Stand Up Paddle > Whitewater and River SUP

Board fin setup for rivers?

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ZombieOTTR:
So I have a smallish river by my house, it doesn't flow fast but I believe it does have some downed trees and stuff along it occasionally. My question is, would it be better to use smaller fins on the board, so that because the fin doesn't go as deep, there's less of a risk of smacking into something I didn't see? I'm new to SUP so not sure how it would really work in practice but I've been thinking about it.

Night Wing:
For river supping with some current and some moderate depth, I've seen some people use 2 sidebiter fins and 1 large thruster fin (2 + 1 setup), but the number of fins is based on their board length (10' and under).

On some longer sup boards, (11' and over), I've seen a few people use 1 large fin. As for the length of the fins on the two fin setup,, I don't have any info on that.

The above is just to give you some food for thought.

acquamossa:
Hi everybody from Italy, this is my first message, I guess, thus a short presentation: I'm Andrea, 50 y.o., 30 years amateur paddling on all kind of canoes and waters and since 2011 only sup. I've been practising river sup since last year.
To reply to your question: The trend now for river sup is 2+2 lateral fins 2" height. Central fin is not used. Moreover in turbulent waters a taller fin proves contraindicated because of instability trasmitted to the board. On the contrary, for calm rivers central taller fin (say 5") helps a lot the directivity.

Dusk Patrol:
I'll echo acquamossa's advice about the short side bite type fins, with the caveat that my experience is on a Red Paddle Co 10'8" Ride, with a 2+1 setup, but all three are 3ish inches in height (depth?) which I'm thankful for when I hit shallow sections, or pull off into a shallow eddy near the bank.
Maybe there is a need to have directional stability that a taller fin would provide, but at my casual level, the short fins are adequate.
 It's a lot of fun. In a sport where 'fast' is still measured under 10 mph, drifting along at 5 is nothing to sneeze at...

Badger:
I wouldn't go any shorter than 8 inches. You need a certain amount of fin for stability and tracking. You also might want a fin that is fairly swept back so that it doesn't catch and drag weeds.

A weed free fin is almost a necessity if you intend to paddle on Great Bay near where you live or you might be stopping every 15 minutes to remove eelgrass.

Weed fins track really well. A fin with a curved leading edge will slide over obstructions easier whereas the straighter knife like blades will stop the board more abruptly when they hit something.

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