Doesnt look good but sure beats tearing the housing out of the board.
Bet the turtle wasnt too happy about being "clipped"

Ive repaired the grey weed fin, they appear to be only thermo glued in.

When re-boxing fins, the Select ones are the easiest to get the old bases of as the come of with a chisel rather than having to be ground of as the glue is very brittle.

A solid G10 base will hold up better.

Generally either the barrel nut strips or get ripped out of the fin.

If it all holds together after that then you'll most likely damage the fin box.

Give me "Elmo proof" over "bomb proof" any day

I totally agree with Barn and personally would rather have a fin break than slice a turtle in 2 or a box get ripped out. Select fins use a Conic box system which means you can interchange them e.g. Powerbox to Tuttle. No glue should really be used in this process as the fit up is as tight as a gypsies jatsie.
Makes it pretty pointless if u glue it up imo.

AB....

Yes they have changed the construction, it is now a moulded head like most other fins!

I have bought two select fins in the last 18 months. The finish on both was very poor. The first time I scored it down as a one off, but the second was so bad, it took a lot of machining to get it to fit into deep Tuttle, and the blade does not appear to be symmetrical , in fact the more I look the the less symetric it appears to be .... I have decided not to buy select again.

It weird they must be ok they seem very common and popular in Europe, but two for twos a bad score as far as I am concerned.

mkseven said...


Often it feels like a small impact cause of where you hit on the fin. Last turtle I hit was with a tuttle box select around the same vintage & it punched the fin through the back of the box (& moved the fin in the head) so they hold up pretty well.

Jeepers! how many have you hit?

DrJ said...

I have bought two select fins in the last 18 months. The finish on both was very poor. The first time I scored it down as a one off, but the second was so bad, it took a lot of machining to get it to fit into deep Tuttle, and the blade does not appear to be symmetrical , in fact the more I look the the less symetric it appears to be .... I have decided not to buy select again.

It weird they must be ok they seem very common and popular in Europe, but two for twos a bad score as far as I am concerned.

Must have bad luck, ive bought somewhere around 30 selects in the last 2 years. Apart from the us box ones they all fit perfect. Only 3 i think whistled, but i have later sanded trailing edge on all as the paint seems to be uneven along the trailing edge- all select slalom fins feel nicer with this done.

Not alot of fins are purely symmetrical, perhaps they warp slightly through curing or maybe through storage. All boards differ to with finbox fit, some brands paint box etc. With fanatic, f2, naish & mistral ive not had a problem- except as said with the us box.

Tuttle has parallel sides so even .1 of a mil oversize and it will need sanding, PB is tapered so .1 oversize and it would sit up probably .025 of a mil which is why PB's generally need little or no re-working to fit.

jsnfok said...

i have bought and tried many select fins and never really liked them, being super thin they could do with a layer of carbon on each side, but they make fantastic freestyle fins, just grab a 30cm and chop it [}:)][}:)][}:)][}:)]

Likewise. Don't rate their wave fins at all. Too thin and flexy, give me a G10 MFC any day

barn said...

I can't help but think the fin falling out is the best result for the turtle.. And for this reason I personally wouldn't want to replace it with something indestructible..

The ones that fall out easily are known as Turtle Box fins, and are designed that way specifically to cater for our wonderful marine life.

Original question was answered long before the "I don't like Select" comments started.

Select have improved alot in the last 2 years or so addressing many issues from finish to material used for their head. Since i've seen how much evolution their slalom fins has undergone I imagine their wave & freeride fins are the same.

Good threads will say what the fin was & what the findings are not a general "I dont like that brand cause of x"...

I dont like mfc cause they are slow
I dont like c3 cause they suck upwind (unless you use a size 3x bigger)
I dont like tectonics cause I wasted too much money on fins that didnt work
I dont like Select cause some were too stiff

I can go on forever, comments like the above aren't objective at all.

DrJ said...


So if you need a hand to climb down of that high horse, please feel free to ask.

Sure if you'd like to help

I value these opinions cos I'm trying to decide what fin to get for freeriding big sails and boards in the rough waters at the top end of Moreton Bay. If anyone has an opinion I'm all ears.

I don't like Select cos they have an uncool name and they have funny outlines and ALL the heads break off them.

(just thought you guys were now being too friendly, so poke poke )

The SRX freerace are quite stiff & for redcliffe personally i'd opt for a softer fin- I would chose an s10 (I think a bit more rake, bit more twist) over a srx freerace from what I have seen of the srx. The freeslam might be alright.

At the end of all that Redcliffe is probably one of those spots I'd choose a nice G10 fin over a select.