Best ski in rough or rolly water

[Jim Neely]

What ski works better than average in less than ideal conditions?

[Horton]

that is an interesting question

[Rich]

Its all about YOU. My experience with water skiing is that if you are edge all the time it doesn't matter what the conditions are. Conditions make you think about the conditions. Stay focused, stay on edge. I have never changed skis for conditions. And over tuning your blade is over rated. Work on YOU!

 

[Jim Neely]

Rich, I agree wih everything you said but I still think this is a good question

[skihard]

HO System 8 was marketed as a ski that's was good for less than desireable conditions. I have to say it worked well in those conditions.

I owned one and enjoyed the ride. I moved to an HO A2 and the ride is definitely different! System 8 was a good ski too.

[addkerr]

I can say moving from my elite to my Mapple 6.0, that the 6.0 works so much better in the rough than my elite ever did. I find that the elite used to bounce and skip round the buoys often.

[skiboyny]

I personally think that the skis that ride deeper in the water do a bit better in adverse conditions

[GOODESkier]

OK, as "Ballers" we might need to clarify "less than ideal"....... Cause some of my buddies won't ski the course if they thought they felt a puff of wind.............

 

My guess would be that in rollers on a lake course, the mid to wider ride ski might work better. Although this is not from experience.

[ozski]

I would expect the mid and wide style skis are going to take more of a hit in rolly water. More traditional deeper riding skis should be more stable. We had some rolly conditions on the lake a couple of weeks back and some comments were made about the wide ski's not handling it well. (from a seasoned 38 off skier)

[XR6Hurricane]

Here in the Chicago area, NO ski works on the less than ideal days, be it wind or other boat wakes. In light open lake chop, a narrow tunnel concave ski always seemed to me to take it better.

[Rich]

I ski in rollers, white caps, ect... If its really bad I may just spin without drops. I will ask for short spins to keep the chop down. My ski partners love this as I'm in and out in 10 minutes. Its not about the ski. All the high end skis in the market are excellent. If the ski you are on works great in glass, it will work fine in all conditions.

[DUSkier]

One with a LARGE sweet spot =) @rich Conditions must play a part, year after year I see skiers at Moomba get caught out on a roller or current catches them on their gate. Scores are typically low at Moomba for a reason. However I too would not change anything setup wise for tough conditions, just have to adapt quicker to what you get.

[6balls]

Rollers who knows. Big wind the D3's are fantastic but don't ask me why. Love my Razor but don't think it handles significant chop as well as my D3's did...but I don't often ski in significant chop.

[ski4xtc]

I have always thought the D3's ski are better in chop than other skis I have tried. This year when I switched to the Quest, the first set was very windy. The first thing I noticed was how much better the Quest was than the X7 was in the chop. Before that, I thought the X7 was great. What is interesting is the X7 clearly rides deeper in the water than the Quest but the Quest is better in the chop and crossing the wakes not to mention it turns great too.

[LeSkiAvantTout]

skied at weekend in England in a virtual gale, D3 X3 handled it well, rides very deep. Body takes a hammering though, 10 passes are like 12 or more in better conditions.

[popof]

Well I haven't tried that many skis, BUT i've skied in more than my share of choppy nasty / ugly conditions.

 

I live in Paris, and the only ski spot really close to me is on the Seine river. Meaning, we have stream, and a 3miles long strip of water, surrounded by trees and buildings, so if ever a SLIGHT wind kicks in, it will immediatly mess with the stream (or current whatever you call it) and we'll get massive rollers etc...

 

From my experience, "heavier" skis perform better than "very light skis" in heavy conditions. Kinda logic, more "momentum" (Inertia or whatever you call it), so they are harder to get moving, but once they are on a path, they'll be less affected by bumps etc.

 

i've also noticed, as mentioned above by @ski4xtc that KD's and D3's tend to perform better here than Goode's and very light carbon skis.

 

Again, this is only my experience and observation, on this very specific spot.

 

I know i've been to a few private lakes on days the locals said were "completely wild and crazy windy and not skiable at all" only to find out it felt like glass to me ;)

[kona]

I love my new HO FreeRide, and it was purchased just for big rollers and and windy chop on my local lake.

[RazorRoss3]

I ski primarily on a public lake so I'm no stranger to boat wake and chop but I've found that for most wind chop the key is body position so you can get the necessary width and handle control at the buoy so you keep a tight line and don't let the wind push you around as much.

 

Personally I like how my Razor handles less than ideal water but I haven't ridden enough skis to know if it handles it better or worse than other skis.