The V-Werks Katana is the world’s widest carving ski. You won’t find another ski with a 112mm waist and 23.5m sidecut radius that would rather carve on a high edge angle than smear like a putty knife. It’s not that it won’t drift – of course it will – but it feels predisposed to carve on its razor-thin 3D.Ridge of compressed carbon.

The V-Werks Katana was the test pilot for the 3D.Ridge design that has since permeated Völkl’s high-end All-Mountain and Frontside models. The V-Werks Katana proved that the concept could apply equally well to deep-sidecut carving skis and broad-beam powder surfers. In their first iterations, the VWK offspring didn’t have the torsional rigidity of the parent ski’s 11 layers of carbon, but the addition of 3D.Glass to the kids’ construction has error-corrected brilliantly. The new 100Eight, for example, is now strong, stable and responsive; in all ways, worthy of its ancestry.

The one trait of the VWK the 100Eight can’t match is the former’s notably lighter weight, which highlights one of carbon’s advantages over fiberglass. (A 184cm VWK weighs 90g less than the narrower 100Eight in a 181cm.) Its lower mass contributes to the VWK’s ability to readily tilt to a high edge, an attribute not shared by most of its Big Mountain brethren.

Because it behaves like a Technical ski, it begs to be driven by a technical skier who can extract a medium turn out of what is at heart a big-turn behemoth. Even if one tries to start a turn on a tight radius, it will evolve into a mid-radius turn before it reaches the mid-point of the arc. Its preference for long turns comes with a natural disdain for slow speeds, another reason the V-Werks Katana works best when attached to the feet of a skilled skier.