Free skier Shane McConkey was skiing on the Elan designs in 1996, but found they sank in the snow. As an experiment to get more "float" on the snow, he tried mounting ski bindings on waterskis while skiing in Alaska. He began working with Volant on skis that combined their metal-based production method, producing the aluminum-based Volant Huckster. In 1998 he was testing the Huckster with his friend Scott Gaffney, who reported that his bent Chubbs skied better than the new design because the tips didn't sink in the snow. McConkey took the design and used it to produce the radical Volant Spatula in 2002, which featured not only a banana-like reverse-camber but also a negative sidecut radius. On firm snow the skis were difficult to turn at all, but in powder the tips and tails bent up to produce the curved shape that caused them to carve. McConkey moved to K2 Sports and introduced the similar Pontoon design circa 2006.