Gate Change

[GregDavis]

Number One Objective: Safety two: Make it simple, less complicated to host a record tournament. Three: Same for all competitors. Number ONe is enough. I agree and support below 100% Greg Davis

 

 

The most dangerous part of the slalom course is the 27 meters from 6 ball to the exit gates. In the course we have 41 meters for a skier to score a whole buoy. At the exit gates we only have 27meters. This means skiers, in order to score a whole buoy, need to try to turn the buoy and often times hold on to huge amounts of slack rope, thus endangering the boat passengers and the skier him/herself. This happened to Andy Mapple at my tournament on February 13th. Andy said "If I would have let go of that handle, it would have gone through the boat." Andy strained his back on that day and didn't ski as well the next day

 

 

 

 

 

Simply pull the right hand gate ball back towards the 55m buoys by 14 meters. This buoy would be called the 14 meter buoy. This gives you an empty spot where that buoy used to be, but gives the skier a huge gate to now go through. This also requires the skier to start on the left side of the boat

 

as they do now.

 

 

This also solves the issue of the more dangerous 27 meter segment where skiers have to exit the slalom course. It makes that segment 41 meters like it is between one ball and two ball boat guide buoys and two ball to three ball boat guide buoys etc. etc.

 

 

One could adjust a slalom course to these new dimensions in about 20 minutes. You simply unhook the right gate hand buoy and put in a new anchor, line and buoy and place it 14 meters closer to the 55m buoys. Another way of saying this is to pull the right entrance gate buoy (the new 14 meter buoy) towards the direction from which the skier is starting.

 

[Zman]

Wow - slipped that one in just before mid-night when April Fools will be over with.

[KcSwerver]

I like it.