Busting your fins out the lip

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25. Throwing the fins out

taj burrow fins out

Also known as busting the fins out, Getting Loose, Blowing the Tail and a Waft, this move is a variation of a Reo (off the lip) with a whole new level of excitement that will make your surfing feel alive and on fire!
To throw the fins out you have to head for the lip slightly higher than you would do for a normal Reo and do your turn slightly later, this allows your board to travel higher out the top of the wave so when you do your turn your fins come flying out the water and out the top of the wave making your board go completely loose and railslide along the lip. The key to pulling this move is bust your fins out the top of the wave so your board has no stability in the water but remain in complete control of the turn from start to finish! By remaining in control is what makes this move look so radical and explosive.

Lets go through the steps of how to nail this turn!
First if you are trying these you should be able to throw down stand Reo’s time and time again. So what you need to do for starters is find a wave that is well set up for a Waft. A crumbly lip is a pretty good section so onshore winds can help a great deal with pulling this move. If you try it on a pitching hollow section chances are you will get smashed at the bottom of the wave.
You need a decent amount of speed to pull this turn, if you haven’t got much it makes it very hard to properly throw the fins out and re-enter back into the wave.
So your racing down the line and you see a nice crumbly lip ahead of you, do a solid committed bottom turn, so get low and come off the bottom hard, the more drive you get off your bottom turn, the harder you will be able to hit it the lip.
As your going up the face after your bottom turn you want to make sure you are over your board, you need to get your body in the right shape to re-enter back into the wave once you have hit the lip so open your shoulders up.
As your board hits the lip this is where it’s all to play for. As your board hits the lip you need to twist your body round and kick that tail out. The feeling you are looking for here is to go weightless, Its probably going to take you a number of attempts to get the timing right before you start to feel that weightless feeling. If you turn off the lip too late then you will fly out the top and land flat on your back, too early and you will get stuck up in the lip.
When you do hit in the right place the nose of your board will be pointing straight down the wave towards the beach and your tail will be pointing straight up at the sky with your fins out the top of the wave, the only stability you have got is that the middle of your board and rail will be on the lip. When in this position the wave has a lot of the say as to how controlled you will re-enter back into the wave and how controlled you do it. The more you get in the position of throwing your fins out the top the more you will understand how to control your board as you come back into the wave.
Once you have started pulling these of you can add a little more spice to the move by grabbing your rail as you hit the lip and throw your fins out.