INTRO
Most shapers worth their salt design and personally ride their models before they release them on to the market or indeed have confirmed feedback from their team riders to give them confidence to peruse the market. Personally, I have ridden this model nonstop for about 8 year and know it back to front. On top of that I have followed over 100 Twinzaa customers who have verified this model is, all that I say it is and even more. It is a little out there so I do not suggest it to sceptics since it has enough believers already. As a result due to my own aging, I have been employing a step deck so I can pack as much foam into the design without boating out the rails. The fundamentals in this design are to keep short by adding a disguised thickness
PLAN SHAPE
Belonging to the Quad fin family excess width is not an issue since they do not know they are wide due to the absence of a centre fin so you can go as wide as your arms can carry them. You can have a nose as wide as you like without suffering slow nose pivot since you are controlling the board from a more forward position because of the forward fin set. To me a round tail Quad or Twinzaas are the best shape to encourage more vert since quads are not pivotal like tri fins. A flyer although not necessary does help break the long straight rail line from the centre back common to pure Twins and Quads alike so they can hug the face. The flyer releases this grip around the fins allowing you to wrench it in and out of turns without forfeiting the cling of a more parallel rail line.
ROCKER
I have not messed with the rocker of the original Twinzaa coz I nailed it first time. Employing the lift of the cathedral hull the nose lift is somewhat subdued and at the other end although not as flat as a Twinnie it is what you would call medium, but still flatter than a performance tri fin.
BOTTOM SHAPE
No changes here as well, with the cathedral up front morphing into a single concave through the guts and a deep long vee out the last third.
RAIL SHAPE
I think it was a Californian shaper named Stretch who was the first to use the step deck in some of his designs with the purpose being to keep the rails low without having to employ a massive deck roll off a thick centre. With my step deck I design the scallop to fade at the 12” mark from the nose and tail so the rails don’t become too knifey at the ends. The step deck allows you to have a comfortable flattish deck for stability, but with the scallop 2 ½” in from the perimeter it drastically lowers the rail thickness so you can bury and hold the rail in for more drive and reach. All this means is you can go as thick on the stringer as you want to packing as much paddle into a shorter board without suffering any boatiness in the rail. Another unexpected benefit from the step deck is its lateral strength when it comes to snapping in half as the step adds a structural frame around the board so it takes a bit to snap them. Compare the flexibility of flat sheet iron to corrugated iron if you get my drift?
FINS
As with the Twinzaa design the fin requirement of the Soar Hornets quads is a must as the design is built around these fins and the unique positions. This has already been explained in the Twinzaa story with the original design on my site if you need more info.
CONSTUCTION
This design comes as an EPS for two main reasons. Firstly, to pack as much paddle into a shorter board it makes sense to use EPS foam to help achieve the benefit of extra buoyancy when you are constraining the length. Secondly it is difficult nowadays to find shorter PU blanks that you can get the extra thickness out of without going to a monster length blank and even then, the curves are awkward, not to mention the cost of those things. Because of the nature of eps density, the foam is no softer if you dig deep and so all eps blanks are very thick so you have room to cut much thicker designs out of them.
COST
Perhaps the most prohibitive thing about this design is the cost. Notwithstanding epoxy glassing is more expensive the need to use the glass Hornet quads comes at an extra cost as well. Be prepared to pay around $250 for a set. Well worth it I maintain.
DIMS
5.8 X 20 7/8 X 3 = 37 LTS
5.10 X 21 1/8 X 3 1/8 = 40.12 LTS
6.0 X 21 3/8 X 3 3/16 = 42.57 LTS
6.2 X 21 5/8 X 3 3/16 = 44.25 LTS
6.4 X 21 7/8 X 3 ¼ = 46.84
6.6 X 22 1/8 X 3 ¼ = 48.60 LTS
6.8 X 22 3/8 X 3 5/16 = 51.35 LTS