Lovelace Piggyback Keel

Ryan Lovelace's hybrid keel: a template sitting between a wide-based traditional keel and an upright performance twin.

The Piggyback Keel is Lovelace's attempt to bridge two ways of building a twin. A traditional keel has a long base and shallow depth and lives on drive; a late-'70s upright twin gives that up for turning off the tail. This one uses softer curves to sit between them, and Lovelace drew it for performance hybrid twin shapes rather than for a classic fish alone. Solid fiberglass, sold as a pair, in either fin system.

How that reads

Keel base under an outline that stands up more than a keel does: down-the-line speed and positive drive from the base, with more willingness to change direction than a full-area keel allows. It holds and stays stable on a fish, and it does not lock the board into one long arc the way a wide keel can.

Who it suits

Fish and performance-oriented twin shapes — the board that is somewhere between a fish and a shortboard, which is exactly the gap the template was drawn for. If the board is a straight-up fish ridden for trim, a full keel gives more drive; if it is a performance twin, an upright template turns tighter.

If this is not the one

Want a bigger, more upright Lovelace twin for a mid-length? The True Ames Lovelace FM Twin Fiberglass (Futures). Want the same thinking as a four-fin? The Lovelace Piggyback Quad (Solid Fiberglass).