If you ever want to be entertained by the random, sometimes awesome, sometimes weird, mostly crazy things people are inventing today, just take a stroll through any crowd funding website. And when it comes to inventions designed to improve your experience in the ocean, there is no shortage of items that fit into the”random” category.
But one thing is certain whether you’re out paddling or surfing: going fast is fun. The faster the better. Forget turns if you can fly down the face of a wave. But what I’m always amazed by is how some inventors can claim their product improves performance by “X” percent by helping you travel “X” percent faster. So one Australian entrepreneur/inventor/paddler/surfer actually put his “turbo charged” fin to the test when he created the Wave Wing.
Steve Scott wanted a way to improve stability and speed during his flat water paddles around Nelson Bay. Tired of swapping out board after board, he eventually turned his attention to toying with the fins on his SUP. He designed what he now calls the Wave Wing SUP fin and slapped it onto one of his older boards. Realizing the old 10’6″ was flying around like new, he figured he was onto something – something in the ballpark of 10%-20% better than it was before.
So how did he test it? And how did he come up with the 10%-20% estimation? In a flat water paddle test of 54 strokes per minute, the Wave Wing covered just under 53 meters, while a traditional fin on the same board traveled 1.25 meters less (4.1 feet). In a downwind test the difference between fins was even greater, with the Wave Wing traveling 69.6 meters and the traditional fin covering just 66.3 meters (10.8 feet). Over a full minute the difference between the two was 6.6 meters. That’s actually a pretty impressive number, especially since it’s one of the first times we’ve ever seen somebody back up their performance claims on a random invention with real statistics. So hooray for real life testing. And hooray for science. The fin works similar to a hydrofoil, with the wings of the fin creating uplift and of course less drag. Less drag equals more speed. And more speed, as it applies to my personal theory, equals more fun.
Whether or not we’ll see the Wave Wing on the market is still up in the air. Scott is currently running a Kickstarter campaign as a way to test the market on his new product.
