Base carving

[Dakine]

Water skis carve great.
That's something to think about...

 

[James]

when complaining about how "vague" the Soul 7 was. I said it didn't want to "carve" a path in the powder, the carve being analogous to hard snow carving. And a lot of people objected.

Trashing a very popular ski that turned by moving your eyeballs. The marketing dept had a bitter dispute on that one. Half of them wanted to call it "My First Fat Ski" , or just MFFS. Like the old Sony products for kids. They lost, but got the simple graphics with bright yellow highlights.

 

[skier]

Carving on soft snow is definitely different than hard snow. On hard snow you rely on cutting a circle with the edges to carve. For large radius turns, the sidecut of the ski doesn't match the turning radius, so you end up with a large part of your ski edge traveling at an angle to the direction of travel which represents a skidding component. At the top of the turn when carving arc to arc, the turning radius is large, so only a small part of the edge at the shovel will line up with the direction of travel cutting a groove. The rest of the edge can't follow in that groove, because it's at an angle to the groove (direction of travel), and therefore you can't achieve edge lock until higher edge angles and smaller radius turns. Also, pressure is distributed along the ski, but only a small part of the edge is in a groove, so there's very little snow holding the track, and it easily breaks away causing skidding at the top of the turn when going fast. In soft snow, the ski banks with snow under the base, so that turning on a bent ski doesn't rely just on the edges making contact with the surface. A bent ski with snow supporting it under the base will turn in a circle without having to be supported just by a tiny bit of snow forming a groove under the shovel's edge at the top of the turn. Therefore, I think the name, "base carving" makes sense.

 

[4ster]

You can feel like you are carving a smooth turn, until you try to turn too tight and the snow platform you created beneath you breaks away, and you are drifting like a water skier.

Water skis carve great.
That's something to think about...

View attachment 62857

No drifting going on here...

...or here

PC: Josh Matta

PC: Chris Morgan

I believe in base carving

 

[Mendieta]

...or here
View attachment 62864
PC: Josh Matta


View attachment 62868
PC: Chris Morgan

Nice! What skis are those (last two pics)

 

[mdf]

Water skis carve great.
That's something to think about...

View attachment 62857

Hmmm... is that why pin-tail skis used to be a thing?

 

[Dakine]

Hmmm... is that why pin-tail skis used to be a thing?

Water skis get directional stability from a fin...anybody want snow skis with a retractable fin...?

 

[4ster]

Nice! What skis are those (last two pics)

The first ski photo are Rossignol S7’s, the second are Rossi Super7’s they have camber, sidecut, rise & ...

Hmmm... is that why pin-tail skis used to be a thing?

...Pintail.

Water skis are full rocker, reverse sidecut. Mckonkey originally mounted ski bindings on water skis to experiment with the idea of rocker. The Volant Spatula was the outcome.
The rest is history !

 

[CalG]

No drifting going on here... View attachment 62863

View attachment 62866

...or here
View attachment 62864
PC: Josh Matta


View attachment 62868
PC: Chris Morgan

I believe in base carving

Actually, The "drift is directly related buy the volume of water displaced in the spray.

It's got to come from somewhere!

But water at speed sure is HARD! Snow is like "soft water" . There are bubbles down there somewhere! ;-)

 

[CalG]

The first ski photo are Rossignol S7’s, the second are Rossi Super7’s they have camber, sidecut, rise & ...

...Pintail.

Water skis are full rocker, reverse sidecut. Mckonkey originally mounted ski bindings on water skis to experiment with the idea of rocker. The Volant Spatula was the outcome.
The rest is history !

And now everybody skis on them.

Well, ...ahh...err... ooh, everybody doesn't. My bad.