Mastbender said..albers said..
Canards?
When those first came out, they were a big hit, I had two of them, they really worked very well to fix chronic spinout. They were later replaced with the slotted fin, and even split fins, so they fell out of fashion, but at the time, they got a thumbs up from me and others. Here's Chris Lassen enjoying his canard, aka, fore fin, later known as fore skin. Note his face shield, don't see those much anymore either.
They actually worked very well to prevent spinout!
I am sure they produced a fair bit of extra drag though. I guess we now have better foils and mostly don't need them. Where top sped is not so much of a goal, ie in bump and jump, I think they still would be interesting to revisit. I have kept a few in my museum, just in case.....
Having said that, there was a MultiFins Systems 11" slotted slalom fin that actually worked very well. I remember doing some side by side sail testing many years ago and Amac told me to 'get rid of that fin, it is too slow'. So we tested the fins and it was just as fast as his non slotted expensive slalom fin on most points of sail. I wish I still has that fin.....
As I remeber it, the wave version of their slot fin didn't work anywhere near as well.
