It’s summer, the time of year you might feel inclined to paddle out on your single fin or even on a mal on those small gutless days either because a) you’ve recently become conscious of your own horrible flapping and fish killing on your deep concave 6’1” or b) everyone else is, and are sitting twenty metres outside taking every damn bump coming through. If you’re surfing a board with a sliding fin box, even when you’ve tightened the screw as tight as you can by hand your fin might still be sliding back in the box, ultimately coming to rest in the very rear of the box – rendering your craft stiffer and less manoeuvrable. A simple solution to stop this is to cut up a can of Coke into two small strips that’ll fit alongside the fin in the box, padding it out (use aluminium can because it’s so lightweight – Diet Coke is even lighter!). Screw him up tight. Goodbye stiff straight lines, hello soul-arch bottom turns into carving 360’s inside the tube while 25 miniature technicolour dolphins spin in your bow wave whistling and clicking the chorus to Hummingbird’s ‘Island of Dreams.’