KRoundy

What would "affordable" be? You can buy a well-cared-for / flawless used ski boat for $30 - $40K. If I were to start making $40K new ski boats that looked "classic" would you buy my Roundhill Ski Machine or a slightly used big 3? I don't want to be a stick in the mud, but I just wonder about the viability of someone making new / cheaper boats. Would people really buy them? @Horton has a new poll that shows just how long skiers keep using older boats - they just don't really need to be replaced. Fiberglass and gelcoat last forever as long as you don't do something crazy. The components that make up the boat systems are pretty standard and can be repaired or upgraded cheaply and easily. Even if you kill an engine you can buy a shortblock, bolt your old components on there and you are good to go for 10 more summers in your Ski Nautique, MasterCraft or Malibu. How could a "new" cheap boat compete with that?

What would a fourth manufacturer bring to the market that is noticeably different than the big 3?

I do the same thing as @S1Pitts explained. Ankles up above to bone mostly to keep the inside of the boot mostly just my foot and ankle. For the arms I want the gloves to go over the top of the seal. Enjoy your dry skiing!!!

I have a very old boat (1993 SN), I ski most often behind a 2003 SN. We ski a lot and love every ski behind these "old" machines. We have paddle-wheel PP installed and it works great. I ski some behind a 2004 SN with a Stargazer upgrade.

I'm holding my breath waiting for JackQ to respond just one more time...

If he needs pieces or parts getting used is OK. If buying a completely new setup, just get a new system. I tried to go cheap and purchased used components. By the time I got everything working it was a year later and I spent almost as much as just buying a completely new setup. If I had to do it again, I'd get a new Stargazer setup direct from PP.

@Gloersen Wow! 6X the energy density and 5X faster charging would be exactly the step change I suggested was needed to really push things along.

@UWSkier That is a very good point that I neglected to factor into my calculations. So we could get perhaps a dozen sets out of a Tesla-battery setup. I still stand by my weight calculations, however... So, let’s see what we could do for the same amount of weight. If we put in a 200 lbs electric motor that would leave 550 lbs left for battery. My battery weight to kWh math shows that each kWh costs 14.12 lbs of battery. That allows us to drop in a 39 kWh battery. Let’s round that up to 40... UWSkier and I have determined a slalom set costs 6.74 kWh (20% of 33.7). We could get almost six sets before the batteries are drained. That is pretty good and could definitely work for a private lake / personal setup where you and a few friends get in some skiing before going to work or at the end of the day. Pretty cool! It would not work for tournaments, ski schools or clubs where six sets is just getting started.

@Horton asked if we are closer - I think the answer to that is easily yes. :) However, I think there is a different answer if the question were, "Are we close?" I did a little bit a looking - 1 gallon of gasoline stores approximately 33.7kWh of energy. When skiing a standard slalom set of six passes I believe that the commonly accepted number is that the boat uses 1.25 gallons of gas. Some of that gas is "wasted" while the boat idles at the end of each pass. That would not happen with electricity, so lets just assume that an electric slalom set would use 33kWh of energy. A Tesla Model S can be purchased with a 100kWh battery, so... 100 / 33 = (roughly) 3 or (precisely) 3.03030303.... Therefore, if the data I found is true that means a Tesla Model S battery pack would power 3 slalom sets before it would need to be recharged. The other issue for skiing is weight - the 85 kWh battery pack for the Tesla weighs 1,200 lbs. I could not find more data, but let's assume the 100 kWh weighs 1,400 lbs. Do the math, I am being slightly generous. A gallon of gasoline weighs 6.3 lbs / gallon. An American V8 weighs roughly 575 lbs. More math (sorry): 25 gallons of gas x 6.3 lbs = 157 lbs V8 engine = 575 lbs Total = 732 lbs. So, the weight of your energy storage and power plant in a typical ski boat is around 750 lbs. Just the batteries in a Tesla are double that. What would the electric motor weigh, maybe 100 - 200 lbs? How many of us would like to slalom behind a machine with an additional 850 - 1,000 lbs in the boat? I know my hand is not going up. My belief is that there needs to be a step-change in energy / battery storage capability before we can put batteries in as the primary power supply in a boat. Cars are a completely different energy equation, as others have pointed out here: they coast; they can regeneratively put energy back into the batteries; and they don't sit in water (which decidedly does not get along well with electricity). I hope that we can get there. A quiet, powerful and all-day electric ski machine would be awesome.

Interesting. I have never thought, “Does this match?” when buying ski equipment.

Skied on Lake Stevens, WA, this morning. Don’t know the lake temp, but air was in the low to mid 40’s.

I've used NautiqueParts and Christine's most recently. There is a local marina to me in Everett, WA, where I go to for a lot of parts called Harbor Marine. In the past I have used SkiDIM. I get my oil at WallyWorld because it has the best price. I buy my filers online or at NAPA (I use the NAPA Gold / WIX filters).

He looks pretty anxious to hit the hot tub. I wonder how many times you hit your fin doing that over the year.

Remember when Water Ski did huge boat tests every year? We should have a Ball of Spray boat test. Pick a neutral site, get new or promo machines and let the BoS readers ski them. Everyone from guys learning to run the course to the crazy-good-shorline guys. Everyone rates the boats on a variety of factors and we tally the results. All scientific-like. That sounds like so much fun I bet we could charge the skiers and raise money for a charity that we all agree upon.

I noticed that one of the multiple hashtags on that Instagram pic mentioned finwhisper and I thought to myself, "Huh." Now I see: https://finwhispering.com/product/whisperfin/

Looks great!!!

They send out a mailer but don't have ANY information on their web site? What year is this?

Wow. Praying for a good recovery. Looking at releasable bindings again now.

If you ski anywhere near as much as you hope, I predict you'll find yourself in a course before 2020. ;)

At the level you are at and your size that ski seems like a perfect fit. Go ski and advance. Once you are skiing more aggressively you might want a stiffer ski. Welcome to your new addiction! :)

That is pretty cool. I'd love to see this go through a course and see how close it is to real, but as others have said it would really make those free-skiing days count.

Low of 36 last night, warmed up to about 50 by 9:00. Lake was 57.

Where is the USA Waterski boat test held?

I have a 13"

That reminds me, I really should get a shock tube. Glad to see a company putting some thought into the design on this one. I had not seen one with an insert before.