Hey Everyone
Just got KD marlin tail and foil parts long fuse. I’m using Lift HA 170 and 120. Any suggestions for using shims? Was thinking .5 or 1 degree shim. Lifting the back of the tail up. Hopefully get a little more front foot pressure?
Also there’s a couple of shims doesn’t look like any angle should I put those in between fuse and tail? Dampen vibrations?
Thanks
Have a good one!
Totally depends on your desired feel and your preferred foil position. I ride the Marlin with the Unifoil gear and use a 0.5 degree positive shim (more front foot). The Lift gear I’ve been on is all very back footed, so you might want more shim than that.
Sometimes people use zero shims just to seat the tail better, but if you are talking about the KD shims, then they aren’t really going to do anything. Most of the Foilparts adapters have a flat mount (I haven’t used the Lift one, but I’m assuming its the same) and the contoured surface of the KD tails won’t sit flush. Those thin zero shims aren’t really going to fix that and I just try to tighten the bolts evenly so that the tail isn’t pitched one way or the other. Foilparts makes some contoured shims to seat Takuma tails onto flat mounted fuselages, but the contour doesn’t match KD tails (I’ve tried). –
@KDW maybe make a contoured shim for your tails 
.
BTW, the 14" Marlin is by far my favorite all around tail these days. In my opinion it does just about everything well. The only time I don’t use it is if there’s a lot of power and I want to purposely slow things down (its fast). Im sure it will go great with the Lift gear.
On the last Zane Westwood episode he talks about tuning the marlin with lift. He was saying negative for downwind. But lots of detail in the show.
I’d recommend top mounted with 0° on the 120 and 0.5° for more front foot pressure on the 170.
When we push for speed downwind we like to take around 0.5° out and just deal with the reduced stability. Most riders are probably faster with the additional comfort.
I find top mounted on the lift makes the ride more stable and controlled, with negligible impact on drag. I suspect this is due to wake interaction with the front wing, stability of the connection, or both.
The shims may look like no angle but there is a slight amount. It’s amazing that you can feel an angle that is almost invisible to the eye! The small ones should be 0.5° and 0.25°. Sounds like I need to sprayed the shims to show the thick side more clearly.
Thanks for the quick answers!! Muchly appreciated. Super excited to give it a go.
Just tried the Marlin 14 for the first time yesterday but with the Lift 150hax (winging, 4.5, tiny board, 87Kg). Only reference so far is the 26 carve w/ extender and an Axis 350p. Going directly from the 26 carve to the Marlin 14 (Foil parts long, middle position, 0 shim), the Marlin is tuned a hair faster but was easy to get used to (26 carve is already really fast). Within five minutes I’d decided this is it and I wouldn’t even shim it either way. Took a break, then went out with it in forward most position. Unfortunately it was a dying breeze but in general pitchy-er than I prefer and no real benefit for our conditions. Stall speed in both positions was better than I expected and right in there with the 26 carve. The 150hax seems super turny for a 99cm span wing so middle position for the Marlin on the FP adapter is just fine. The 26 carve w/extender is still pitchier than I’m used to (Go Foil 850ha/14.5ftl) so can’t imagine using it w/out the extender (for what purpose?). The Axis 350p has potential but… it’s severely hydrodynamically handicapped by the way it has to be mounted. Built a little fairing for it but haven’t tried it yet (projects 
).
Kind of a lot of variables in this game…
Looking forward to trying the Marlin in some real wind with the 3.5 and 2.8 (maybe Sunday). Nice work Kane!
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Are you running the fuse as a top or bottom mount?
I got a 14 Marlin for my Axis fuse. It rips. It is more slippery than the Axis progressives. So far I have run it with zero shim and bsc 890. This was the most fun I have had on the 890. Super loose and slashy but great low end glide. I then tried with HA wings 1099 and 1201 and it was pitching nose down a bit so threw in a 1 deg and everything leveled out. This tail holds speed really comfortably. I used it on a flatwater paddle us with the 1201 and it worked great. Nice job Kane!
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Nick- terminology is becoming muddled on the forum such that I no longer know which way is up 
I’m assuming bottom mount means fuse mount facing down (as per Kane’s website). Adapter mount facing down is the best way to mount a marlin.
Whereas for an Axis fuse the marlin is a top mount, see above pic of FoilyMcLipshitz (best username ever 
)
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Here’s my 2 cents on the Marlin tail. Have done 1 big downwinder on it. Started off light conditions so went for the lift ha 170. Marlin 14, foil parts long fuse. And .5 degree on back tail. Took a bit of getting use to, compared to the carve 26 or glide 25. Pop up; felt like I need more front foot pressure/ slightly more weight forward starting out, compared to other setups. 1st time on it so didn’t know pump cadence. Which resulted in 3 falls or loss of flight. So I was a bit of work and getting use but that’s to be expected. If I was smart I would have winged with it first.
Conditions continued to pick up. I liked the control and locked in feeling. Made it a lot easier to control when foil was at the top end of its speed. I could relax a little bit more. Looking forward to spending more time on it. All in all was good. Was hoping to get 50km run but body couldn’t handle it. Did 35 though. If interested here’s the link to my YouTube quick clip.
Thanks again for all the input and help!
@Greatlakeswaterman are you bottom mounting? If so, and you are putting .5 degrees to the rear you are flattening the tail out (less) front foot pressure, because there is some angle built in. Right @KDW ? Pretty sure anyway. I sometimes do a .25 to the rear to flatten, but often run it flat when I am bottom mounted.
Haven’t run it top mounted yet.
Hey Shep! I have it top mounted the same as in the picture of foiltmclipshitz (brilliant name) Post 7 on this thread. With the .5 degree to the rear. KD had post earlier in the thread and that’s I how understood it. Am I right? At the end of the session 170 was max out speed wise…. Looking forward to the next big wind
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@Greatlakeswaterman, It appears that you will get more surface contact between the FP adapter and the top of the Marlin if you turn the adapter over and bottom mount it (less flex). Then you would need to possibly at least reverse your shim BUT… bear in mind that the top and bottom of the tail wing are not parallel to each other so measurements will be required. something to look forward to or dread 
Agree that it really shines in the top end of the speed range. I tried all three positions fore and aft and settled on the middle (can’t remember why though…) all with 0 shim bottom mounted, 150 HAX up front. (all in 4.5 winging conditions)
We just had three days in a row of flapping 2.5 winginging conditions with 50+ gusts and I went back to the 26 carve w/ extender. Fell back in love with the setup and unfortunately didn’t try the Marlin through the period. Should have similar today so will give the Marlin another try in the higher winds.
Just noticed the post from KDW above where he suggests TOP mounting the Marlin so Just took some measurements top vs bottom mount. Top mounted my Marlin will have a built in (positive angle, lift inducing angle, tail of the tail wing higher, whatever we’re calling it). The tail of the tail wing is Approx. 4mm higher than the center of the LE.
Bottom mounted the trailing edge is only 1mm higher that the LE, that’s a huge difference in built in angle.
It does appear though that the flat ground into the bottom of the Marlin is better suited to being in contact with flat mount adapters so top mounted may provide less flex “IF” you’re happy with that much positive angle (I’m not). As soon as you add a stock shim you’re back in the same boat of relying on screw tension for a solid connection.
Thus… I’ll stick with bottom mounting with no shim which should be considerably faster and have good surface to surface contact for stiffness.
Edit: Broke out the electronic level and modelling clay for better quality measurements and I’m still getting a solid 3mm difference between top and bottom mount (bottom mount tuned faster).
I see no instance of Kane “top” mounting a Marlin on his instagram (except for the Reedin stuff) and his personal best Maliko referenced above (scroll 3-4 pics to the right) it is clearly bottom mounted (note the curvature of the tips in that photo, the foil is upside down). The chewing gum fairing must be the secret to his speed!
Starting to wonder if we have the top/bottom terminology issue rearing it’s ugly head
I got my Axis marlin a few weeks ago. Kane said that it hadn’t really been released yet. There’s only one way to mount it on the Axis fuse. Its the best tail I have ridden.
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Yes if your top mounted, missed the picture, you are right. Sorry about that! Have you tried the “R”? For me so run the M almost every day (Maui) and the R when it gets light.
Well this changes everything lol. I did think it was feeling little slow. Had it upside down with 4 degrees of angle.
Shep when you put “M” and “R”. You mean middle and rear?
One last question, I’m using a the foil parts long fuse adapter. I have a gap at the joint between where fuse meets the front wing. It’s small like 2 mm but doesn’t seem right.? Anyone else have this. How’s their adapter work?
Thanks
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No “M” is the Marlin, “R” is another tail that Kane sells.
@GLW, give it a try winging rather than committing to whole DW supfoil run. Wouldn’t worry much about the little gap, as long as there’s no play in the joint (mine came with a little metal shim tape).
Btw, I am not sure what the 3mm different tail angle equates to in “degrees”, best guess would be about 1.5°.
Other considerations The mounting surface of my foil parts long adapter is NOT perfectly flat along its length so angle may vary a little depending on front, middle or rear most position (now it’s just getting tedious).
Great wing session yesterday with 2.8/3.5 comparing the 26 carve + extender and the Marlin (bottom mounted, 0 shim, mid position). Pretty much as expected for the +/- 1" difference in fuse length. Speeds felt pretty comparable though the marlin is more comfortable at higher speeds. Did a 5 mile upwind and downwind run on the Marlin setup and it’s just effortless gliding (whatever tail you put on the 150hax it’s basically making this game a little too easy).
The stock tail probably better suits my style though with it’s higher energy pitchy-ness and ease of harder tighter carves. It’s also less likely to breach the tail being shorter which happened several times with the Marlin setup. Would be interesting to see how the Marlin behaves at a similar fuse length.
I’m gonna try speeding it up .25° today as per Shep’s post.