Just an update for everyone. I went back to Jay again on some more big guy questions….I thought everyone reading this thread would like to see this Q&A.
I think Jay’s explanation makes a lot of sense. I know I understand better what is going on now.
My questions with a little background to Jay was:
A buddy of mine is now fully figured at about 280 lbs. He's a full and paid up member of the big guy club, I think he's a past president.
He, like a lot of big guys has a 71-inch Radar lithium senate. I've seen him ski off the dock into deep 35 and brain fart...as far as I could tell his technique was much deeper than his score. He was slightly lighter when I saw him ski probably about 240-250 lbs and he was skiing on a 69-inch Radar Senate. He had only one wing on his fin.
He's asking me about the turnability of the Whisperfin on a big ski.
Do you think he will need the 2-fin set up?
Do you set the fin differently for big skis that you want the most turn ability out of the ski since the ski is longer to begin with and long skis don’t turn as fast as shorter skis with everything else the same?
Do you have a lot of big guys using your fin?
My friend is a “fin tweaker”, and a passionate water skier. He just wants some more background on what to expect
Jay’s response by e-mail to me was:
There's no absolute answer to your questions because not all skiers ride their skis the same. But I definitely have a lot of big skiers using the WhisperFin because it makes any ski of any size turn easier, regardless of skier weight.
Big skiers tend to overwhelm the narrow, unsupportive tail of the ski, driving it deep into the water. This causes the tip to ride high making tip-engagement difficult. Without proper tip-engagement, the ski will always be difficult to turn. Moving the bindings all the way forward moves the skier's weight forward over the widest, most supportive part of the ski, improving tip-attitude and tip engagement. But the further forward we move, the longer the distance is from the bindings back to the tail, giving the tail more leverage against sliding (smearing). When the tail won't slide enough, the ski turns like a school bus.
Here's where the WhisperFin can help. To get the ski to smear nice tight radius turns with the bindings forward, the fin needs to be smaller. But reducing the size of a standard fin reduce acceleration. The WhisperFin's small surface area frees up the tail's ability to smear without losing any power to accelerate due to its patented turbulators.
If moving the bindings all the way forward still isn't enough to get the ski to ride with a low enough tip attitude, then adding a second wing to the fin can help level out the ski even more. When using two wings, the front wing should be parallel to the ski and you'll need to reduce the angle of the back wing too. Normally, a double wing setup adds enough drag that both wings should be run as close to 0° as possible. If more drag is needed to check speed into turns, then add a little angle to the back wing.
Two standard wings usually provide enough support, but you can experiment with the sizes of your wings to optimize the ski's performance. The front wing can be a little ventral. The back wing can be a large Goode wing. Or in extreme cases, both wings can be large Goode wings.