Now the water level has dropped a bit just wondering what do people think the most effective wind fins are for getting through the weed. Have been looking at everyone's posts on GPSTC and it looks like the weed is an issue now. I would love some C3 Sweed fins but only a few were ever made They look the goods and raked at 48 degrees. Anyone tried the Tribal super weed at LG.

Steve Charles said..
Now the water level has dropped a bit just wondering what do people think the most effective wind fins are for getting through the weed. Have been looking at everyone's posts on GPSTC and it looks like the weed is an issue now. I would love some C3 Sweed fins but only a few were ever made They look the goods and raked at 48 degrees. Anyone tried the Tribal super weed at LG.

Use the fast fins the slow ones are crap

For speeding I used the MXR 40 deg speed weed 18. No issue with the weed at speed. Only was an issue when I slowed down. Even the Lessacher 25 at 35 deg would go through at speed by not the surface stuff.
40 plus will be ok but I'm afraid we've used up all the wind

The 23 will struggle this year

It depends a lot on the rider and their expectations.
If you want to have an easy time of it and start off anywhere in the thickest weed, you would need to use a 50 degree rake, low aspect fin These also have the advantage of being shorter so where the weed is not quite to the surface, or around the edges where it may be shallow, they are very forgiving.
If you want fastest and best efficiency, and can put up with occasionally getting stuck in some places if you stall a gybe, or fall off, 40-45 degree higher aspect fins are noticably better.
I have used 40 degree fins for my best sessions all this season here at LG, and this is the first year I have had any issues on some very low water days getting started in the thickest weed where it is right at the surface.
Tribal Weedspeeds have worked well for me and the Tassie guys who came over earlier. They have only about 30-35 degrees rake at the base but closer to 50 at the tip. At speed, they cut through the weed with very little apparent drag. The short ones are more forgiving, but I used a 35cm yesterday in my SB 110L with a 7m Koncept and had great fun in the pure glass conditions (12-14 Knots). I felt a bit of intermittent drag in the thickest weed patches, but the efficiency and size of the fin helped me go fast, point upwind and keep doing planing gybes (as long as I gybed outside of the thickest weed)
In the small slaloms I used the 27 and 21cm Tribal Weedspeeds and the 20cm Lessacher 20cm Bull rake 40. Both were excellent!
In the speed board I used a 40 degree symmetrical highish aspect 17cm, and a 40 degree 16cm Lessacher LW Duo assy. Both did low 40's peaks and didn't seem a disadvantage in the weed, at speed, at all.
So far I have not had the chance to try the Demo Fangy fins as I could not pry them away from Boardcrazy on the suitable days.
I attempted to try the 16cm BP Kestrel in my speed board on Monday arvo, but just as I did the wind died out. In the one run I got it felt great though, and sailors using them were going very well with no issues in the thickest weed and few issues with spinout going upwind or speed runs. The BP 50 degree fins were working very well for some and are a little more effecient than the Kestrel IMHO, but the Kestrel is shorter and has an advantage in the thickest weed and shallows.
There is a prototype Tribal 50 degree weedy in Mark Jordans board, but I didnt get a chance to try that one either. Mark seems to like it a lot!

Other fins I have seen working well here are the MXR weedspeeds (45 deg), Tribal/Chris Lockwood carbon weedies, Gun high aspect 50 and Lessacher Duo 40 to 50 deg rake fins.

I am sure the Tribal Superweed would work very well here now.

I am sure there are some others I have missed.

PS. The weed here is not very abrasive on the fins. G10 is fine, and even carbon fins don't seem to suffer.

Used the Superweed 21 the other day. Works much better than the speedweed in the thicker stuff as more rake. Would recommend for sure Steve

I used a 16 cm Delta XT 50 on Monday and it worked great! The weed was on the surface on the western side of the lake.

Just received a Tumble Weed from Makani, just need temp to warm-up a bit to test that!

The deeper moderate raked fins still work there but one has to keep the speed up high, especially if you want to gybe in the thickest weed. Slow below 16-18 knots in the gybe and it will pull you in. My strategy was to gybe in the places where the weed was further from the surface or thinner, and them power through the glass where it was thick.

On this day, it was 14-16 knots, the wather was glass and I was on a 7m Koncept. Isonic 110 and Tribal 35 cm deep fin. Didn't get stuck in the weed, but avoided the thicker places to gybe.

The video is from Sboardcrazys mast cam and you can just catch a glimpse of me passing the other way in front of her at between 5 and 12 seconds into it. Thanks for the Video Sue.

UFO Fins French made to perfection

May 2018 update:

The last two times this month I have sailed the 'Golden Lake' in strong SW to Southerlies, the 40 degree fins I had been using all season were really struggling in the thickest weed. (Ironically, the lake really does have large areas with a golden hue now where the weed is right on the surface )

The cause is the drop in lake level. That combined with a SW to Southerly wind that blows the water out into the other side of the big lake means that the level is now up to 25 cm lower in those winds than at the beginning of February. Where the weed was thickest and at the surface back in Feb., it is now avery thick mat with much higher density as it has settled and become denser on the surface as the water has dropped. In the areas where the weed is still just below the surface, the 40 degree fins would still work well, but these areas are very hard to acces without sailing through the really thick stuff a lot of the time. In the thick stuff, there are some places where the weed pulls quite noticably on the 50 degree fins, even at speed.

I found out the hard way catching wads of weed with the 16cm, 40 degree fin and was forced to fit the 50 degree rake fins. The only ones I has were the BP Weedspeed50 20cm deep (they call it a '25') and a BP Kestrel 16cm, 50 degrees rake.

Both worked fine for me, but as I had rarely used them before, it took me a bit of time to get used to the different feeling and board balance.

Kato used a couple of MXR UFO 45 degree speedweed fins and got some great near PB speeds over 45 knots, and a 1 hr PB of 27.8 knots , so there is no doubt they worked well, but he did say he struggled more than me in the really thick stuff.

I didn't have any 45 degree fins, but I aim to get a few and some of the new Tribal delta weed ASAP for the next visit.

I suspect that the 45 degree high aspect fins will be more efficient and faster, but the 50 degree delta type will give the ability to stay in the really glassy stuff.