Tail blow out

[disland]

What causes offside tail blow out? Seems sometimes I can get away with a hard turn and other times the tail blows

[gregy]

@skijay talks about the effective fin area decreasing as the ski rotates more. What are you feeling?

[Jordan]

@SkiJay

[disland]

Close, Ran some video and the chest is slightly down in pre turn causing too much tip engagement

[SkiJay]

@disland Contrary to popular belief, blowing the tail usually ISN'T caused by the fin being too shallow. Blowing the tail on the off-side is usually a function of a late, narrow pre-turn into a fast, forced turn.

 

Too much speed makes the ski ride higher in the water with the tail closer to the surface. And there's usually too much speed because of a late, narrow approach into the ball. This narrow approach makes it necessary to rotate the ski more around the ball in order to complete the turn with decent angle. A higher rotation rate requires more smear, and the more the tail of the ski smears, the more the ski's roll angle causes the tail to ramp itself up towards the surface.

 

To make matters worse, the only way to make the ski smear more on the off-side is to engage more tip. And when you think of the ski as being a bit like a teeter totter, then when you drive the tip deep into the water, the other end of the teeter totter (the tail) is levered upwards even more.

 

The main reason grabbing for the handle and/or over rotating the shoulders through the turn is often cited as the cause of a tail blowout is because aggressively rotating the upper body yaws a lot of tip into the water ... teeter tottering the tail of the ski out of the water.

 

The fix is skiing wider and earlier, so the speed at the ball is lower, the ski has already rotated through some of the turn before arriving at the ball, and moderate tip-engagement is all that's needed to finish the turn with a reasonable amount of smear.

[Bill22]

Thanks @SkiJay I have been curious about this too.

[disland]

@SkiJay Thanks, yes late narrow because poor stack out of previous buoy. Makes sense :-)

[skialex]

If this is not a technique issue I would look for a boot/fin adjustment and I would asses first my onside turn, to much angle early out of the buoy could lead to bad stuck narrow/fast approach towards the offside. Also a very slow turning onside makes you loose ground too.

If your onside is great and still having issues check your front boot placement, fin area and turne them if needed.