Zai set out to revolutionise ski construction. The Swiss premium manufacturer has been introducing new materials into ski making since 2003, cooperating with technology partners from a number of different industry branches, but also with luxury labels such as watchmaker Hublot or Bentley Motors. Now, Zai is going one big step further: Their newest model “nezza† (“blade† in the local language Romansh) is made of „zaià¬ra“, a carbon composite material used mainly for special parts of aircraft or joint implants. Nezza is not a sandwich construction – it is carved out of one single piece of zaià¬ra. Nezza fascinates through zaià¬ra’s matt grey-black appearance, most striking though is at foot-long hole in the ski’s body.
> St. Moritz/Zurich - October 4, 2010 - by Christian Gartmann <
How can a material six times stronger than steel, aluminium or titanium be made ski-able? Quite simply, by filing off material until the ski has sufficient flex, while retaining torsion. “In the testing stage, I can even start scraping off material on the slopes to fine-tune the ski while skiing.†, grins Simon Jacomet, developer and head of Zai. Nezza looks totally unlike what one would expect a ski to look: A hole in the ski in front of the binding lets the skier see the very snow he’s skiing on, the rear end of the ski is a split tail.
Zai has been manufacturing first-rate skis for 7 years now; hand-made in a small manufactory in the small mountain town of Disentis. Since its inception, Zai has been positioned foremost as a high-priced luxury good. Nezza is intended to help broaden Zai’s positioning, which could be argued to be too one-dimensional, the outside of the skis never revealing their often revolutionary insides. The shape is carved out of a single piece of high-tech material, a racing base and edges are added underneath. On top and on the sides, the high-quality material is apparent. The ski itself tells the story of its pioneering construction; each nezza skier becomes a brand ambassador.
Back in the seventies, skis bearing a hole had their first heyday: the duels between Swiss Bernhard Russi and Austrian Franz Klammer remain one of the highlights of the history of ski sports. 1976, Klammer – the one with the hole in his skis – won gold for the downhill at the Olympic Games in Innsbruck. The perforated skis of the 1970’s have nothing in common with nezza though: back then, Franz Klammer, Ken Read or Steve Podborski simply had a hole cut out of the tips of their regular Fischer “C4† skis.
Nezza is sold in selected specialised stores or at the Zai manufactory in Disentis at a price of CHF 6’900.-- . Connoisseurs prefer to pick up their skis in Disentis personally though – the factory tour is an experience in and of itself.