Asymmetrical Fins: How the Three Sets Differ and Which One to Buy

An asymmetrical fin set looks like a box of leftovers: one big fin, two small ones, no two alike, and a label that says Regular or Goofy as if fins had feet. If your board has an asym tail, the mismatch is the design — and the actual choice in front of you is three sets that look similar and ride differently. This post is about telling them apart.

The quick answer

Boxes first, feel second. Every set comes in a Regular and a Goofy version — buy your stance.

How an asym set works, in one minute

Your two turns are not the same turn. On your toe side you drive through the balls of your feet with your whole body facing the wave; on your heel side you push back through your heels. Same rail pressure, different lever. Carl Ekstrom patented the asymmetrical surfboard on exactly this observation — filed 1965, granted 1967 — to "compensate for the offset weight distribution of a rider in normal stance" and give the board "substantially equal turning ability in either direction."

The fins split the same way. The toe side gets one larger fin — twin-fin sized — because a toeside turn can load a big fin and wants the drive back out of it. The heel side gets two smaller fins — a quad-style pair — because a heelside turn is shorter and more upright, and two small fins release into a pivot where one big one would track. Drive on your toes, quickness under your heels.

That's the whole trick, and it's why the set is stance-specific: mirror the board and the big fin ends up under the wrong rail. Regular if you surf left-foot-forward, Goofy if right-foot-forward. Nothing else about the choice changes.

One number you will not get from anyone: cant. It's set by the boxes in your board, not by the fins you drop into them, so no figure here would mean anything.

Three sets, three balances

All three sets publish their dimensions — height, base and area per fin, which almost no single fin gets — so the differences are measurable instead of vibes. The number that separates them is the heel-to-toe balance: how much area sits under your heels for every square inch under your toes.

Figures are the maker's, two reading notes ours: the two Lovelace heel areas are printed swapped on the asym pages (a 3.625" × 3.75" fin cannot hold 14.88 in² — that's larger than the rectangle it fits inside — and the same two fins are printed the other way round on the Piggyback Quad page), so the table uses the coherent reading. And the Album toe side's printed in² and cm² disagree with each other, so it appears as the range both readings allow. Neither issue changes any total or ratio.

Ryan Burch is the heel-biased one — a quarter more area under your heels than your toes, the strongest tilt of the three. The heel fins are Burch's paddle template: "a stubby outline, but the cutaway trailing edge opens up the fin in transition and on rail," per the product page, and this is the only set that publishes a foil — flat inside, all three fins. The character follows the numbers: the most drive-versus-release contrast between your two turns. We stock it in Futures only; an FCS version exists upstream but isn't on this wall.

Lovelace is the balanced one — 1.11, the closest thing to symmetry an asym set offers. The toe side is a small keel; the heel pair is, dimension for dimension, the front and rear of the Lovelace Piggyback Quad — so if you've ridden that quad, you already know what this heel side does. Its own page calls it "a friendly well-rounded asym set," which matches the geometry. The only set here in both box systems, and both stances in each.

Album carries the most heel area outright and the biggest total. Its heel pair is the front and rear of the Album Quad — identical height, base and area — and the toe side is a near relative of the Album Twin. It was drawn with Matt Parker for Album's own asymmetrical boards, and it reads as the plant-and-hold end of this shelf: the most fin in the water behind your heels. FCS only.

The recombination is worth noticing because it's the honest way to preview these fins: two of the three heel pairs are quad pairs you may have already ridden. The Burch heel pair is the exception — it matches no quad in the catalog. It's its own template, which is part of why that set feels the most different rail to rail.

All eight boxes on this wall are the same price — $133.50, 12 August 2026 — so price separates nothing here. Your boxes and your stance do most of the deciding for you.

How to choose

Your board is Futures. Burch or Lovelace. Take the Burch — Regular · Goofy if you want your heelside turn transformed — it has the strongest heel bias and the loosest heel templates. take the Lovelace — Regular Futures · Goofy Futures if this is your first asym set or the board is new to you — closest to balanced, nothing extreme to adjust to.

Your board is FCS. Album or Lovelace. Take the Album — Regular · Goofy for hold — the most heel area of the three, drawn for Album's own asym boards. take the Lovelace — Regular FCS · Goofy FCS for the same balanced reasons as above.

You can't decide. The Lovelace, in whichever system your board takes. It's the only set made for both, the nearest to balanced, and the one whose heel side you can literally try first by riding the Piggyback Quad.

Whichever you take, buy your stance, put them in, and pay attention to the turn you usually think about least — the heel side is where these sets earn the money, and it's the side you'll feel first.

Sources

True Ames product pages for all twelve asym SKUs, the Lovelace Piggyback Quad, the Album Quad and the Album Twin, read 2 August 2026 — heights, bases and areas as published there, with the two reading notes above. Carl Ekstrom, US Patent 3,337,886, "Asymmetrical surfboard" (https://patents.google.com/patent/US3337886A/en). Our catalog re-pulled 12 August 2026 (all eight SKUs, all $133.50). Working on file.