Fin tuning in the modern era

[Horton]

Last year I mostly rode the Z7 and the Elite. Both skis a proportionally wider under foot then most high end skis from a few years ago. On both skis I found that fin set up was sometimes a little counter intuitive. My unconfirmed theory is that some of the newer skis have changed how we should adjust our skis.

 

I am just putting if out there. Not sure if it is true . . .

[skibug]

Seems as though everyone on these skis are running more shallow and way shorter; which, on a wider ski would seem counter intuitive.......just my untrained observations... 

[bmiller3536]

I do not think fin adjustments effect skiers equally and that is why it can be counter-intuitive.

 

Every skier has their own style and what may seem to help one person can cause another skier to get worse.

Fin adjustments are just there so we have something to blame for a bed week or two.

[DanE]

I´ve felt the same way about fin adjustments in recent years, thought it was just me and my weird skiing style.

Escpecially fin length, I don´t feel that making the fin longer puts more ski tip in the water on neither side of the course.

To achive that, I rather add depth and move fin back, maybe even make the fin a little shorter too.

[chris carter]

If you watched D3's stock settings change for the Z7 this year, and the "longest thread" on Z7 review, length did get shorter, shallower, and farther back. I have always liked a very long fin and forward to help get tip in the water and short to keep it close to my bindings, which was ony a bandaid fix for my crummy turns. Horton you are right, it did not work with the Z. I am now skiing the Z shorter, and farther back, with bingings a bit back. It is completely different than how I have set up skis before.......yet it took all summer bit by bit,...ugh.

[Gloersen]

Regarding the Elite, I concur; fin changes seem to yield results that are disparate from whatconventional dictum would predict. This seems most notable with regard tochanges in settings that would be most appreciable in the offside turn as wellas generating width. After getting the bindings where I think they should be,I’ve been all over the place with the fin on the 67†Elite.

At .795/2.508/6.835/8 wasripping pretty well, but too much handle control required, no room for evenmarginal separation, otherwise, heading back in & narrow to the ball,despite starting out quite wide. With “adequate†handle control could head to2B wide & early, initiate a strong offside/backside the 2B turn and rip,yet too many times would skip out the tail or get high-sided. One might thinktake out length or increase DFT to alleviate that (less tip pressure), butthose were the changes being made without success. So, based on “favoredâ€Âsettings in the blogs, went to .785/2.511/6.838/8 and offside turns are betterwith less tail slide and width is better both directions, even 1B turnssmoother and more angle off the ball (LFF); opposite result of what I wouldhave expected.

What may be a manifestation of less than ideal fin settings in these skis wider in the forebody; jumping on the front in the turns, especially offside, to compensate for the lack of tip pressure that otherwise would ensue from a more properly tuned fin. By “jumping†on the front in the offsidepre-turn the inside leading edge of the “wider†ski bites in a progressivelyasymmetric manner and the ski either finishes too strong and one getshigh-sided or the tail blows out. At first thought, one would think; finishingthe offside too strong or blowing out the tail equates to needing less finlength or moving it forward. Yet (at least for me) moving the fin back andadding length has improved the offside by permitting me to stay “balanced†onthe ski and still come out of the turn with good tip pressure and better angleas well as width.

I did not notice this on the A-1; it seemed to allow me to get away with jumping on the front and many timesI could pull off a “comeback†offside turn, but with the A-1, if the fin wasnot long enough, no matter how much I stepped on the front, it was difficult togenerate a decent offside turn. On the A-1 if I added too much length though, Iwould get robbed of width. The Elite does not seem to behave this way (myimpression is that Elite does not reward the technique of jumping on thefront); if the fin is not long enough or back enough, now and then some decent offsides could be obtained by pressuring the front, but waytoo inconsistent.

It could also be that somehave more roll stability being wider and thus the shallower fin settings may bepreferred. Using Approaches initially on the Elite, anything deeper than 2.508made edge change seem sluggish, but with Reflex seems like deeper does notnegatively affect edge change until about 2.512 (but water is cooler now).

Sure there is more to itall, but how “wide skis†affect the perception of fin settings & changes,IMHO.

[HO 410]

Your Ski as a Lever

 

You've made a significant change in the shape of the ski, I would expect that there is  a significant change in the way the ski needs to be balanced.