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Who cares about repairing the rips in the fin, it's not worth the effort, those fins are a consumable item on these boats. Think of them as the same as tires on your car, they wear out and have to be replaced once in a while. Look at how stretched out the trailing edge is. The fins are hydrofoils, the natural flexability of the material is what creates the lift required to propel the boat, thats just the way they work. Over time the material gets tired and stretches out, and the fins are no longer able to create the correct geometry. This is just a guess but I would estimate the fins in the pic are only half as efficient as new fins. Just buy new fins and put them on, it's like night and day difference in peddling effort/actual propulsion force.
Using mirage drives is a learned art, you kind of need to develop very light feet, where if the fin does touch the bottom, the very worst thing you can do is to try to pedal thru it. You have to stop, and reverse carefully, the go to shallow pedal mode until you are clear of the shallow. Sometimes you have to physically get out of the boat to get the fin out. If you try to pedal thru or continue peddling you are just destroying the fin.
If you regularly go thru oyster beds (like we do), it's pretty easy to just go to Lowes and get some 3/4" or 1" wide x 1/16 thick aluminum cut a 2-3 inch piece then simply fold it over the leading edge on the tip of the fin. You can glue it down with any old tennis shoe type repair glue (I think it's called goop). You can also cover it with several layers of 3m black electrical tape (only 3m, no off brand, and make sure it's black). The fin material is the same type of plastic (tpe) that tennis shoes are made from.
By doing this you increase the survivability of the fin by 20 fold, obviously that prevents the fin from tearing, but it's your light feet (a learned art), that prevents bending the stainless rods. Slight bends on the rods can be easily straightened a few times, but each time they bend they get weaker. If you have bent the rods several times and straightened them, it's probably time to buy new rods (I always carry 1 or two spares (usually older rods that have been replaced previously are my spares (they get me home).
Once the trailing edge of the fin gets all stretched out like in you pic, it's simply not worth trying to repair the fin.
Since you have to replace the fins anyway, I would definately get the upgrade kit to upgrade to the big turbo fins, you get new rods with the kit, it's only a few bucks more, but boy is it worth it.
Hope this helps
FE
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