A few captions were lifted out and thrown on the Surfer Magazine’s chat forum where I was ripped into by vigilant Campbell Bros supporters for being an impostor and design thief. Being clearly misunderstood I just let it go straight over my head and have moved on. The design itself had a mixed reaction but there was a consensus to it lifting and sliding and being too twitchy. I think the double concave was too extreme and my rear fin selection needed work. Anyway due to the roasting I copped I do not have the will to follow through with the experiment to be honest, too many fins, too many variations and too much politics.
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