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WATERSKI MagazineUnless you've been living near a dried-up reservoir or consider your Cypress Gardens Tech-1 state-of-the-art, you've heard the hype: flex control, rocker adjustment, vibration dampening, cap tops. The list of bells and whistles on today's skis seems endless, promising “ultimate ski enhancement.” With so many variables to consider, who's to know what will help your skiing? Steve Schnitzer does.
The originator of the first truly adjustable fin – a fin that moves up, down, back and forward and tilts up and down – says that it is still the centerpiece of every high-performance slalom ski.
“It remains one of the biggest breakthroughs in slalom ski technology,” says Schnitzer, a multiple-time national slalom champion who engineered the adjustable fin during the early 1980s. “Skis are designed for the masses, not for one person in particular. Through the use of the adjustable fin, you can tune your ski to react as you expect it to.”
The effectiveness of Schnitzer's first design hasn't waned. It is still the single most-used variable on a slalom ski when it comes to fine-tuning. Two-time pro tour champion Wade Cox, who has used adjustable fins since their inception, agrees.
“It's still one of the most effective ways of changing your ski,” says Cox. “The adjustable fin offers great advantages to recreational skiers because it's something that they can adjust to match the ski with their style, as opposed to overhauling their style. If you don't like what the ski's doing, you can change it. It's simple.”
Ski manufacturers recognized the simplicity and usefulness of the system early on, adapting adjustable fin systems to their high-end skis, most patterned after the Schnitzer prototype.
“Since all skis were molded and sizes were fixed at that time, the advent of the adjustable fin allowed skiers to be able to ride a 'bigger' ski if they wanted to, simply by moving the fin back,” says ski pioneer Denny Kidder, who first added an adjustable fin to his Kidder Redline in 1985. “Consequently, if they wanted a 'shorter' ski, they moved the fin forward. For the first time in history, the system allowed skiers to make incremental changes instead of changing skis altogether. It has had a significant impact in serious shortline skiing.”
The fin has such an influence on skiing that today you can't buy a high-performance ski without one. In fact, systems are continuing to develop. We've recently seen the next generation of designs in the form of Kidder's Laser-Aligned fin system, found on the KD 7000. The system encapsulates the fin block inside the tail of the ski. The fin block pops out, and the fin is adjusted and set back into the ski. Manufacturers are promising more innovative designs for the 1998 model year.
The advent of slalom enhancement systems like rocker and flex control cannot be denied, however. There are reasons why the major builders have added them to their sticks; like the adjustable fin, they can change how a ski skis. Yet the question is, how many variables can a skier legitimately control? On the 1997 O'Brien G4 Siege, for example, the skier can change at least five characteristics of the ski (flex, rocker, binding location, fin and wing angle). Schnitzer's original test ski, a Kidder KS, didn't have any of those.
“I truly believe those things work,” he says. “But I still think changing the fin has more impact on a slalom's skiing characteristic than all of the other variables. Just try a ski without [rocker control, etc.]. Then try the ski without a fin. Besides, all you have to do is look at today's hottest ski, the Goode 9100. It doesn't have external flex control or rocker management. There's a reason. It leaves the factory with an adjustable fin setting within 10/1000 inch of tolerance and all sorts of information about how to set it to a skier's needs. Clearly, the fin is the difference.”
