Future Surfboard Fins Or FCS Fins?

There is currently a great deal of debate brewing in the surfing world, a debate focused entirely on fins. Surfing enthusiasts and professionals alike are debating whether Future surfboard fins or FCS fins are the top of the industry now that the new Future fins have broken onto the marketplace and are growing more common.

This is not the first time surfers have faced this question. The FCS removable fins were once themselves the rebels of the industry, eventually overcoming the popularity of glass on fins to become the new industry standard for professional surfing. Granted many older surfers will still swear by their glass on fins, but the newer generations prefer the flexibility and performance of removable fins instead. The downside, however, is that in some cases FCS fins can rip out your fin plugs when they hit a reef or some sand on the way back into shore. Mind you, FCS argues that their fins snap right off without causing any problems, but the issue is common enough that Future Fins stepped in with a solution: a 1 screw fin that uses a slot to secure it, rather than the two tabs that FCS uses.

Future surfboard fins do have a lot of factors going for them at this time. The difference in design means that you don’t need to deal with the problems of more standard FCS fins if they snap. Plus the Future fins are manufactured out of a material called Black Stix that is surprisingly flexible and becoming widely loved by enthusiasts everywhere. The downside, however, is pretty significant: availability. Future fins simply have not caught on to the degree that FCS fins have, and thus it is quite simply more difficult to buy a board with the Future system installed. This one drawback has massive implications on the future of Future fins, as the only way to move forward and supplant FCS as FCS supplanted glass on is to make compatible boards far more commonplace.