Mandala Custom Shapes and the Dynamics of the Twinzer Fin Setup
Mandala Custom Shapes is the brainchild of Manny Caro, a surfer and board builder currently out of San Diego, California. He and his wife Christine Brailsford Caro of Furrow Surfcraft build boards in the legendary Moonlight Glassing factory.
In this video, Manny breaks down the origins of the Twinzersurfboard/fin setup and his relationship with inventor Wil Jobson. The twinzer is a dynamic design concept intended to solve the issues of the original twin fin. Watch the video to find out more!
The Mandala Twinzer
Twinzer
- Front Fins
HEIGHT: 2.85” / 72 mm
BASE: 2.94” / 75 mm
AREA: 6.07”² / 39.16 cm² - Back Fins
HEIGHT: 4.94” / 125 mm
BASE: 4.83” / 123 mm
AREA: 16.79”² / 108.32 cm²
Designed by Manny Caro of Mandala Custom Shapes, this twinzer fin setup has been a part of his go-to arsenal for quite some time. Manny's pursuit and interest in the twinzer design has been alive for a while - which has positioned him ahead of his time as the rest of surf world currently seems to be catching on to the twinzer craze. As an understudy of Wil Jobson (the master and guru of the twinzer design), Manny worked hard to refine what is now his staple twinzer offering that provides balance, synergy, power, and release. The desired function and feel of a proper twinzer will provide the feeling and freedom of a twin, turn like a thruster, and won't feel too tracky or sticky like a quad might sometimes. The front canard fins will break the water tension allowing more aggressive angles of attack, sharper turns, and more fluidity.
- Pairs well with a wide variety of Twinzer board designs - performance shortboards, fish shapes of all sizes, mid-lengths, and longboards
- Front FCS Canards have no angle and should be paired with appropriate FCS plugs that do have angle built in
- Rear Futures base fins are 6.5* with a flat inside foil
- Solid fiberglass construction, flat matte finish
Twinzer Collection
"It makes a lot of sense to take a twin fin and make it more efficient by adding the canard fin"
Wil Jobson is quite the character. Manny describes him as "Albert Einstein trapped in the body of Popeye. He's very much savant, genius level when it came to anything...he could take a tool, modify it to his specs, and it would be something completely new and unique to him." Wil introduced the Twinzer back in 1988 intending to revitalize the twin fin - which had been put on the back burner in the early 80's due to the rapid acceptance of the thruster setup.
With a twin fin, there is an area of high pressure on one side and low pressure on the other side, and that area of low pressure, on the foil side, is where cavitation can occur. By adding surface area, a fin can be made more efficient and more drivey while also reducing cavitation. Instead of adding more surface area to the twin fin, Wil Jobson decided to put a lead fin in front of it, where the high-pressure side of the lead fin is pressing and directing water to the low-pressure side on the main fin, making that fin more efficient. With the drag of a big fin taken away, the main fin surface area can be reduced and there is also freedom to make it more upright and pivoty. Wil was surfing really clean point waves where he wanted speed, flow, and power. The twinzer setup provided more of it than the traditional twin fin setup.
Golden Ratio Proportions
To Manny, golden ratio relationships are the natural expression of the universe, where natural forms usually find their way in golden ratio proportions. When putting the specs into his own Mandala Custom Shapes Twinzer set, he took the lead (canard) fin and the main (rear) fin base area, rake, and height and made them all phi, and then one over phi so the two fins would have a golden ratio relationship in terms of scale. To his surprise, when he reverse-engineered Wil’s fin placement for the twinzer setup, the spacing off the rail and the spacing between the fins were golden ratio proportions. Magic!
