TECHNOLOGY: Swiss ski manufacturer Zai mills a ski from a single workpiece
Zai has set himself no less goal than to revolutionize ski construction. The latest model “nezza”, romantic for blade, is made of “zaiaera”, a carbon composite material that is used for particularly high-quality components in aircraft construction or for joint implants. Instead of glued together in a sandwich construction, the ski is milled out of a workpiece. Nezza visually impresses with the black-gray, matting zaiaera, but an elongated hole in the ski's running surface is particularly noticeable.
St. Moritz/Zürich, 4.10.2010 - by Christian Gartmann
How can you build a mobile ski from a material that is several times as strong as steel, aluminum or titanium? It's simple, you grind away material until it has enough flex and torsional stiffness at the same time. “When testing, I can even drag on it on the slopes and adjust the ski while riding,” smiles Simon Jacomet, developer and head of Zai. Nezza also looks completely different from anything you would expect from a ski. In the running surface in front of the binding, an elongated opening reveals the snow under the ski; the rear is a long dovetail.
For seven years now, Zai has been building top-quality skis, by hand in a small factory in Disentis (GR). At launch, Zai was primarily positioned as a high-priced luxury item. From the outside, you couldn't tell that the products often have a revolutionary interior. “Nezza” should now help Zai get out of this excessive positioning. The ski is milled and sanded from a single workpiece. Racing surface and edges are added at the bottom, and layers of high-quality material are visible at the top and sides. This is how the ski virtually explains its revolutionary design itself, and every Nezza rider becomes a brand ambassador.
Lochski had already flourished in the mid-seventies: The duels between Bernhard Russi and Austrian Franz Klammer are undoubtedly among the highlights in the history of skiing. Bracket, with the hole in the ski, won Olympic gold in the downhill from Innsbruck in 1976. However, the hole skis from the seventies are not comparable with Nezza: For Franz Klammer, Ken Read or Steve Podborski, holes were simply milled into the shovels of the conventional Fischer “C4”.
nezza can be ordered at a price of CHF 6,900.-- in selected specialist stores or at the Zai factory in Disentis. However, connoisseurs are happy to pick up their skis in person in Disentis; the guided tour of the factory alone is an experience.