Walking up to a sprawling, stocked fin wall can be intimidating. Like a dense restaurant menu, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by options. But fins play a pivotal role in surfing and can be the ...

When Tom Blake took a stabilizing fin off a motorboat and bolted it to the bottom of his hollow surfboard at Waikiki in 1935, he set in motion a fascinating process of development and refinement that ...

Posted: September 13, 2025 | Last updated: September 14, 2025 The number of fins in a surfboard has a dramatic influence on how a board responds and the style of surfing that is best suited to it.

When humans started riding surfboard-type vehicles towards the shore, whether it was in Hawaii or Peru, those first wave-riding craft were finless. The boards were simply pointed towards the shoreline ...

Photography by Jeremiah Klein and Billy Watts. Just in time for your next trip, Square One is Surfline’s new travel-hacks column by the enviably well-traveled Beau Flemister. The tale of the two-board ...