No speed control

[mtnskiskate]

First off, great site. After a 20 year layoff, I am 5 years into the slalom course. Mid 35, 38 on a really good day. Public lake, hard to practice. My son hand drives our 96 nautique. Is it stupid to think about shortline tournament skiing without speed control in practice?  Thanks for your time.

[RichardDoane]

yes, you need a ZO boat, and did I tell you there's a great deal on a 2010 MC 197 TT ?

[RichardDoane]

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_I-Kt0bXum5I/TDzzysnvJRI/AAAAAAAAAeY/1IOX4AttxzQ/s800/SANY0006%20%28Large%29.JPGFrom 2010 Mastercraft Prostar 197 TT

[Than_Bogan]

It's not THAT different unless your driver is targeting slow times or waltzing.  Out of my ass, I'd say 10% find no different at all, 80% find ZO a touch harder than the best hand-driving, and 10% find ZO incredibly harder than hand-driving.

Just cross your fingers you're not in that last 10% group and GO SKI TOURNAMENTS!

These days I can run 34/-35 many times per tournament season, but I first started doing tournaments with a best run of a few buoys at 36/-15.  So there's certainly no doubt in my mind you're "good enough."  Just do it and see if it's for you.  Make sure everyone knows it's your first tournament.  Most folks love bringing in new people, but don't want to ASSUME anybody is a newbie because that might seem offensive.

[MrJones]

Brother, ski with whatever ya got! Of course it would be best to have some type of cruise control for consistency, but do what ya gotta do. We ski with an '01 Nautique using Perfect Pass classic and I have no issues what so ever going and skiing behind ZO in tournaments. You can likely find a PP classic unit for a very good price for your boat. From personal experience I would not get Stargazer. We put it on the 01 last year, then went back to classic which is way better. Send a message to teammalibu. He might have a connection for a used classic unit.

sj

[mtnskiskate]

Thanks for your input. Times vary between 16.95/17.05, pretty good for a 17 year old who could care less about skiing (motocrosser). I realize scores would be way lower than in the backyard, but at 46, not much ego to worry about. Should we drive a little faster to compensate?

[Tuney]

I don't know... but I am not sure it isn't a reason to ditch tourney skiing until you've tried it a couple times. Is there a ski club near by with a ZO boat that you could ski at once a week or however often?

[Boody]

Yea, you need some type of speed control. No way to drive a consistent time everytime, plus you have the variable of hitting the timer button I assume. Before speed control I would be thinking about the boat speed instead of skiing.

[mtnskiskate]

Anyone with a used system for a 96 nautique with a gt 40? You've convinced me.

[MarkTimm]

You may want to search through some old posts on this site, I think Jody Seal had some PP parts for sale.

I have 96 Nautique and I was able to piece together a full system. I agree with Scot Jones stay away from Stargazer, We put Stargazer on 1990 MC and have been fighting it all summer. I have classic on my Nautique and it works great, I refer to it as my perfect wife.

[Boody]

We struggled a lot with Stargazer too.  Our problem was superfast 1-3, then really slow 3-6.  But you can adjust the segments for each speed, and after quite a bit of playing around, we got it dialed in.  Just throttle up slowly to the beep and you are good, do not over rev. 

If you drive ZO for a while, come around the island and floor it, you are screwed.

But, its 95 every time now.

[MarkTimm]

Our biggest problem is the boat surging we have seen speed swings from 33.1 to 35.6, I am starting to think part of the problem is the four barrels engaging and causing the big surge. I had been out of the sport for a while but I seem to remember back in the day some drivers unhooking the four barrels for slalom. Does that still apply with PP?

[thager]

I have a complete classic sytem out of my 2002 SN196.

[eyepeeler]

Just keep hand driving.  You just need cruise if your wife is pulling you.

[Chef23]

Do you have someone hand timing when you are skiing the course? If you have someone with a stop watch at a minimum hitting the entrance and exit gates you can get a sense if you are close to the right speeds. Hand driving can be close to as good as speed control if you have a good driver. If your driver is just coming into the course and not keeping the speed up you will struggle in a tournament because you will be going much faster than you do in practice.

[Horton]

If you are having fun, who cares. If you go to a tournament you may have a rude awakening. Heck enjoy yourself.

[DW]

Certainly in the ideal world one wants to train as close to how the tournament would go as possible.  I would certainly not consider that a deterrent, but one thing you can do is make sure your son is driving perhaps a bit more aggressively and attempting to maintain as close to speed and time as possible.  Try getting in a boat with sped control to get a feel for how it controls speed then attempt to emulate that at your site.  And certainly have fun! 

[Jody_Seal]

Or take thager's offer on the speed control! I would be willing to bet the price is right! Then most anyone can drive for ya when your your son is unavailable.

[kfennell]

My wifes brother just came down last weekend after skiing behind hand driving going "34" his whole life, he could run 32 off at 34 mph behind the hand driven boat but when he was at the lake behind zero off he struggled to run -28@32mph. I think though that if you could get some practice behind a ZO boat and you have good form then you wont have as much trouble.

[Horton]

Don't let speed control take the fun out of skiing.

[mtnskiskate]

We use a swimmers finger watch on the steering wheel. Times range between 16.90 to 17.00, usually within .05. He (son) can do this all day. I call him ZACH Walker (haha). He knows my pulls and is surely soft compared to speed control. Thager, I will try to contact you tonight after work. I am definitely interested. The wife gets mad and ends up at 16 flat with a big grin on her face when I fall at early passes. Thank you all for your input.

[Ed_Obermeier]

I still fail to undertand all the problems you guys have dialing in Stargazer on a throttle cabled boat.  I have SG in my '05 RLXI and once I got it dialed in it's much more consistant than Classic was without all the ongoing tweaking Classic requires.  You just gotta take the time to dial it in properly.  The problem is NOT with SG...

Ed 

[GAJ0004]

I have Stargazer on my 94 Nautique. I have the 240 HP 1:1 tranny. I have only encountered one problem with mine. It would run a gate to 3 in tolerance, but then accelerate from 3 to the end. It would only do it at 30-32 MPH when I was pulling a skier 200lbs. I normally run the Kx at normal. If I am pulling a big person between 30-32 MPH I set the Kx to + or ++. Once I figured that out it works perfectly. If Stargazer is a new install for you, calibrate the baselines using multi-magnet mode. You will need six magnets. One at the entrance gate, ball 3 and the exit gate in both directions. Once the baselines are calibrated run it in single magnet mode.       I skied behind manual drivers for decades. I always kept both my speedometers calibrated. I still have my boat set up for manual driving in case Perfect Pass has any downtime. I always watched both the speedos and the tach. I would always accelerate a tiny bit when I would feel my skier pull the boat, but usually no more than 100-200 RPMS.

[Horton]

GAJ

I think the hot second segment thing is common. I do not know the solution but know guys like Jody S should be able to solve it.

[Alberto Soares]

 

Go for Perfect Pass, Randy is a great guy to do business with: www.perfectpass.com

You will always find good deals at:

www.ski-it-again.com

http://www.ski-it-again.com/php/skiitagain.php?topic=Search&postid=13090

Just pay attencion for not buying any DBW (drive by wire) Perfect Pass as your boat needs a "servo motor", also stay away from Stargazer as it is hard to make it work fine with old GT40´s