"Noserider fin" and "pivot fin" are sold to you as two different things. They are not. True Ames describes its Heritage as "our take on a classic Pivot-style fin" and "built for noseriders" in consecutive bullet points on the same page, because to them those are the same sentence. Our own shelf files it the same way: eight single fins are tagged pivot and five of those eight are also tagged noserider, including one literally called the Velzy Noserider.

That is not sloppy tagging. It is the correct answer wearing a confusing label. A noserider fin is a pivot fin. What actually separates the 74 longboard-depth single fins in this shop is two axes nobody puts on the box: how far behind the base the fin's area sits, and how much the thing bends. The D-fin silhouette, the decade the outline is from, the name on the panel — decoration on top of those two numbers.

Neither of which, as it turns out, True Ames publishes.

This guide is about fins 9" and deeper. Under 9' of board, go to the mid-length post instead — the ladders and the reasoning are different down there.

What the fin is doing while you're standing on the nose

Walk forward on a log and you take your weight off the tail. The board is held down at the front and lifted at the back, and the only thing stopping the tail sliding out from under the wave is the fin — working, for the first time in the ride, without a human over it.

That is the whole problem. A fin that holds beautifully while you stand on it can let go the instant you leave, because what holds the tail is not your weight — it's the fin's area working against sideways flow. Two things decide whether it can: how much area there is, and where that area sits relative to the base. The second matters more than anyone tells you.

Upright fin. The area sits more or less directly above the base, so the center of pressure — where all that sideways force effectively acts — stays close to the box. Push the tail sideways and the fin resists immediately, right where it's bolted in. The board rotates around a point near the tail. That's a pivot: fast, tight, and it plants the tail hard enough to stand on the nose.

Raked fin. The tip sweeps back, so a big share of the area sits behind the base and the center of pressure moves aft of the box. The fin still resists, but now with a lever arm — the force applied a long way back from where the board wants to rotate. The tail doesn't snap around; it swings. Turns get longer, and you get drive down the line, because a raked fin at a small angle of attack is doing something closer to what a wing does.

That is the whole spectrum. Upright plants, raked draws out. Noserider, pivot, D-fin, classic, traditional — every one of those words describes the same end of it.

One thing that does not change: where the box is. It's routed into your board at a fixed distance from the tail and no fin will move it. Any advice telling you a fin "sits further back" is describing your board, not your purchase.

The spec sheet that isn't there

Go to True Ames' single-fin catalog — 113 products, and 89 of the 108 single fins in this shop — and read the spec.

There isn't one.

We went through all 113 pages. The word "area" appears on 46 of them. Zero publish an area figure. The word "rake" appears on 55. One publishes a number. The word "base" appears on 55. Six publish a figure. No page in the catalog uses the word "cant" at all.

So The Slick is sold as "moderate area, moderate base, and relatively pronounced rake," with no number behind any of the three words, and the Velzy Classic gets "pronounced rake, minimal area, wide base, and stiff foil" — four adjectives, four blanks. Not one careless page: the format of the whole catalog, and the reason every longboard fin looks like every other one when you are trying to choose.

What is published is depth, on 104 of the 113 — the other nine are Jeff Canham's one-off art fins, sold with no size at all. That's the whole spec sheet, and the least informative of the three dimensions.

The variables

Depth and base are the inputs. Rake and flex are the two axes they produce, and the two you are actually choosing between.

Depth is the number you're given, and the weakest one

A 9.5" fin and a 9.5" fin can be entirely different amounts of fin. Depth tells you how far into undisturbed water the tip reaches, which matters most when the tail is unweighted and much less the rest of the time. Use it for the coarse decision and stop — and the coarse decision is about as precise as anyone gets. Across 113 pages True Ames names a board length for four fins, only two of them longboard fins: the Nat Young, "an ideal pick for boards in the 9' – 9'6" range," sold at 9.5" and nothing else, and the Pavel Powerglide at 9.6", "a wide variety of boards in the 9' - 10' range." Everything else you match by eye.

Depth does set the price, though, on True Ames' standard solid-fiberglass ladder: $99.50 at 9.0", $103.50 at 9.5" and 9.75", $107.50 at 10.0", $111.50 at 10.3" through 10.75". Fourteen different products share the $99.50 at 9.0"; fifteen share the $103.50 at 9.5". On that ladder the template is free — picking the right one instead of the familiar one costs you nothing. Not everything is on it, and the roster says by how much each time something sits above: Volan, the CI Noserider, every Gato Heroi.

Base width is what you're actually buying, and six fins publish it

Base is the width of the fin where it enters the box. It sets how much area sits low and forward, which is what plants a tail, and it governs how the fin loads: a wide base is a stiff structural root, a narrow base is a spring. Six of True Ames' 113 single fins publish one — six designs across seven listings, since the Troy Elmore Flex is listed twice:

Fin	Published base
D-2	9.75"
Fantastic Acid Vee Bottom (Volan)	9.25"
Troy Elmore Flex (Volan)	8"
Pavel Broad Range	7.175"
Fantastic Acid Wide Base (Volan)	6 7/8"
Derrick Disney Farm Single	5 7/8"

Everything else gets an adjective. The L-Flex goes furthest with it: the 9" and 9.5" sizes come in a wide "W" version where, in True Ames' words, "the base is a bit longer for added stability." They will sell you a wider base and will not tell you how much wider. (Both W sizes are out of stock in every color, so the question is academic for now.)

Rake, and the one fin in a hundred that gives you a degree

Rake is how far the tip trails behind the base, the most consequential thing about a longboard fin's outline, and there is exactly one number for it in the whole True Ames catalog — the Greenough Power Glide 45:

"The '45' in the name of this design refers to the rake which appears as if it is approaching a 45° angle (the actual rake is 32°, which is 9° more than its predecessor)."

A fin named for a 45° rake has 32° of rake and True Ames says so in the same breath, which is more honest than most of the industry manages. It also gives you the scale: 32° counts as a lot of rake, so the raked end of the spectrum sits in the low thirties and the upright end near zero, and nine degrees justifies a separate product. The Power Glide itself is a mid-length fin — 7.75" to 8.75", one of three in stock — so it is not a candidate for your log. It is simply the only calibration anyone gives you.

One brand does publish rake for longboard fins, in prose rather than degrees: Gato Heroi, with a base width and a base thickness alongside it. Sorted widest-base-first, it is the most instructive table in this shop:

Gato Heroi fin	Base	Base / tip thickness	Rake, as printed
D Fin	7.2–7.5"	15 mm / 8 mm	zero
P Fin	7"	14 mm / 7 mm	low to moderate
B Fin	6.6–6.8"	14 mm / 7 mm	low, tip ~3" behind base
L Fin	6.5–6.8"	12–13 mm / 6 mm	moderate
F Fin	6.5"	12 mm / 6 mm	moderate, tip ~5" behind base
Killer / OP Fin	6.3"	12–13 mm / 6 mm	low to moderate
T Fin	6.2–6.5"	13 mm / 5 mm	high, tip 6+" behind base
RK Rebel Kraft	6.0–6.25"	12 mm / 5 mm	moderate
C Fin	5.9–6.1"	10–11 mm / 4–6 mm	moderate

The widest-based fin is also the thickest and the only one at zero rake. The narrowest-based is the thinnest and one of the two called progressive flex. The middle is noisy — the T Fin has more rake than the F Fin on a narrower base and a thicker root — so this is a tendency, not a law. But the ends of it are the argument in this post, printed by somebody willing to print numbers: wide base, thick, upright and narrow base, thin, raked are the two coherent designs. Everything else is a blend.

Two caveats. The Killer and OP Fins publish identical specs down to the millimeter — one design, two listings. And those numbers come from our own product pages: Gato Heroi runs no public catalog, so, unlike every True Ames figure here, they cannot be checked against the manufacturer. You would want to know that.

Flex is three things at once and none of them is a spec

Flex is the most abused word in fin marketing, because it is not a property you can buy directly. It is the outcome of the foil, the section thickness at root and tip, and the material.

A flexing tip stores energy through the loaded part of a turn and hands it back as you unweight. Load the rail, the tip bends off, you get projection out of the turn. The other half of the trade is that the tip also lets go under sustained load at speed — it washes out drive exactly when you want hold, which is why a flex fin in overhead surf can feel like the fin isn't there.

Nobody publishes a stiffness figure. Not True Ames, not for any fin, in any construction.

Volan, and what the extra ten dollars buys

What True Ames publishes instead of a stiffness figure is a construction claim, printed verbatim on 13 of the 113 pages: "Our Volan panels are meticulously hand-laid and templated ensuring optimal weave orientation and superior strength, with flex coming more from the body rather than just the tip." A specific claim about where a fin bends, and the reason to buy Volan. Not on every Volan fin: 21 of the 113 are Volan and eight, including the Highliner Volan below, say nothing about it. Still not a number.

The price is $8–14 at longboard depths, same template, same depth, in the standard colors. One fin breaks that: the L-Flex comes in a seafoam grey at $89.75 at every depth, so against the L-Flex Volan the premium is $21.75 at 9.0" and $27.75 at 10.0", both buyable today. The Wayne Rich Highliner is $103.50 at 9.5" in solid fiberglass and $114.50 in Volan; at 10.0", $107.50 against $117.50. Small enough that if you like the way a fin bends, buy the Volan one and stop thinking about it.

The D-fin is not a noseriding requirement, and hasn't been since 1965

Here is the number this whole post is built to hand you.

The True Ames D-2 — the classic D-fin, the shape you picture when someone says "log" — is sold at 9" with a 9.75" base. The 9" is the size on our dropdown, because nothing in this catalog publishes a height. The 9.75" is True Ames', and they publish it only because they had to explain what they did about it: the base is so long they built an overhang into the rear of the fin to get it into a standard 10" box. "You may have to take out your fin box leg rope," they add, "but we know most D-fin riders do not use such newfangled attachments anyway."

Read the ratio anyway. The base is three quarters of an inch wider than the fin is deep. Thirteen longboard fins in this shop pair a published base with a depth on the size ladder, and the D-2 is the only one where the base is the bigger number. It isn't a big version of a normal fin. It's a different object — a wall, with almost all of its area low and forward of the tip.

Which does exactly what the mechanism predicts. It plants the tail like nothing else. And True Ames, selling the thing, tells you the price: "The full surface area of the D-2 allows for subtle directional adjustments, but the main attraction is the easy noseriding." Subtle directional adjustments. That is a manufacturer telling you their fin does not turn.

The surf world worked this out sixty years ago. Renny Yater took the D-fin in the mid-'60s and, in True Ames' words, "removed a healthy amount of area in the trailing edge in order to create a 'looser' ride" — the Yater Spoon. Dewey Weber did the same in 1965 with the Hatchet, which he called the Turn Fin before anyone nicknamed it. Its original template was 18" — True Ames' figure, "measured from leading edge to tip," which is not depth, and a reminder that the number on the box has not always meant the same thing. Sold here at 10.0" and 10.75".

Two of the most famous noseriding fins ever drawn are both subtractions from the D-fin, made because the D-fin wouldn't turn, and both noseride better than the thing they were cut from. The area they kept plants a tail. The area they removed fights a direction change.

So no, you do not need a D-fin to hang five. Buy one because you want an early-sixties board to look like an early-sixties board. That is a legitimate reason and it is the only one.

Buy instead what replaced it: the Heritage at 10.5", $111.50, "full of area and minimal rake," or the Channel Islands Noserider at 9.75", $113.50, which anchors the tail "without creating a heavy, clunky feel." Both plant a tail the way the D-2 does. Both turn. Both are in stock — which the D-2, the Yater Spoon and the Hatchet are not, sold out here in every size and color, all three.

The roster

74 of the 108 single fins we list are offered at 9" or deeper. Six pairs are one template in two constructions — the 4-A, Highliner, L-Flex, Flux, Skip Frye and CI Spicy each appear once in solid fiberglass and once in Volan — so it is really 68 distinct longboard templates, nine of which have nothing in stock in either construction. Prices and stock, 2 August 2026.

Plant the tail: upright, wide-based, minimal rake

Heritage — 9.75" $103.50, 10.0" $107.50, 10.5" $111.50. True Ames' in-house pivot template and the most committed one they sell, built for "classic style longboards that have some weight to them and wide square tails," in "knee to chest-high" surf. A specific board and a specific wave. Outside it this fin is too much — on a light modern log in punchy surf it feels like an anchor. The 10.5" is best stocked, 6 of 8 colors.

Tyler Warren Pivot — 9.75" $103.50, 10.25" $107.50, 10.75" $111.50, 8 of 9 in stock. "Broad base and upright profile," and the only fin in this group that reaches 10.75". The modern default.

Channel Islands Noserider — 9.75" $113.50, 10.25" $118.50, or $123.50 / $128.50 in the ironwood-burgundy-drift-blue panel. Every variant in stock — both depths, all three finishes. Devon Howard, Troy Mothershead, Chuck Ames and Wayne Rich, and quoted above for stating its intent more plainly than anything else on this page. About $10 over the ladder, and worth it.

The rest of the section is variations on those three, and a line each is genuinely all that separates them:

Wayne Rich Harmonic '67 — 9.75" $103.50 to 10.5" $111.50, 4 of 9 in stock. "Vast surface area" plus a swept back: a pivot fin with rake added, not a raked fin with area added. For a heavy board where you want a bottom turn with push behind it.
Yater Apocalypse — 9.5" $103.50, 10.0" $107.50, 3 of 6 in stock. "Plenty of surface area for noseriding, medium amount of rake for optimal pivoting." The middle of the group, and the safest pick.
The Slick — 9.0"–10.0", $99.50–107.50, all three in stock. A pivot fin with the anchor removed: "narrower base, an extended and narrow tip, and slightly less area overall." The bridge to the next section.
Velzy Noserider — 9.0"–10.0", $99.50–107.50, 3 of 9 in stock. Not what its name says: "relatively slender for a pivot-style noserider… minimal area for a looser ride." For a log that already noserides and you want to slide. Wrong fin if you can't hold the nose.
Hobie Legacy — 10.0" $109.00, 10.5" $113.00, both in stock. "A generous amount of base width" and "a large swept-back profile." Drop-knee turns on a heavy board.
Justin Quintal Cutty — 9.25", $103.50, one in stock. Upright entry, cutaway trailing half: nose hold without the trailing-edge area that fights a turn. The argument above, solved on purpose.
Nat Young — 9.5", $103.50, one in stock. Keyed by True Ames to boards of 9'0" to 9'6". If that's your board, this is the one fin here you buy without guessing.
Pavel Dynaflow — 9.8", $107.50, one in stock. "Flared base and an upright profile that quickly transitions into rake": pivot entry, raked exit, for a traditional log you want round turns out of.

The Troy Elmore Pivot and Tappy 1 (Volan) belong here and are sold out.

All-round: rake and area in balance

Wayne Rich Highliner — 9.0" $99.50, 9.5" $103.50, 10.0" $107.50, 10.3" $111.50, every variant in stock. "A unique blend of area, base length, and rake," and True Ames says it is "equally at home trimming, noseriding, or drawing powerful lines across the wave face." If any fin here earns the word versatile it is this one, and you can actually get the size you want. Also in Volan for $9–11 more at the three depths still stocked — the 9.0" Volan is out.

California Classic — 9.0" $99.50, 9.5" $103.50, 10.0" $107.50, six more depths below, 71 of 72 variants in stock. "Medium-sized profile and moderate rake… full foil and minimal flex." Not the best fin for any single job on this page. The best fin for not knowing which job you have.

Four more sit in the same territory and separate on stock and character rather than outline: the Pavel Powerglide (9.6", $107.50, one left — "a wide base and pronounced rake," drawn for 9' to 10' boards); the Barrett Miller Ace (9.5" $103.50, 10.0" $107.50, both in stock — "a great balance of base, depth & rake," and, unusually, an accurate description); the YU Freedom (9.75" $103.50, 10.5" $111.50, both depths in stock — "a stable middle-of-the-road approach," honest and also the reason to buy it or not); and the Velzy Classic (8.5"–10.0", $95.75–109.00, 4 of 11 — fast, springy, not enough fin to noseride).

The Greenough family has posts of its own and belongs to them; two notes only. The 4-A — nine depths, 68 of 87 variants in stock — is the default this shop reaches for when nothing else fits. And the Stage III (9.75" from $103.50, 10.5" from $111.50, all four in stock) carries a warning that belongs on the box: "this fin runs the entire length of the fin box, and does not accommodate adjustments or leash knots." Check yours first.

Loosen it up: flex

Troy Elmore Flex (Volan) — 10.0", $117.50, one in stock. One of the six single fins with a published base: 8". A wide root under a sensitive tip, and True Ames states the use case exactly — "if you're looking to loosen up your noserider with something other than a Pivot-style fin." Only sold at 10", so it wants a big board.

Farberow Flex — 9.0" $99.50, 9.5" $103.50, 10.0" $107.50, 12 of 15 in stock. The California Classic template with the foil thinned: "like the California Classic, but more foiled and with more flex." The same outline you'd have bought anyway, with spring in it, and the cheapest way to find out whether you like flex.

Two traps here. The Josh Farberow Pro Model (Volan) (9.0" $111.50 to 10.0" $117.50, all three in stock) looks like the Volan Farberow Flex and is a different template — Josh "started by increasing both the base width and rake" and thinned the tip foil. More drive, more nose hold, more money, and neither base published. And the Tyler Warren Flux (9.25" $105.00, 10.0" $109.00, 2 of 4 in stock) is two templates in one listing: True Ames says the 10" has more rake and more base than the 9.25", and has since split them into separate products. Size up here and you are changing fins, not depth. The Volan version is sold out.

L-Flex — 9.0"–10.0" and smaller, $89.75–107.50, 18 of 38 in stock. Greg Liddle, 1968, drawn for his modified-displacement-hull boards. For a hull or a board that trims forward. In a heavy square-tail log it will feel gutless.

Gato Heroi, from the table above: the L Fin ($123.00) is the all-rounder, the C Fin ($119–124) the flex fin, the T Fin ($120–121) the most raked of the nine, the D Fin ($118.00, the only price left on it) the zero-rake pivot. Those are payable prices, not list ranges: $10.50 to $23.50 over the nearest True Ames rung, and thin on stock — 2 of 27 D Fin variants, 7 of 39 C Fin.

How to choose

A heavy classic log with a wide square tail, and you want tip time. Heritage at 10.5", $111.50. Maximum area, minimum rake, and True Ames names your board and your wave in the product copy. Do not buy this for a light modern log — it will feel like you dropped an anchor.

A modern noserider you also want to turn. Channel Islands Noserider at 9.75", $113.50. About $10 over the ladder, and the design brief is exactly what you're asking for — nose hold without the clunk. Every size and color is in stock, which in this section is not a given: the Heritage is 10 of 24.

A log you like that won't turn. Change the fin, not the board. Troy Elmore Flex (Volan) at 10.0", $117.50, published 8" base under a flex tip, sold with a sentence describing your exact problem. If 10" is too much fin for your board, take the Farberow Flex at 9.5" at $103.50.

Classic outline, modern surfing, one fin for everything. Wayne Rich Highliner at 10.0", $107.50, or 9.5" at $103.50 for a smaller log. Four depths, every one in stock, and the only fin here True Ames claims is equally good at trimming, noseriding and drawing lines.

A Gato Heroi board. L Fin, $123.00, 6.5–6.8" base, moderate rake, drawn for the boards — and there is exactly one left, so if it has gone, the C Fin is the next fin along that ladder, $124.00 in six of the seven variants left.

You genuinely cannot tell. California Classic at 9.5", $103.50. The least exciting recommendation on this page and the right one: it sits in the middle of both axes and 71 of its 72 variants are in stock. Surf it until you can finish the sentence "this board would be better if the fin was ___". The word you reach for is one of the two axes above, and it is your direction — and since most True Ames templates share the $103.50 rung at 9.5", moving between them is close to free. Two on this page sit off it, and the roster says so: the L-Flex runs under the rung, the Velzy Classic a little over.

One thing to take away. A fin that noserides is a fin with a wide base and an upright profile. Not a silhouette, not a decade, and not a D-fin.

Sources

True Ames copy, size ladders and the six published base figures retrieved 2 August 2026 from the full 466-product products.json, filtered to the 113 carrying product_type: Single Fin. The D-2 base and the Power Glide 45 rake were checked against the rendered pages at https://www.trueames.com/products/d-2-fin and https://www.trueames.com/products/greenough-power-glide. Prices, stock and the Gato Heroi specs from our own catalog the same day. Full working on file.

Longboard Single Fins: What Pivot, Rake and Flex Actually Do and Which One Goes in Your Log