The Feathers Quad by Ellis Ericson
The Feathers Quad by Ellis Ericson and True Ames
Ellis Ericson designed The Feathers Quad using inspiration from the George Greenough Power Glide 45. The Feathers Quad incorporates a number of district features including a full leading edge that quickly transitions into a concaved inside foil. Built for speed, control and performance, the neutral elliptical shape of this design provides a high level of versatility.
Rooted in Edge and Power Blade
The Feathers Quad began with a familiar outline and a long relationship with how it moves through the water. The initial inspiration came from years of riding and refining boards influenced by George Greenough’s Edge Boards.
Ellis Ericson spent the good part of a decade experimenting with edge boards, mostly paired with the High Speed or Power Blade before inevitably helping create the Power Glide 45 after breaking a Power Blade through the deck of his board and continuing to ride it.
The Lite Kite
After feeling like he had reached his max on the edgboard trip, Ellis took what he learned, blended ideas from the modern take on surfing, and took the Y in the road towards developing what is now known as the Lite Kite.
The Feathers Quad
The Feathers Quad fins were the natural next step in the progression of the surfboard design. Leaning back into where it all started, Ellis took the head of the Power Blade and brought it closer to the surface of the board. Creating a template with a short base, compact footprint, and distinctive clubbed tip. There is so much going on with the surfboard; the goal of the fins was neutrality. Something responsive and lively without feeling forced, stiff, or overly directional.
Rather than reinventing the wheel, the Feathers Quad leans into familiarity, focusing on refinement instead of reinvention. Much of that refinement lives in the foil. An inside concave helps promote laminar flow, keeping water attached to both sides of the fin as it loads and releases through turns. Quad setups inherently introduce more surface area and more drag, so each fin needs to justify its place. The Feathers Quad was designed to stay engaged under pressure, providing feedback when pushed instead of feeling flat or passive. When all four fins are working together, the board feels energized rather than bogged down.
The Purpose of Quad Fins
Quad fins occupy a unique space in surfboard design. By eliminating the center fin and redistributing surface area across four smaller foils, quads reduce drag while increasing speed and drive down the line. They are especially effective at generating momentum in weaker or slopey surf, but their usefulness extends well beyond small conditions when the setup is balanced correctly, often used in bigger waves for more hold and drive than a thruster.
One of the defining characteristics of the Feathers quad is how evenly it engages. The front and rear fins have a very balanced flow in size and area distribution. This eliminates twitchiness as well as stiff, tracky feelings. The best quad designs find harmony between all four fins, allowing the board to accelerate easily while still offering control through longer, drawn-out turns.
Quads tend to favor flow over pivot, because of the elliptical template of the Feathers Quad, they buck the tide and offer more pivot than most other quads. Quads excel in boards designed to be surfed with longer lines, relying on rail engagement rather than abrupt direction changes. When paired with the right board, a quad setup can feel fast without being too loose, and controlled without feeling too restrictive. The Feathers Quad was designed with balance in mind, emphasizing drive, release, and consistency across a range of conditions.
