D3 lower wing placement

[jayski]

Has anyone tried moving the wing to the lower/back placement on the fin? what is the theory of this?

[ForrestGump]

The lower the wing is mounted on the fin, the more of an effect it has. The wing becomes the pivot point. The perpendicular distance between the wing and the ski axis is the moment arm. As you lower the wing, the moment arm becomes longer therefore increasing the torque imparted into the ski length. I was half asleep and probably still drunk during that class, but that's about the gist of it. Also, the farther back the more force is applied.

[SkiJay]

I played with this on the Z7st. Mounting the wing in the low-back placement at the same angle gave the wing a longer leverage arm making it more effective. It put more tip in the water with no noticeable change in drag. It made the offside turn easier, but it slowed down the onside turn. I think this was because when the wing is mounted higher on the fin, one side of the wing is in the turbulent "shadow" of the water beside the fin while it is drifting around an onside turn; when mounted lower, a lot more of the wing is exposed to clean water-flow when the ski is up on edge and drifting, effectively increasing the surface area of the tail of the ski. Have you tried it?

 

It also made using most of the commercial fin protectors impossible.

[jayski]

@SkiJay no I haven't tried it yet, ski is pretty awesome as it is right now, working really good but I look at it everytime I ski though and it tempts me...

 

maybe I need to find a super thin backing plate and have one half of the fin in the lower placement for my offside and the other in the normal place for my onside???

[SkiJay]

Haha! Someone MUST have tried that. It would certainly look wacky, a kind of "I see your ventral, and raise you an asymmetric wing" play.