Straightening EZ Slalom course

[chaloux]

I realize that this isn't necessarily boat related but it seemed better than other categories. Please move if necessary.

So long story short, I put in an ez Slalom course last year with the pre gates and after tinkering with my turn ball arms (really my only gripe with the setup, I'll explain later), happily ran the course terribly all summer.

My river was used as a logging river in the past so there a lot of trees and crap on the bottom. This led me to be hesitant to let the course sink over winter, so I attached empty plumbing antifreeze jugs to the ball leads. Over the winter I lost a few jugs but the course was accessible so I hooked up the balls and the course was all over the place. One ball arm broke. I fixed that and figured I just needed to retension the main line. 

Upon tightening the main cable, the course improved but had a big curve at gate 4 and also gate one shoved to the side. Weird. So I started investigating further and found that some of my buoy straightening lines were hooked on things on the bottom. What are buoy straightening lines you ask?

Well, the ez Slalom course uses PVC pipes to space the gate buoys and the turn balls. The problem with this is that the PVC pipes inevitably warp in the sun (or flow of the river) and the turn ball may end up a few feet ahead or behind the gates. So I called up my buddy Pythagoras and added ropes from the turn ball to the next or previous gate, whichever way the turn ball needed to be corrected. 

I expected this to fix the problem, as if my correction lines were hooked on something and were effectively shorter, that would skew the course. So I ended up just removing all of the turn ball correction lines to eliminate that as a possibility. 

Unfortunately the course is still not straight. So I picked up and moved the one anchor to the point that it is actually a bit of work to lift the main cable up to surface level. It is TIGHT. But still skewed. I have checked the entire main line from pre gates to pre gates. It's not caught or stuck on anything and is tight. What am I missing?

[BrennanKMN]

Just a few thoughts. 

1. If you can pick up your anchors, they're probably not big enough or designed for the bottom surface. 

2. If the PCV buoy arms are already bowed, you might need to replace them. Regardless, the current will bow them, so see #3.

3. Add river adapters. They will connect the end of the turn ball arm back to the mainline to ensure everything stays square with the force of the current trying to move the turn ball down river. 

4. Is the course straight from a boat guide lane perspective? If you are not straight down that, the turn balls will never be square. Getting the mainline tight and straight is step one before anything turn ball can be addressed. 

 

There are others here that are more experienced with courses in rivers, but it is an art. As you tweak and maintain the course over the years you will learn what works and what doesn't work. I used to mess with mine 3-4 times a year trying to keep it nice, now I have it setup where I don't do anything for multiple years. Sounds like you have yours in a pretty difficult situation. Might be best to pull everything but the anchors each fall. 

Edited May 31, 2023 by BrennanKMN

[chaloux]

Thanks Brennan. I'll address your points.

1. I casually say I picked up the anchor... It is extremely difficult lol. I do not enjoy doing it. Once I had it straight last year I had to do very little other than add the rubber adapters.

2. unfortunately the PVC arms bowed in the sun before installation. I try to keep the bow vertical now but when I first put it in I didn't realize that would be a problem until I saw them.

3. So I do have river adapters on the course now (or I will once I get it straight). They fixed everything up last year. And I have just eliminated them so they're not a factor.

4. My issue is looking down the gates the course is skewed. With the tension and lack of snags I'm just not sure what else to spend time on.

 

A bit of additional info: the river is moving right now, but where I have the course the river is about 650m wide and the course is off to the side where there is little flow. Even now, I'd day less than an 1/8th mile per hour. If there is any wind the wind will push the boat vs the river. Straightness was not an issue last year, it was super easy once tensioned and didn't move. I had to mess with the river adapters, but once it was setup I basically left it alone. 

[Fam-man]

@chaloux I also have an EZ slalom course, however I use it in a lake. I have found 2 things that may be causing the alignment issues you describe

1) Inner PVC flotation. The supplied flotation for my course is foam pipe insulation. With time this becomes waterlogged allowing the pvc arm to have a vertical bow. The bow causes uneven weighting of the bouy to pvc connectors (risers) which makes the alignment appear significantly off although the mainline is straight. For an interim solution can add empty plastic bottles to the middle of the pvc arm to straighten it vertically. For a long term solution I used 1m of 3/4" irrigation line plugged at each end to replace the foam.

2) Uneven riser length. My course has a rubber bungee in the riser at the bouy attachment. If this has lost elasticity and no longer recoils the bouy will be on a slack line and appear out of alignment

[eyepeeler]

Inner PVC flotation...either use Fam-man's solution or you can replace the waterlogged foam every year.

[chaloux]

Ah ok, I didn't think of that. I purchased all my own pipe (I'm a plumber) and used 3 foot sections of 2" PVC capped off as my floats. I will check that they're all still there and not water logged, I just used zip ties so it's possible they may have come off. 

 

I'll also check the risers. I used rope to connect to the 1' section of elastic, it's possible that those have stretched out and have lost their elasticity. 

Thanks guys, I will check next time I'm out and hopefully it's one of those.

Edited May 31, 2023 by chaloux
Typo

[jpwhit]

When my floating course isn't straight, it's almost always that something is snagged on the bottom somewhere. Or snagged on a waterlogged branch that is bridging between something on the course and the bottom.

So, it may not be the main line that snagged on something, it can also be that a PVC arm is snagged on something or even just resting on the bottom if the water is shallow enough or the arm has bowed enough to touch the bottom. I've also seen cases where we thought that one of the novice ball buoy ropes was gone and we added a new one. Turns out the old one was still there and was hanging down below the PVC arm and was snagged on something on the bottom. 

I find a mask, snorkel, and fins handy to maintain a floating course. Makes it easy to hop in the water and run down the mainline and all the arms and to check everything out. Between pulling yourself along the mainline and the fins, you can move along quickly. The mask and snorkel make it much quicker because you can stay looking down at the course as you move along and inspect. Stay on the surface and lift the ropes and PVC up to where you can see them as you move along. Wearing an old pair of gloves is also helpful. 

Edited May 31, 2023 by jpwhit

[skihacker]

@jpwhit that is brilliant, our course pretty much lays on bottom and the water just got warm enough to try that, 

[chaloux]

Quick question for those using river adapters - where are you anchoring the line to? I'm currently running mine back to the previous outside gate ball from the turn ball, but I'm thinking I can run them back to the split in the main cable for the boat guide. I'd like to have less rope and crap in the river and it'd be really easy to just go from the ball on the arm to the main cable instead of boating all the way to the previous set of gates. Less to deal with. 

I just need to take a measurement of the split cables that go from the main to the boat guide eyelets. Unless someone happens to know that off hand, haha. And yes I tried emailing Ed but it looks like he killed the site and therefore his email when he retired, so I can't reach out to him anymore. 

[S1Pitts]

If I have a floating course that is really out of alignment I start by pulling off the bouy arms and anything else on it checking that the mainline diamonds are all ok. I have seen many diamonds lose shape any poly courses are more prone to this. You will fight to align a course if the mainline alone does not float straight.

[MDB1056]

Thread may be getting a little out of alignment.  Started as river issues which are of course different than lake use.  Never been on a river so no idea. 

For lake use I have not  ever had any diamonds out of alignment.  Alignment meaning straight is also different if talking boat guides vs buoy arms . Boat guide alignment issues for my course are solved in the tightening process.  Essential #1 is to ensure adequate anchoring as already noted above.  Minimum 30 lb anchors whether in a lake or other. Once the course is in place and the far end anchor is dropped, have another long rope attached to that anchor that you can use to then pull that last anchor even tighter.  Then have a spare buoy and a small anchor that you can toss off to the side to easily find it when ready to take it out, or if you need to tighten again at a later date.  Keeps our course here straight as an arrow. Keeping buoy arms straight , mid arm buoys eliminate any sag risk and serve as mini course for beginners. Bowing in buoy arms is wind or current driven. Can do small anchors at each turn buoy if it's a chronic problem. In a protected area standard PVC arms on a poly line course stay remarkably straight.        

Edited June 26, 2023 by MDB1056

[chaloux]

Thanks for all the replies.  Finally got around to thinking about this a little more and taking some more measurements.  Also found some old threads and Ed says that he has a diagram to essentially "lock" the whole course in place in relation to itself, so I reached out to him as well.

I think I found part of my problem as well.  One a few of the turn balls, I have river adapters going up and down course, so that ball is essentially locked.  Unfortunately, while that ensures that it's perfectly in line with the boat gates, it kicked that whole ball and gate out of alignment.  I've attached another (awesome) pic to help explain, lol.  This is on my number 3 ball.  Think about the river adapters adding extra tension and thus kicking the whole thing out of alignment. 

I think once I have it properly setup and locked in place, everything should be fine.  It's because I have a few river adapters here and there that the course is out of alignment, and using them to align the turn balls with the gates is giving me issues with the main line.

Will update with progress 🙂