ski course

[skiernd]

Could some of you guys that own or set up portable ski courses answer this quesion for me. We have a ski pond that some of the bouys would be at a depth of 20 feet and some would be as shallow as 6 feet. The pond also varies up and down a foot depending how much rain we get. Would a portable course work in this area? If so is there one brand that would work better for this?

Thank you.

 

[Wish]

Go portable or a perminant float course which is essentially the same but the PVC arms do not collaps. Ours is in 10' at one end 18' at the other. The longer your anchor lines the less affect water depth will have on the course. Our lines are well over 100' long.

[KB]

We had a similar pond and ran a floating course in the middle anchored at each end. Even with a lot of tension to keep it straight, it would float up and down ~2' based on water level and this covered our operating range. We chose to anchor our turn buoys with a bit of bungee. Floating arms can work, but we wanted simple precision around buoy location and find the floating arms sag and drift if you don't manage them properly. With anchors and bungee we had only a few inches of "auto adjust" when the water level changed, and when needed we just adjusted the 6 turn balls manually in a few minutes. We played with systems that adjusted more but didn't get anything working well enough so just went manual.

KB

[swc5150]

I've had that issue with my lake and insta-slalom. I have a buoy attached to the mainline at one end of the course, that is just above the anchor. When the lake level changes, I just grab the line at the buoy, lift out the anchor and pull the line tight. It takes me about a minute to get the course straight.

[jackski]

Our lake usually goes up 1 ft per day in the rain. I have 2 courses, one sank and one EZ-Slalom. The sunk one has bricks over copper loops that ballast the bouys. Works fairly well but if the ropes wind up and the water goes up quickly you might have to reach down and unwind a ball and bring it up. On my EZ-Slalom the bouys are on rubber tubing, at one end of the course, at the pre's, I have a winch. It takes just one or two minutes from the boat platform to get it adjusted if need be. As a safety, my anchors will drag if the water attempts to get above the balls. 4-1 scope on each end. In both courses the water depth varies from anout 6' to 16'. No matter what course you have they all need some maintenance.

[scuppers]

On a dead calm day, use the floating course as a template and drop in some semi/permanent blocks with bouys. If you prep it correctly on shore you can get it near perfect in just a few hours. Then pull the floater out. Go to skier to skier . com for all the good parts you'll need. You can do it with a snorkel.

[Horton]

http://www.ez-slalom.com/ is the official portable course of BallOfSpray.

Ed at Ez Slalom can walk you through all of it.

[scuppers]

Yes, I meant http://www.ez-slalom.com/ for all the parts. And the right parts are what makes the thing manageable/maintainable

[A_B]

We have a floating course anchored at one end and then have cable running through a screw eye where a normal anchor would be and then running along the bottom diagonally over to another screw eye just a few feet off shore, this is then attached to a boat winch attached to a cemented in post. We can easily adjust tension in minutes due to water level.

[skiernd]

Thank you for all the responses... The reason we were thinking portable is because we had a course in and because it is so hard to find in the spring(algae)blends in with the water. We left a few bouys in on weak bungee cord. Anchors are a few cement blocks well last winter ice moved those anchors we couldn't even find them.

So thats why we were thinking portable. So what I'm hearing is different depths on the bouys is not a problem? I will have to read the responses tomorrow as I have to leave for work now.

Thank you

[Ed_Obermeier]

Could some of you guys that own or set up portable ski courses answer this quesion for me. We have a ski pond that some of the bouys would be at a depth of 20 feet and some would be as shallow as 6 feet. The pond also varies up and down a foot depending how much rain we get. Would a portable course work in this area? If so is there one brand that would work better for this?

 

Most portable slalom courses (certainly ours) are set up so the structure of the course, the mainline and buoy arms, set 5' or so below the surface of the water. How deep it sets is simply a function of the length of the buoy lines running up from the arms. The buoy lines can be extended if you want the course structure setting deeper (I do this with my course when on vacation and it's in a public lake for a week), or shortened for more shallow sites. So water depth, especially at your particular site, isn't an issue. You definitely want the course structure to not be in contact with the bottom at any point (otherwise it can't align itself properly - it is after all a FLOATING style design) but it doesn't have to be off the bottom much. A few inches is plenty.

 

Probably the best/simplest way to add an auto adjust mechanism to a floating-style course for fluctuating water levels is to add a counterweight of some sort at the centerpoint of the anchor lead line on one end of the course. Use a longer lead line than usual and hang the weight (15 - 20 lbs or so is generally sufficient) at the center of the anchor lead or in other words halfway between the end of the course and the anchor. Generally for a floating course you want at least 4' of anchor lead for every foot of water depth on both ends of the course for the anchors to hold properly. For the auto adjust setup I'd suggest going at least 6-1 on one end, gives you more range of adjustment. As the water level changes the counterweight maintains constant tension on the anchor lead keeping the mainline tight and straight.

 

If you intend to leave the course in the water long term (all season i.e.) a portable course isn't the best choice for that usage. Portable course buoy arms are built from lighter weight thin-walled PVC. In and out of the water they hold up extremely well and will give you good long service life (my personal portable is 15+ years old and still going strong). Left in long term gravity eventually takes it's toll on them and they end up bowed, twisted, warped, or all of the above. Seen it plenty of times. IMO you'd be much better off with a course designed specifically to be left in the water long term - stainless steel cable for the mainline and heavier walled, larger diameter PVC for the arms. 2" Schedule 40 pressure rated water pipe is the material of choice for permanent course buoy arms though certainly not the only option. Cost versus service life, 2" Sch 40 PVC is probably the best most cost effective choice IMO. Larger diameter PVC doesn't really get you that much additional structural rigidity and the cost versus the 2" goes up pretty quickly if you go larger diameter PVC. 2" square aluminum tubing is probably state-of-the-art for floating course buoy arms but obviously that's gonna be really expensive to build. All depends on where your point-of-diminishing-returns cost wise is.

 

The suggestions above for using a portable as a template then individually anchoring in your buoys is definitely a good way to go as well. It's pretty difficult to get good accuracy trying to set anchors from the surface in 20' of water but it is doable, definitely much easier in shallower water. Downsides are the time invested to do that, the degree of accuracy that is acceptable to you, and the cost depending on what you use for anchors and buoy lines. A floating permenent course goes in in 2 hours or less and accuracy (for our courses at least) is spot on and guaranteed. But again final total cost may be an issue.

 

There are several different ways to do it and it need not be inordinately expensive to do. If you'd like to chat about it in more detail please feel free to give me a call, that's what I'm in business for. I'm always happy to chat on the subject and there's absolutely no obligation. If I can be helpful I'm happy to do so.

 

 

Ed Obermeier, owner

EZ-Slalom Course Systems

 

800-216-4461 toll free US

913-294-2148 office direct

www.ez-slalom.com

ed at ez-slalom.com