Lighting up Bouys

[Phil]

I am considering holding a night slalom here on Champions Lake in Clermont Fl, i'm looking for some ideas on how to light up the bouys, we use Wally Skier Bouys and last night i zip tied a waterproof l e d flashlight underneath a bouy and it did a pretty good job , but im seeing if anyone has any other ideas , we do not have the Goode bubble bouys and i really do not want want to buy them for this event , so if any one has any sensible ideas i would like to hear them or if maybe someone has a set of bubble bouys we could use for one night also .

[jayski]

Glow sticks

[gregy]

Think the Goode buoys are commonly used for this.

[Gloersen]

have tried glowsticks; they don't cut it. Not bright enough and had to be attached to the buoys.

 

You're probably on the right track with floating LED flashlights attached below . Might require an array of 2-3/buoy/boat guide.

 

Sounds like a lot of flashlights one way or another.

 

I assume the zero balls will stay up (unless they lower vertically, it'd be kind of cool turning in for the gates with an illuminated 0 ball below the surface).

[LoopSki]

Not ideal , but I've seen it done on the cheap replacing bouys with 2 liter bottles with glow sticks inside.

[Horton]

@Phil contact Wally at Wally Skier. I think he has been working on something for night skiing.

[Stevie Boy]

Not sure if this helps, I cut a old bouy down and stuck my Go Pro mount on it then put it over a bouy like a skull cap, thinking maybe the same thing but with leds and put over, maybe velcro as well, possibly swimming hat sprayed with luminous paint with led underneath it.

@Phil probably not what you are looking for but just an idea, hard to beat the proper thing, the only other thing is to buy a set of bouys and hire them out to recoup cost, not sure if that is a option, maybe there are several venues that would like to have a share in a set, that could be shipped around for events, probably also a non starter, just ideas.

[EricKelley]

I used bubble buoys, bought powerful led waterproof flashlights. I zip tied noodles around the shaft of the flashlights to float them. Then I used strings to tie them so that they would float with the lens right in the ring of the bubble buoy. This worked great. Our pregates were almost clear in color and I just tied the flashlights with floats to the subbouy about 18" below water surface. If you don't use the bubble buoy try to use the thinnest most clear buoy you can find. I think you will be alright there. I experimented a lot and no way around it, you need powerful good quality flashlights. I spent a lot on them. $42 x 14 plus a lot of batteries. The best flashlights are more expensive than these. Glowsticks did not even come close to satisfying me.