On a recent trip to Bali to re-introduce Future fins to Indonesia, Vince Longo, part owner and braintrust behind the companies designs, sat down with Matt George to talk about fin design, John John as test pilot, and why they are the most misunderstood things in surfing.

- Nothing has influenced removable fin design more than the explosion of surf travel.

- The whole reason I got involved with fin systems was Indonesia. This was back during glass-on fin days and we were hauling our boards all over the place with big foam blocks and pads, anything to protect the glass on fins. And we drag the board bags out at Lakey Peak and deal with the damages. So the next day this Kiwi guys shows up with a board bag half the size of ours, clean and easy, and he pulls his board out and then he grabs his fins and starts securing them to his board with a little finger tool…and we thought “What the hell is that?” We were tripping out. But the engineer in me thought, “I can make that. I can even make that better”.

- I studied engineering, math, physics, mechanical engineering for the practical applications. This is what I have intuitively known. Surfing involves all these knowledge’s. Surprised?

- I have seen really good surfers that know nothing about fins. And they will just ride whatever they get. And then you turn them on to the right fins for their style they're blown away by the difference it makes. Even surfers that have been surfing thirty years are blown away when they pay attention

- Surfers find magic boards, but it’s a rare surfer that gets the spiritual connection with a set of fins. Dane Reynolds does. He was running around with one set of fins for two years. And they were his magic fins. But I think in most cases the details of a fin are much smaller than a surfboard. You have to really look at it. A board you can put under your arm and mind surf it, while a fin is more abstract, less obvious.

- What a fin really wants out of a surfer is perfect timing. A surfer who knows at what point to initiate a perfect turn, and at what point to let off and unweight the load. Foils demand perfect timing. In regards to when they are at the peak of their thrust. When they are at the peak of their lift drag moments.

- My dream test pilot is John John. He is one surfer who surfs with perfect timing. How much speed he works with to be able to launch the way he does, and the way he fades. The other perfect test pilot is Dave Rastovich. We’ve made some wild stuff for Rasta and he blew my mind. Because we made fins that were just wild and they were hard to surf and he got out there on a beachbreak that was all messed up and he was able to interpret it all. Tubes, speed, grace, timing...perfect.

- We work with fins for the big wave guys. For me the most exciting thing about what guys like Shane Dorian does is the capability to actually deal with water forces that extreme. It makes the world seem a little smaller and things more attainable. Being able to ride waves like that belongs in the realm of the unbelievable. Like walking on the moon.

- What we learned from tow surfing is that the pressure differences that a fin in motion makes are very, very real. And that at high speeds they are strong forces to be dealt with. They can and will pull the board around like a wing. That’s what we learned foremost. That the pressure difference is intense. And that little minute adjustments in foil makes a massive difference. The same way rocket fins got smaller and smaller, so did surfboard fins as we started breaking our own speed barriers.

- What really interests me is, aside from all the technology and coefficients and scientific journals and findings…what is really cool about this are the feelings that come from fins. And how sensitive surfers are to those feelings. Those descriptions of how they feel: the second gears, the boosts, the flows….even the aeronautical engineer we were working with raised his eyebrows at how passionate surfers really are as test pilots, and how accurate their feedback is without realising it.

- Water will attach to a foil at a certain angle at the direction in which it flows. And once it gets outside the angle it breaks free and you lose your pressure difference. So it’s all about staying within that angle. And that’s why fins are toed in, to get the right angle of attack when you are driving through a turn. And this has a lot to do with that water moving up the face. Because even when a wave is not barreling, it’s still moving in a circular motion. Everything is circular out in the ocean. That’s where you really feel it, out in the middle of the ocean, where waves disappear under your feet.

- Fin placement is going in interesting directions. It has to be based around your centre of gravity and the fact that there is a lot of back foot involved. But with more foot movement happening again with all these airs, there may be an evolution at hand when it comes to new fin placement. But that means the board would have to change and… well, a lot of things would have to change…like common surfer attitudes of resistance to change.

- Every new surfboard design should come out with a dedicated fin design. Bottom line.

- Fins are a compromise these days in many ways. We only have small, medium and large, and then these things have to work in everything.

- Most surfers have one set of fins that they are putting in six different boards. Does that make sense?

- Even when we are trying to come up with new fin technology, we have a pull back that says to us: "I just need boardshorts, a board, and me"...and there is something beautiful about that.

- The ultimate test track for fins is not a perfect, long tubing wave. It’s a wave with a lot of variety. Beachbreaks are good for this: tubes, flat spots, long, short, fast, slow. You want it to be like an F1 track with straightaways, curves, hairpins. Of course there is also Jeffreys Bay...

- Testing in Kelly's wave pools? It’s going to be great when it comes to testing fins. To have something so replicable. Comparison variables with control elements.

- I don’t think of making fins as something for people to own. I think of it as something that will enhance their experience on Earth. And that is the real drive behind our technology. Creating a better experience for the surfer. And that’s real. Not marketing. Indonesia taught me that. As complex as fin technology is, it’s really a tool for simple pleasures. The pleasures that make the human experience worthwhile.

- Indonesia changed my life. It set me on the path I am on. I traveled a lot of Indonesia overland well before the boats were going and that was a life-changing way to travel. We camped at HT’s. Camped on people’s floors. The whole experience, from the ferries to the dugout’s…seeing entire villages flee because they thought we were white ghosts. And every night eating with families on the floor. When I came back from that trip my life was different. It taught me that happiness comes from experience. Not from what you own.

// MATT GEORGE