Author Topic: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins  (Read 138789 times)

Area 10

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #285 on: July 20, 2018, 02:01:45 AM »
On point 1 we could have a gentleman’s bet: I can guarantee you that I could do this test blind.

On the point about principle vs instance, the danger you are running is that you might become a marketing tool rather than truly adding to our knowledge base. Few who are reading what you are writing will appreciate that you are not claiming that the LA fins are better, only that they are better for *you* under these artificial conditions.

ukgm

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #286 on: July 20, 2018, 02:12:01 AM »
1) On point 1 we could have a gentleman’s bet: I can guarantee you that I could do this test blind.

2) On the point about principle vs instance, the danger you are running is that you might become a marketing tool rather than truly adding to our knowledge base. Few who are reading what you are writing will appreciate that you are not claiming that the LA fins are better,

3) only that they are better for *you* under these artificial conditions.
1) Genuinely interested - what kind of protocol would you implement to do that ?

2) I take your point but I would think that I have been clear in the data, my interests and my responses here as to what my aims and limitations were. Yes, there are those that will stretch its scope and those that don't understand how to interpret this information. I'm actually likely to put a video together soon for SUPboarder whereby I attempt to explain this better. I've done a few videos for them now and its good professional practise for me if nothing else.

3) Specific, not artificial. This wasn't a lab and I have raced in these kinds of conditions. The key thing now would be to repeat the tests in different waterstates to see what that does. I doubt I'll get a CV of 3% but I'm willing to go to 9 before I'd scrap the methodology and tests.

singingdog

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #287 on: July 20, 2018, 03:05:54 AM »
There are some interesting protocols for testing different equipment and it's affect on speed. One of the best I have seen is a test that was done on the different MTB wheel sizes, and whether or not they were faster in real world conditions. They used muscle sensors to determine rider effort and how it affected performance: a good way to counter the well-known placebo affect that Area 10 is talking about ("wow, 29" wheels are fast, I am going to ride them that way").

Fins would be far easier to test this way, since they could very easily be tested "blind" with a variety of paddlers, avoiding the placebo affect.

ukgm

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #288 on: July 20, 2018, 04:46:34 AM »
There are some interesting protocols for testing different equipment and it's affect on speed. One of the best I have seen is a test that was done on the different MTB wheel sizes, and whether or not they were faster in real world conditions. They used muscle sensors to determine rider effort and how it affected performance: a good way to counter the well-known placebo affect that Area 10 is talking about ("wow, 29" wheels are fast, I am going to ride them that way").

Fins would be far easier to test this way, since they could very easily be tested "blind" with a variety of paddlers, avoiding the placebo affect.

I've seen that one. It was interesting but still not immune to placebo completely. Power meters helped for us massively in cycling. When I do aerodynamic testing, that's completely objective but you can still get placebo. You try your best to filter it out with as many runs as you can and a randomised order. What I've found is that with placebo in such cases, its hard to enjoy it consistently so the experiment stats can sometimes pick up that something was off. That's one of the reasons (as an aside) why I nearly always junk my first and last runs when I test anything.

ukgm

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #289 on: July 20, 2018, 05:42:06 AM »
Nice results. Which LA setup did you use? i.e. which twins and kick.

Small ventral, 9 inch elliptical twins and his standard stinger kicker.

To pick up on an earlier point regarding me wanting it to work, my opinion going into it was that it probably wouldn't (or would be too close to the single to be considered worthwhile). I only say I'll test gear if I'm allowed (without restriction) to publish a negative or a positive result. In this case I would have been fine either way as this is just a hobby and some idle curiosity. If it wasn't faster for me, I'd still say the set up has some merits in certain contexts. I wish I'd had the time to test the ventral on its own with my best single. Maybe next time for that one.

PonoBill

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #290 on: July 20, 2018, 06:41:39 AM »
Make sure you eventually try a "fence" between the twins instead of the single kicker. A very thin, low aspect fin--no foil. You'll probably find another substantial bump in speed.

Like you, I'm not so interested in having a scientific, provable conclusion. If I could find a fin setup that gave me a ten percent advantage that was purely placebo effect I'd be quite happy. I would prefer to actually understand what's going on, but I'm not adamant about it. I don't understand quantum gravity either but I'm willing to hang out in the reality it apparently has generated.
Foote 10'4X34", SIC 17.5 V1 hollow and an EPS one in Hood River. Foote 9'0" x 31", L41 8'8", 18' Speedboard, etc. etc.

yugi

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #291 on: July 20, 2018, 08:02:08 AM »
Do some board [shapes] get a better "boost" than other shapes?

I'm imagining a wide cutt-off tail shape is more it's thing than pintail. Mainly since that's the boards we see them on most.

How small can one go with the fins? As there is so much fin in there can one go pretty small?

singingdog

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #292 on: July 20, 2018, 08:09:53 AM »
There are some interesting protocols for testing different equipment and it's affect on speed. One of the best I have seen is a test that was done on the different MTB wheel sizes, and whether or not they were faster in real world conditions. They used muscle sensors to determine rider effort and how it affected performance: a good way to counter the well-known placebo affect that Area 10 is talking about ("wow, 29" wheels are fast, I am going to ride them that way").

Fins would be far easier to test this way, since they could very easily be tested "blind" with a variety of paddlers, avoiding the placebo affect.

I've seen that one. It was interesting but still not immune to placebo completely. Power meters helped for us massively in cycling. When I do aerodynamic testing, that's completely objective but you can still get placebo. You try your best to filter it out with as many runs as you can and a randomised order. What I've found is that with placebo in such cases, its hard to enjoy it consistently so the experiment stats can sometimes pick up that something was off. That's one of the reasons (as an aside) why I nearly always junk my first and last runs when I test anything.

I liked the use of muscle sensors to determine if the extra speed was just from extra effort. Very interesting the study found no discernible benefit to running 27.5.

I do believe that the entire flatwater SUP industry is lacking some very key information about fins/speed/drag. I have read a bunch of articles/threads on fins and there seems to be very little consensus on just how measurable the drag of high surface area fins is, or how much benefit there is to having less surface area. It seems like such an easy thing to measure accurately.

Area 10

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #293 on: July 20, 2018, 08:30:35 AM »
Like you, I'm not so interested in having a scientific, provable conclusion. If I could find a fin setup that gave me a ten percent advantage that was purely placebo effect I'd be quite happy. I would prefer to actually understand what's going on, but I'm not adamant about it. I don't understand quantum gravity either but I'm willing to hang out in the reality it apparently has generated.
Would you be so happy if you read ukgm’s report, then on that basis went out and paid good money to have a LA fun system fitted, only then to discover that it didn’t work for you, and that the “improvement” he reported was all in ukgm’s head? Because that is what might well happen here.

Larry Allison

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #294 on: July 20, 2018, 09:57:42 AM »
Like you, I'm not so interested in having a scientific, provable conclusion. If I could find a fin setup that gave me a ten percent advantage that was purely placebo effect I'd be quite happy. I would prefer to actually understand what's going on, but I'm not adamant about it. I don't understand quantum gravity either but I'm willing to hang out in the reality it apparently has generated.
Would you be so happy if you read ukgm’s report, then on that basis went out and paid good money to have a LA fun system fitted, only then to discover that it didn’t work for you, and that the “improvement” he reported was all in ukgm’s head? Because that is what might well happen here.

LOL, That has already happened with a whole board which is why the SUP Industry has slowed down in sales because people were told that boards would do magic and NOTHING!!!!

Your comment about this could of maybe held up 8 years ago when a few people were trying Twins on Raceboards in 2011, then by 2012 a few dozen people were riding and trying Race Twins in Race boards, by 2014 a few hundred people were now riding Twins in Raceboards to now a few THOUSAND people are riding Twins in Raceboards. The majority of these people bought a board that they were told was the MAGIC Board to ride for them that turned out FALSE. But instead of giving up like some did and even bought another board that in some cases were worst they spent the money to convert to Allison Twins and then those boards became their MAGIC Board. That is not a Placebo but a FACT.
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ukgm

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #295 on: July 20, 2018, 10:46:58 AM »
Like you, I'm not so interested in having a scientific, provable conclusion. If I could find a fin setup that gave me a ten percent advantage that was purely placebo effect I'd be quite happy. I would prefer to actually understand what's going on, but I'm not adamant about it. I don't understand quantum gravity either but I'm willing to hang out in the reality it apparently has generated.
Would you be so happy if you read ukgm’s report, then on that basis went out and paid good money to have a LA fun system fitted, only then to discover that it didn’t work for you, and that the “improvement” he reported was all in ukgm’s head? Because that is what might well happen here.

I’d certainly be impressed if I could generate a unconscious placebo that consistently held a 2% data variation over 8 runs. That said, we both know that your opinion is a perfectly valid one to raise so the only thing I can to try and do to counter it is to work my way through my coast down test data and see if the drag of the Allison system is lower than the single. If that is the case, that would give further weight to my findings in this context. If it doesn’t, it falls into the realm of needing to know exactly how the system works (as Ponobill said above) and I’m frankly not qualified to know that. I’d put my hands up at that point and suggest others do their tests and let us know.

Area 10

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #296 on: July 20, 2018, 11:47:44 AM »
Possible placebo effect is only one issue.

The generalisability of the results is possibly the more serious one.

Both are perfectly addressable.

It will be ironic if you actually find yourself slower on this setup in real race conditions. Could happen - or at least your data cannot counter that suggestion.

Larry Allison

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #297 on: July 20, 2018, 12:00:08 PM »
Do some board [shapes] get a better "boost" than other shapes?

I'm imagining a wide cutt-off tail shape is more it's thing than pintail. Mainly since that's the boards we see them on most.

How small can one go with the fins? As there is so much fin in there can one go pretty small?

Square tail with concave will ALWAYS stick with a single fin and not using a 4 fin FACT!

Pintail are the fastest but stability is key, the add of 4 fins allows you now to ride a board taking the pivot point of a single fin out of the situation.

Understanding going smaller in drag and directing water to work for you not reacting against you is key to understanding this concept.
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Larry Allison

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #298 on: July 20, 2018, 12:20:04 PM »
Well, with the right conditions and weather, I can finally share the results of my testing of the Allison probox system + ventral assist in my 2017 Allstar. I used my standard (and published) testing protocol and used a market leader (and fastest fin I ever tested) as the baseline. I should add that the fins were donated but the install was paid for by me (and undertaken incidentally by SUPUK on here). The graphs shows the result. I'll have to be honest and say I was surprised as I still haven't got the set up to perform quite as I want to and it still felt draggy to me but the numbers don't lie. Larry has great intuition

Thank You Ukgm for taking the time to show in more depth what is happening and being open minded like others here taking the 4 fins to another level like PonoBill who improved on my concept.
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burchas

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Re: twin-fins-or-more-on-a-race-board/so it begins
« Reply #299 on: July 20, 2018, 12:37:54 PM »
Like you, I'm not so interested in having a scientific, provable conclusion. If I could find a fin setup that gave me a ten percent advantage that was purely placebo effect I'd be quite happy. I would prefer to actually understand what's going on, but I'm not adamant about it. I don't understand quantum gravity either but I'm willing to hang out in the reality it apparently has generated.
Would you be so happy if you read ukgm’s report, then on that basis went out and paid good money to have a LA fun system fitted, only then to discover that it didn’t work for you, and that the “improvement” he reported was all in ukgm’s head? Because that is what might well happen here.

I’d certainly be impressed if I could generate a unconscious placebo that consistently held a 2% data variation over 8 runs. That said, we both know that your opinion is a perfectly valid one to raise so the only thing I can to try and do to counter it is to work my way through my coast down test data and see if the drag of the Allison system is lower than the single. If that is the case, that would give further weight to my findings in this context. If it doesn’t, it falls into the realm of needing to know exactly how the system works (as Ponobill said above) and I’m frankly not qualified to know that. I’d put my hands up at that point and suggest others do their tests and let us know.

You are way overthinking this guys. ukgm test prove beyond reproach that the system works (period, not just for
him) and that it's low drag. If you're not convinced, just change the color insert in your twins and see where it lands
you ukgm, placebo or not. but for it to work properly you need to put in some time for the right configuration.

ukgm is a newbie in the 4 fin department yet his impressive testing skills has only sharpened the results that
few of us here (and many more outside) has came up with in the past.

The main take away here is the low drag, even if ukgm tests did not show any gains in speed (although they did)
when you take this setup to rough water, on the account of stability alone it will translate to faster times not to
mention the ability to go with a narrower board and maintain the ability to put full power in the stroke.

And seriously, enough with the placebo, if I was to call placebo on each and every finding you're generously sharing
with us on the forum, it would skew google search results to show the ZONE in first place under the the search
term "placebo". I'm sure Admin will not take liking to that ;)
« Last Edit: July 20, 2018, 12:47:03 PM by burchas »
in progress...

 


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