best GPS to find sub buoys

[Bill22]

This is on public water. The plan is to take the buoys home after each day to prevent damage.

 

What is the best handheld GPS to find sub buoys?

Or do you have an app on your phone that works good?

 

Must be handheld so I can use it in other skiers boats.

[Bill22]

I am sure some baller is using a GPS for this purpose.

 

I need one with the ability to save a location. I think some hunting/hiking gps can do this. I am just not sure of the degree of accuracy.

 

[buski]

I had looked into it and seemed like consumer units were accurate within around 10 meters or so which made it seem kind of pointless. Maybe someone has had better luck.

 

 

[Bill22]

+/- 10 meters does not sound good.

[ForrestGump]

Consumer gps has variance, also. For example the garmin gps on my bike will tell you it's variance based on the satellite signals it sees, weather, etc. You can watch it change from 6 ft to 70 ft variance and everything in between in the space of about 10 seconds.

[JJVDMZN]

10m variance to find a 260m x 20m course, should not be that difficult, most GPS' are on average 4-5m accurate.

[behindpropellers]

We have course on public water. No problem with buoys being damaged. We lose about 10 a month....mostly because of skiers. Fill them with 1/2 water and use heavy duty surgical tube. No problems.

 

As far as GPS goes- I use the GPS to get the centerline of the course in the spring. Its close but not close enough. You can use a ground based GPS station that is used by surveyors and excavators but they are big money +-2".

 

If you have individual buoys and not a mainline course, drag a chain between two kayaks to find the subs.

 

Tim

[Bill22]

@behindpropellers‌ & @JJVDMZN‌ I am was not going to use a mainline. Every sub buoy would have it's own weight. It sounds like a mainline would be faster.

 

Using the kayaks would be good if I was going to leave the course up but that would take way to long every Saturday AM to take 2 kayaks to search for a course. You spend $70 bucks a month on buoys?

 

I have also thought of using a rope from the mainline (if a mainline is used) and run it on the bottom of the river or cove to a tree.

[behindpropellers]

It costs our club about $1K a year to have a course in. Insurance is the most expensive followed by maintenance items. We budget every year for a new set of buoys and 33% of the bungees and other items.

 

Tim

[Bill22]

$1K would be ok if you have enough club members to split up the cost. I ski with three other guys.

[mwetskier]

if your using zero off take a skier ball and fill it half full of water with a 5 foot cord and 3lb fishing weigh attached. take a friend to hold the buoy -weight set and align your boat past one end of where you know the course to approximately be. drive slowly toward the course on what you believe to be the centerline and when you hear a beep have your friend throw out the temporary buoy. the weight won't sink it and the water in the buoy will prevent it from floating out of position too quick. when you go back to the temporary marker buoy you should be very close to the entrance gate.

[GOODESkier]

Too much work in my mind. If it takes longer to get the course ready to ski than it takes to ski, I will find a new sport. I have a course on public water and after getting it dialed in with sturdy equipment, I didn't replace one ball this year (started with a new set in Spring). My course gets hammered by jet-ski traffic. I can't believe that there isn't a way to make it hardy enough to survive your situation.

 

Can you leave the balls up? Possible to connect them a little more securely? Maybe tie the shock cord directly to the buoy and use a good quality buoy that is solid hard rubber at the connection point, the ones that have the loop as part of the bladder of the ball just plain SUCK! Maybe use stainless plastic coated cable from the anchor to the sub buoy. Then hook shock cord directly to the stainless cable and tie the turn ball to it. Maybe even paint the sub bright color to make it easy to find in the event you have to replace one ball now and again.

 

I would just work on getting it more hardy and figure out ways to mitigate the beating it may take. There is no way I would be pulling balls every time I use the thing. Like I said, I would take up tennis or something else!

[thager]

When I lived in Pensacola one of the courses on the Blackwater river always had the skier buoys pulled. Didn't seem to attract much attention that way.

[andjules]

Leave one ball in, the one closest to shore.

Not perfect, but unless you're struggling with vandals, one ball will draw less attention and most boaters will assume it serves some purpose (marking a shallow, etc.).

[Edbrazil]

Back in the heyday of the original Pro Tour, we went through full tournaments without losing

a buoy. Not much a threat from the SL and JU, but beware wakeboard and exhibitions, esp. with

certain drivers. Tended to use about 24" of the tension band rubber such as sold by:

www.skiertoskier. Or Wallyskier or others.

 

Of course, if a course is sitting out on a public body of water, that can be something else, with

vandalism. I always wanted to put out a special Explodo-Buoy that was filled with propane,

and got triggered when the tension band got cut.

[skihart]

Zero off and/or perfect pass need to have a screen for this purpose. I would really only need it a few times a year but it would be very helpful. They have the course coordinates already in there, how hard could it be?

[PT Mike]

@thager‌ Agreed. When we're done, we pull the gates and the turn buoys, takes about 11 minutes.

[Nando]

We use a Garmin Zumo, which is motorcycle GPS and weatherproof. Works great- we simply hold it on top of the gates and mark the location. Of course, we only do this in the fall so we can find it in the spring, so we only have to relocate it once a year...

[Kelvin]

@edbrazil, Where can I get some of these Explodo-Buoys? We could use them for some of our private lake neighbors that don't respect the slalom courses.