Maybe... Maybe I do not HATE ZO so much anymore

[skidawg]

200 lb 'ers can and do ski light! What's the definition of insanity; doing the same thing over n over and expecting different results.

[boarditup]

I am still a novice skier.  For me, ZO is the better system due to simplicity.  From a feel perspective, it feels more consistent than PP ever did.  As a skier who skis slow, the pickup from the buoy is sooner, firmer, and predictable.  While most skier spend little time at the slower speeds, I have spent a lot of time there and so do some of the skiers I ski with.  So, from this novice's point of view, there is a real benefit of ZO to the beginner.

[Jody_Seal]

Whats the definitiuon of stupid

adj. stu·pid·er, stu·pid·est

1. Slow to learn or understand; obtuse. : I guess I am stupid because ZO continues to kick my A$$, I Dont think I am the only stupid one!

2. Tending to make poor decisions or careless mistakes. :The decisions of our organizing body to not recognize the issues with ZO on its membership !

3. Marked by a lack of intelligence or care; foolish or careless: a stupid mistake. : Continuing to try and ski with this confounded ZO Crap! 

4. Dazed, stunned, or stupefied.: How I have felt in the past after being ZOOM-ED and slammed out the front BY ZO

5. Pointless; worthless: a stupid job.  #2 pretty much says it all!! Also me posting on this thred!!

Cheers!!

[skidawg]

Skiing is challenging! Just to run the course at any speed is an accomplishment in itself, that's what makes it so addictive. Cruise control has increased the challenge at every stage of it's development, ZO is just the next level of progression. If one can learn to run the course, one can learn to ski behind ZO. Unless it's just easier to continue beating a dead horse. At some point I'm sure ZO will continue ti evolve to be even better.

[Marco]

I wasn't involved in course skiing when PP classic first came out, but I imagine some of the same issues/complaints came up then that are coming up now with ZO, (with the main difference being that PP could be installed in most boats, although there still was cost involved).  I can't imagine then that skiers would have preferred PP over a good hand driver.

[skidawg]

At the time there was nuthin' like a good ole hand job :-). Drivin v. PP

[rayn]

Wasn't one of PP's ads, Perfect Pass -- Cheaper than a divorce.

 

My skiing improved greatly after I started with PP, Good hand driving was probably harder to find then than a boat with ZO is now. Now you just have to worry about boat path. 

[Boody]

No offense but the only folks I hear complaining about ZO are on this forum. I ski a ton of tournaments and talk to hundreds of skiers every summer. I also have not seen anyone leave the sport due to ZO but heard plenty about it on here. I can't get behind this "ZO is killing our sport". I just don't see it.

[Ed_Obermeier]

With all due respect Boody, you don't see it because you're apparently mostly around tournament minded skiers who DO have access to ZO for practice. A lot of skiers don't want to be at a disadvantage when they don't get to practice behind it and have either quit going or won't go because it makes no sense to pay a bunch of money to participate in a tournament where they're comming in with a handicap (real or imagined - this is a mental sport after all) and as thus won't be able to compete up to their normal level. Of course you don't see it, you're one of the HAVE'S. It's the HAVE NOT'S who don't make the tournaments anymore. They're not leaving the sport, they're just not going to tournaments anymore.  It's not a matter of whether or not they can adjust to ZO (I believe most probably can with enough exposure), it's a matter of being acclimated BEFORE they're willing to drop the bucks to enter tournaments.  No access, no acclimation, no entry fees going out, tournament participation shrinks.  Perhaps not in your neck of the woods (yet) but certainly in a lot of the country this is happening, whether you see it or not.  

Until ZO has been around long enough that everyone interested in tournaments has traded into a new enough boat (10 years?), or it becomes available for non-DBW boats, or it's modified for an Option D (feels like PP) as Jody has suggested, that's only going to get worse.  Question is, in 10 years when everyone finally has ZO what will have happened to the tournament scene in the mean time??  It's a slow attrition but it is happening whether you're able to see it or not.  And that attrition is accellerating.   

Ed

[ski6jones]

Boody,

And thewaterskiforum.  You won't talk to people that don't ski in tournaments at tournaments.

When you say leave the sport, do you mean leave tournament skiing or quit skiing altogether? 

I would never let something like ZO keep me from skiing, but it has turned me away from tournament skiing.  Partly in protest to how it was introduced, and partly because it's diferent enough from PP that I need some time in practice to figure it out.

At present there is one boat at our ski lake development with ZO out of 12 avid waterskiing families.  I've skied behind ZO maybe a dozen times since it's introduction, or a few sets per year.  Most of those were lessons so I was working more on improving my skiing than learning a new speed control system.

Once I can practice behind ZO with some regularity I may start skiing tournaments again, but not until then. 

Just sayin.

Carl

[Roger]

I know three avid skiers personally at Okeeheelee that no longer ski tournaments due to ZO. I expect there are more, but have not asked around. One of those skiers referres to ZO as "Jerk Me Off."

 

[Jody_Seal]

It is fuuny someone pointed out good hand driving! A good hand driver for all skiers? But what is even funnier is that their was some good ones but they drove off the tach!! Kinda like Perfect Pass! Speedometers were so dampened that if you drove off of them in slalom then you were really giving a pretty harsh pull. My first real driving assignmnet was at the mud hole in Tri cities Wash in 83,John  Goodman and Gary Potter were the big dog drivers at the time and John was the one that taught me to not drive by the speedo and to utilize it only to get into the course after that it was the tach. Then after a period of time I took it to the next level and started driving off the oil pressure gauge!!!

 

Some good hand slalom drivers of the past: Fred Weber, Goodman and Potter,Gordon West,Skip Dunlap, Eric Steiner,Tommy H, Rocky Pasqua and others. been so long cant even remember all of those that I came in contact with before Speed control.

[Marco]

Don't forget Will Bush...

[Dusty]

I too learned to drive from John Goodman and Gary Potter using the tach.

I can recall (Bob Hardeman?) saying  that when using the tach you figured a baseline rpm, w/driver, crew, whatever, then added one rpm for each (estimated) pound of skier weight, and 1/3 rd rpm for any additional crew, not in the 'baseline' - I think that is pretty much what PP classic does.

W/ regard to skiers staying away from tournaments  because of ZO-  we can see it here in the northwest, and a lot of the skiers believe the scores are down 4 buoys or so with it as well.  I ski  crappy-er behind it, and I have no idea what setting(s) to use behind the various boats. I have noticed it can be VERY different behind boats of even the same manufacture.  Radically different.  Some setting combinations seem virtually unskiable.  Is it props, engine displacement, phase of the moon or what?

PP wasn't earth shakingly great at first but it evolved rapidly into a very good driving system, that could be managed by competent drivers to give pretty much any skier a very good pull.  ZO may be getting better, but i haven't seen much obvious improvement yet.  Was Accuski may the competition that pushed PP to get better?  What is the carrot that will make ZO stop gassing heavy skiers into the buoy?  Is there a technical fix? Using the slalom switch, or a pylon mounted strain gauge?  What will bring them to market a system that will work with non-DBW boats?  Maybe it can not be done?

A lot of us are waiting for the 'next' big breakthrough...

[h2odawg79]

"ZO may be getting better, but i haven't seen much obvious improvement yet". Kinda sounds like the U.S. economy... -maybe OBama is behind ZO as well...

Tourny seen is getting shakier, people are Losing Hope, Many are actually doing worse and most can't afford to Buy their way out of their current problems... -Damn, sounds more and more like Obama all the time!

ZO Bama?

[Ed_Obermeier]

Can we please keep the BS politics out of this?

Ed

[Than_Bogan]

Guess I'd call that more like humor than politics.  Doesn't seem intended to be taken very seriously.

[h2odawg79]

Ed,

Sorry, I agree. All politics are BS! Not to further the silly  obama point, but is'nt it/wasn't it BS POLITICS within our Sport that gave birth to this very thread in the 1st place?!?! (No reply needed....)

[Ed_Obermeier]

I think personally that there is more to it than politics but that's one opinion.

Agreed, all politics are BS as far as I'm concerned.  Whatever happened to doing things because they were the right thing to do, not because it gave one view point the ability to dominate another?

I learned a long time ago that the discussionof politics is a total waste of time.  At best we'll agree which generally devolves into a bitch session; at worst we end up pissing each other off which serves absolutely no positive purpose either.  Either way it's a total waste of time that would be much better spent skiing!  /vanillaforum/js/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-tongue-out.gif

Ed 

[Than_Bogan]

AMEN BROTHUH!