Floating course bouy height?

[lakeho26]

How or what Is everyone using to get their turn Bouys the right height with a floating course? How much weight does it take? Anything cheap and readily available?

I started filling solo cups with concrete and an eyelet but seems it will take about 3 per turn bouy to get the right height even with the Bouys deflated a bit. Thanks in advance for the input

[RAWSki]

We fill the balls half full of water. Have also used a weight on end of the boom to pull down. You can also run wally buoys almost empty and adjust the placement of the in-house -intermediate balls to get a good level

[lakeho26]

When half filled, is a counterweight still required? Or does that take care of it?

[jcamp]

Duct tape a brick to the end of the PCV pipe right under the turn ball. Cheap, easy to remove and works well.

[Zman]

Do not fill turn buoys with water! Doing so gives them mass, making them not displace as easily if hit, read easy injury.

We have Wally turn buoys, only partially inflated, with 3 pound weights attached to the PVC arm below them. They sit about half in, half out of the water. We are going to increase the weights to 4 pounds, which should be perfect.

Again, DON'T put water in turn buoys, unless you know a good orthopedic surgeon. ?

[skier2788]

To each there own but I completely disagree with Zman. While the mass is higher the bouyance is lower. It takes far less energy to submerge the bouy and ski over the top. Have been using water filled bouys on our course and several other around the area for years and have yet to get a report of injury from hitting a bouy.

 

I can say hanging weight causes the PVC to bend and the bouys to be out of tolerance. Also remember if you hang weight on the turn bouy you really should also weight the boat guides to try and keep it as level as possible.

 

 

Just my $.02

[Killer]

1/2 fill with water and still don't over inflate. No need for counter weight. Going on 3 years with the same Overton buoys on our course that's up all year. No issue with them freezing either.

[Andre]

About 40% fill with water here too.No weights.Water in water weight nothing...

[lakeho26]

For those of you that fill half with water, how do you go about that. I Just tried it with a transfer pump and it was a pain?

[Wish]

Water filled slightly less then half as well. And zip tie 1 red 3 hole brick to PVC directly under ball. Holds ball slightly more then half under water. The ski will roll over the top. The ball will displace down with little to no effort. Can’t tell you how many buoys have been skied over with little disturbance to the ski.

[skier2788]

@lakeho26 small half gallon sprayer from home improvement store. Remove the spray tip and insert a ball needle. Some will require you to silicone or JB weld it in to seal. Fill with water and pump to pressurize.

 

[lakeho26]

Awesome that make perfect sense!

[Justin_C]

1/2 filled with water. We put juice jugs with just air at the halfway point in the arm on just a short rope (maybe 6"). Just enough to take the bow out of the arms. @Zman filling them with water helps displace them easier. They sink when you hit them. Much better than 100% air filled!

[blagrata]

Even though the buoyancy may be easier to adjust with water in the buoy... the buoy will have more mass. More mass=more inertia. With only air in the buoy the only resistance to the buoy displacing when hit with a ski is the resistance of surrounding water... and the elastic cord. i guess I would think of it like hitting a volleyball on a string with a baseball bat...one filled with air... one filled with water. The medium that it's sitting in would just add to the resistance. Maybe in practice it doesn't make a big difference in terms of safety... but it does seem like there would be more of a "thump" when you hit it.

[Zman]

To each their own. But, partially inflated Wally buoys, air only, and 3-4 pounds on the pipe gives you a very soft buoy, slightly more than half submerged. Why do all the other krapp when this works perfectly?

And, weight on the end of your turn arms will NOT bend the pipe unless you have a longer anchor line under the turn buoy, or too much bungee.

FWIW, Wally himself says, "no water".

We are on year 6 (and in all year) with the same Wally buoys. So, you can spend $17 once for a long time, or $6 every year.

[Zman]

@Andre Buoyancy-wise, you are correct.

Inertia-wise, you are not.

Think of inertia as resistance to move. The more the mass, the higher the inertia. You can't fight science.

Peace. Out.

[RAWSki]

Do most of you have some sort of intermediate buoy or flotation to keep the arms from bending? I know Wally suggested 'green balls' 8' inside the turn buoys...it works but seems to be too far out to be a true 'mini' or learning course.

[MISkier]

Water in regular buoys is OK. Do not put water in the Wally buoys. It is not needed or recommended and it negates the actual function of the underinflated design principle.

 

Fully buoyant, air-filled buoys with no water have caused far more bad crashes for me than either the partially-filled regular buoys or the underinflated Wally buoys (which I prefer). It's not even close.

[Wish]

Walley buoys are great. Just really expensive to replace if not on a private lake. As for displacement, think of the cord tension with a air filled ball and a lot of weight holding it half way or more under the water. Buoy pulling up and weight pulling down. It will take a good bit of force to knock that cord tension to one side or the other as it’s seeking to be centered at all times. And the amount of force to sink the rest of the ball will be double the weight at the other end of the cord. Now cut all those forces by half or more by taking out half the air and using half or less weight at the other end of the cord. Easier to knock the cord off center and way easier to sink below water. Air or water filled volleyball hanging off a sting with full force of gravity at work and hitting it with a bat is not the same thing. It would sort of be if you took the water out of the volleyball and then hit it with a bat as there would be less cord tension trying to center itself when displaced.

[Andre]

We have a 4' lenght of pvc pipe with cap at both ends on each arm hold in place with zip ties.

Wish we could afford 18$ wally turn bouys but on public lake with a lot of PWC...

 

 

[Justin_C]

@Zman my apologies. I thought you were meaning regular buoys, not Wally. I have no experience with the Wally's

[skier2788]

Same as @Andre. 4 foot capped piece zip tied to the middle.

[Zman]

@Andre. on a public lake, absolutely! Don't spend a lot on buoys.

We use the mid-span pipe for buoyancy as well. Works great to prevent sag.

[Minelickskier]

Well I for one wish our turn balls were nice and low as described in this thred. This morning i went to have my ankle x rayed after hitting 3 ball on a tight turn and hyper extended my ankle. X rays are negative but i have appt. with orthopedist....as i write this i am in the recliner with ice on my ankle. Sucks cause the water is smooth!

[Andre]

@Minelickskier What happened to you is exactly why we either put water in our bouys to lower them or buy expensive Wally collapsable.Sucks big time to miss some skiing!

[Minelickskier]

@Andre Use me as an example! Unfortunately I am the poster child! Everybody that has a course should do this!

[lakeho26]

After the input everyone gave, I did a small test to see if I could tell a difference.

One buoy half filled with water half with air and a small weight About 5/8ths underwater.

 

One buoy Not fully inflated with enough weight to get it about 5/8ths underwater.

Both with close to the same firmness on top of the buoy.

 

First I noticed the half and half buoy displaces much easier than the air filled

Second thing I noticed the half and half bouy was much more stable in the water with wave action and when being push on.

 

Next going to order a Wally buoy to give that a try. Thanks for everyone’s input.

 

[Deanoski]

lower is always better

 

[Minelickskier]

After my recent experience i am thinking 25 % out of the water. Since i cant ski at least i have time to talk about it...lol

[GaryJanzig]

I just use the overtons buoys inflated to actual size. They are only held on the pipes with mason string so they will move if you hit them, or in a worse case they will break off. If you have an individually anchored course with sub buoys, thick ropes, and 6 feet or less of water they are not going to move which is where I have seen most of the injuries.

[BTheis]

We use wallyskier turn bouys with 10 lb weights, it pulls them down real nice.

[Zman]

@lakeho26. If you have the option and $$ to go with Wallys for your turn buoys, absolutely do so.

The idea of a Wally is you do not need to inflate them fully to get the proper diameter. With regular Polyform, they must be fully inflated just to get minimum diameter, and become very hard. Once you have the Wallys submerged about 5/8ths, the submerged portion should be largely collapsed, with a nice 'dome' for the upper 3/8ths. They will then displace and crush easily when hit. A good thing!

[Zman]

@BTheis If you are needing 10 pounds to pull down a Wally buoy, you must be fully inflating them, which is defeating the safety feature.

With proper underinflation, 3-4 pounds should submerge a lil more than half the buoy. Keeping them very soft, as intended for safety.

[Wish]

@lakeho26 good experiment. Results are as expected. ?When we went to water filled, the number of buoys lost to wake boat waves dropped to 0.

To protect the PVC below we used 2 Zip ties to secure buoy to up lines. We wanted the ball to break away from course if a wake boarders rope or even skiers rope ever rapped around the ball. Zip ties did the trick. But sometimes the wake boat wave action would pop the zip ties. Once water filled, we never lost a ball to waves. Waves just rolled over them. Great for a public lake to protect the course from walley boaters breaking something down below. .

[BTheis]

@Zman we have the bouys properly inflated (very soft ) and the ten lbs works for us.

[Zman]

@BTheis Maybe it's your cold water. :)

 

[6balls]

I've hit buoys half-full of water, I've hit buoys full of air. I'll gladly run into a buoy half-full with water all day long and twice on Sunday by comparison to air filled only. Hardly been disrupted at all by the buoy half-full of water.

 

We also had much less trouble after a big storm slinging white caps at the course--the half water balls go though the waves better rather than being tugged up and over. Same as others have noticed with wave action, too, stays put better when half-full of water.

 

I'm sure wally's are better yet and the Goode balls too...but half full of water is a nice solution. Dont' need weights, sits nice and low, and displaces easily if struck.

[gavski]

Having built multiple floating courses, the easiest way is to get the whole course to float at the same height. There is a minimum depth - 1.5m. There is also a minimum buoy height that should be above the water line - slightly different depending on what the buoy is used for - gate, turn, boat lane...measure this height, draw a line on the buoy and then measure from that line down 1.5 m to the pipe...

 

If you are using pvc pipes, you will have to fix a small weight to the pipe underneath where the turn buoy is fixed..it is also recommended that you install the half course buoys - these won’t need a weight..this will ensure that the pipe stays level in the water...Like a counter balance.

 

Also, the buoys are meant to be different diameters - adjusted by inflation..make sure you measure this accurately..

 

Once the course is floating level, and the buoys are all set to roughly the right diameter & height above the waterline - it all magically sits in the water perfectly..

 

The key is to get ALL buoy fixings at exactly the same height from the pipe to the waterline..

 

Final point, make sure that there is a good amount of tension on the course...

[BTheis]

@Zman our water is definitely not hot like the southern state, be safe and keep skiing!