What would you do for 1/4 more at 41 off?

[Horton]

 

 

 

 

[Andre]

Those pics looks exactly how i teared my Achilles and ended my season early August...

[Than_Bogan]

A: None of that. But since I've never seen 41, I guess I don't know for sure.

 

And I'll be the ahole who points out she didn't get the quarter anyhow :(.

[Than_Bogan]

Looks to me that the bindings worked perfectly. Came off when needed and not before.

[Horton]

@Than_Bogan look again she has an orange sticker on her ski. Makes it look like she did not get the quarter but she definitely did. If you look at the second image she is 6 inches away from getting the quarter. she may have actually deserve half. I think they did score her a quarter.

[Than_Bogan]

I STAND CORRECTED!

 

And I'd change that paint job if I were her!!

[Edbrazil]

Could be 1/4, or not. Would like to see boatcam and more frames, but it appears that the

ski is heavily grazing if not riding over the buoy enough to sink it a lot.

[Horton]

@Edbrazil

 

[ozski]

So what is that rear setup, just an R style or something custom?

[ozski]

Yeah in the inverted images I noticed it comes up pretty high on her leg like a full rear boot.

[ski6jones]

After watching a few guys run 39 from the boat I'm pretty sure I would bail long before 41. The speed and loads are just insane.

[mwetskier]

i have seen a few skiers using the r -style shell with a full height liner. the majority i've seen use some kind of wrap around velcro strap to keep the tongue and flaps from catching water.

[skidawg]

You only have a split second to go for it or bail out. I commend her for the guts to go for it. I tend to bail since the Achilles rupture. Never want to ensure that again

[wtrskior]

I believe Whitney was using a vapor rear boot, modified until recently. For feel and comfort I can imagine her using the vapor liners. Amazing skiing

[klindy]

Agree with @Edbrazil obviously the buoy but sure can look significantly displaced. Not enough pics to tell

[Than_Bogan]

Veering into a new topic, but I would love to see the "significantly displaced" rule just go away. It creates confusion and frankly asks the judge to do something impossible.

 

I wonder if anybody has ever tried to measure just how much one can displace a buoy. My instinct is telling me that at these speeds and durations, estimating water as incompressible is roughly correct and therefore buoys simply don't displace.

 

But who cares if they do? Why not simplify the judge's task and just judge the ski relative to the buoy? I really don't see any problem with this. Could somebody really evolve a technique that intentionally displaces buoys and gains an advantage? I doubt it, but I say we cross that bridge if we ever come to it.

[Zman]

No expert here, but as I understand the rules, her front foot needed to beak the "X-Y Plane" which runs perpendicular to the course and through the buoy center line. In the second pic she is still a little short, but got there to be awarded 1/4. She likely lost the handle before her front foot turned and broke the "C-D Plane" running parallel to the course through the center line of 2,4,6.

[wtrskior]

they were using bubble buoys if I heard right. They don't displace like a normal buoy as I understand them

[Horton]

Yes goode bubble balls

[Chef23]

Hard to tell what it looked like at full speed but I would have said it is a 1/4. I watched it live on the webcast and was glad she was ok because it looked like she could have gotten twisted around.

[Horton]

I generally make fun of any judge who calls a quarter ball. It is extremely rare for a skier to actually score a the quarter. From the vantage point I took these pictures this may be a legit quarter. I would have to see it from another angle. Based on the pictures I took I would give her half.

[Chef23]

@Horton from stills I agree that it could be a half. At full speed it looked like she lost the handle almost simultaneously with getting the ski to the width of the ball. I agree that it is very unusual for the ski to not round back toward the wake even a little which results in a half.

[DaveD]

@Horton The answer to your question is dependent on the age of the person you are asking. When I was her age, I healed a lot quicker. Now, I would have just looked at the ball as I rode 10 feet inside it. Of course, that would have been at 28off, not 41.

[John Brooks]

Tough call and always is in 1/4 vs 1/2. What I see is in the 2nd picture, she has the handle, in control, and buoy appears to be showing up at her front foot. In the next picture, she loses the handle, so I'm in the camp of 1/4 buoy.

[Horton]

@John Brooks My camera was doing about 6 frames per second and she was doing maybe 50 mph. My point is a LOT happened between those 2 frames.

[A_B]

That looked just like my first 2 ball behind the 5.3! :blush:

[keithh2oskier]

I also think its really hard to tell based on the photos and what happened between the two but wow that is a tough call to make regardless. To @horton point on 1/4 being basically useless - at that line length is it really physically possible to get a 1/4 if the skier is still holding on for more than a split second past the buoy when the ski is that close to the ball? My thought is the skier would essentially have to be letting go in the next 6" to not have started to cross the buoy line.

 

Look how much distance passed between the two photos using that circled weed as an estimate. That weed was in front of the bow is now behind the windshield and Whitney is still accelerating on the boat by the unofficial distance measurement of her right leg.

 

 

[Horton]

I'm pretty sure that if she wasn't waving to somebody on shore she would have gotten the whole ball

[thompjs]

That pic looks a lot like Regina at Utopia -- that record app was denied.

[Kelvin]

@thompjs That's exactly what I was thinking. Here is

for those that want to take another look.

[Edbrazil]

Regina: more of a direct hit. Impressive that she didn't splat.

[thompjs]

Kelvin had blow up of frame with her front boot right at the ball, Seemed close at that point.

 

Edge of ski was past center line of ball.

 

Two days there, she ran 39 all four times, I think she got 3@41 twice at least.

[Kelvin]

On Regina's your getting to see 60 FPS, not just 6 FPS like Whitney. Also, Regina's was a real air-inflated buoy, not a bubble buoy - makes it even more remarkable that she didn't splat (or more likely that is was just a grazing).

 

[Nando]

Interesting to me that when I was getting started, I always watched the women ski for their slalom technique, while the men were kamikazes who just attacked and used brute force to get it done. Not that the top guys aren't going for it now, but the top two women (at least) today seem totally willing to splatter themselves for an extra 1/4. It's fun to watch them because they're incredibly competitive.

[Lovell]

This looks eerily familiar to the sequence that led to my Achilles rupture in July.

I was obviously at a longer line length...

[Texas6]

It goes without saying, but Whitney is Skiing really well right now also