Mick Fanning’s Discreet Carbon Skegs

All black fins are a rarity in this modern surfing market. Every surfer, designer, and producer has their own play on the performance aspects of a fin, but even more so, there’s an exorbitant amount of colour schemes and art gracing every set of ‘high-performance’ fins on offer.  

Now we’re not saying there’s anything wrong with having a scintillating colour combo, but not everyone wants to draw attention to their board’s under garments. For most of us, our fins won’t be leaving the face of the wave anyway, so why not opt for something a touch more discreet? 

FCS’ new set of Mick Fanning fins meet these requests and then some.

And by ‘then some’, I mean tech.   

The kind people at FCS are calling them Neo Carbon.

‘Neo’ because they’re, you know, new, and ‘carbon’ because they’re umm, a carbon construct.   

For the last few years carbon has been the cornerstone of every shaper’s newest model, but this is one of the few times the material has been translated to fin construction. 

Carbon – as we’ve claimed many times before – has an ‘unparalleled weight to strength ratio’, or in normal language, is light and strong. These fins retain the typical stiffness and responsiveness of the MF Carvers and also have a ‘whipping effect in smaller waves whereby they propel from one turn into the next,’ as Mick Fanning puts it. 

And this isn’t just us talking out of our arse either. I have a set sitting on my desk as I type which are noticeably lighter to the touch than any other set we found laying around our Bondi box. Plus, they went well on our aquatic lunchbreak.

Mick’s tripping on why he didn’t think of this colourway earlier too.

Photography

FCS

As far the fin’s shape goes, it’s a standard MF carver template; Good for laying rail on the open face, drawing long lines, and generally doing what Mick does best on a wave.

Mick says that these are his go to “when the waves are softer and smaller. [As they give him] the security and control I need, and a burst of speed through turns which is great for fast, energetic surfing.” But it’s worthwhile questioning what measurement system Mick is running off, because the above clip isn’t exactly what we’d call the ‘soft’. The fins were designed with smaller waves in mind but translate surprisingly well into waves well into the six-foot range. 

The most surprising aspect however is the price. So much so that I emailed FCS to double check they weren’t tripping.

Fortunately, they weren’t. 

A mere $120 Australian. A good $40 or so cheaper than the next ‘performance’ based fin, and a far cry from the cheaper plastic alternatives that come stock with some boards. 

Oh, and they look fucking mental!

If you feel like treating yourself, then slide, browse, and buy over here. 

If not, then watch (and no doubt re-watch) the above two minutes of Mick tearing the bag.