Dano

What @ToddL said. I think there are too many factors to label one measurement the best one for every boot. To top it off we have different brands of boots on skis. So if you have a D3 ski and they are measuring Tfactor binding I would think that measurement changes if you are mounting a radar binding on a D3 ski. Your own technique may prefer the boot forward or back. The binding itself may be stiffer, softer, or limit movement compared to whatever binding factory is referencing. Mount whatever binding you have as close to factory as possible, go ski, adjust to suit.

I always measure to the bottom stitching, But I find i usually end up back by roughly 1/8" from either factory or what others have recommended.

@Horton did your contest lead to any conclusions as to how high on the boat is necessary? At -28 to -35 I hear comments to get higher or wider but it feels awkward to be out beyond the buoy line. I get it, at short lines you basically need to be high on the boat to reach buoy width. At longer lines a guy can get well beyond the ball line but doing so is a different turning point than the rest of the course . It’s a different visual and rhythm.

@MISkier I’m working on those items pretty much word for word. Some things I have found that have helped. 1) turn in for gates, try to square hips to ski in the glide (I am LFF) and initiate turn with your feet (not by moving or leaning with upper body). 2) I think about trying to advance left hip to the handle thru centre line (heading to 1). Really focusing on not letting that handle to get pulled away. If I take too much angle or create too much load Into the wakes things go bad. I can get away with it at longer lines but 35 is humbling.

Hi, probably the dumbest question ever asked here but.... I just bought an NRG R2. I'm using radar carbitex front boot. All of my other skis have inserts that sit flush with the ski allowing the aluminum plate to bolt tight to the ski. The R2's inserts have a head on them that sits above the top sheet. Do we just bolt the binding plate down tight to the inserts? just making sure i'm not missing something here. I think perhaps the padding on the bottom of the binding plate is suppose to take up the bit of space created by the insert heads?

OJ props. I upgraded to a new CNC Eric recommended and it was a huge improvement. Agree with @Mastercrafter he should check those items first. I would suspect ignition parts either worn out or dirty/corroded. Spark plugs are a wear item. If they are old they can be working seemingly ok at idle but providing weak or miss fire at RPM's. If he does a spark test and sees anything other than a crisp blue spark at the spark plug, there is an issue with the ignition.

@MI3Eventer If your boat is running a holley 4bbl carburetor it does help to manually set your baseline RPM's. On my boat after running autocal the boat would run past set speed and took too long to settle back down for my liking. I think Holley carbs do not slam the throttle plates shut or do not idle down as quickly as EFI or 2bbl carbs. I spoke with pefect pass and they advised to try adjusting baseline RPM down 20rpm. Explaining that the baseline is just a target for perfect pass to initiate and once it beeps it uses GPS and sets a temp baseline for every pass. My boat now runs up and locks in almost immediately no matter how hard i hammer the throttle forward. It's still not as fast as my buddies with EFI boats but it's pretty close.

I’m 11 Nike runners and 12 in carbitex. Needed the bigger size to get the length.

@FWinter Do you recommend sizing up or down for skiers that are at the higher/lower end of recommended weight ranges. Does your recommendation change if referring to the Ion or R2? ie: size up for ion and down for R2?

How about doing an episode that highlights how slalom has evolved over the past 20 years. Both in ski design and how the top skiers are adjusting their styles. If a skier understands how todays skis are being designed and intended to perform, it may help them to better understand how they should be attempting to utilize the ski. Maybe give is a little insight to what design elements do what. Like a deep tunnel vs a shallow tunnel. Shorter wider skis like a Denali vs a more conventional shape like a gtr. Or explain why different skis sit higher or lower in the water and how that effects how a skier would choose to ski it, ex: ski a different path, stop and go turns, or carry more speed thru the turns etc....

Sounds like the common theme is default to a larger ski. @ktm300 did you opt for the bigger ski with the softer flex?

I’m on the hunt for a new to me ski. I weigh 170lbs. My last ski was a c65 66” i did really like this ski and it worked well for me. Prior to that was a 2015 vapor 66” that at times I felt was a little on the small side. As I’m looking for skis now I notice my weight is right at the top end of 66” skis and bottom end of 67” skis. I’m running passes -32@34mph. I’ve heard “run the biggest ski you can turn”. But then I also read Fred winter on a 66” ski. Which way would you guys go?

It’s what happens when you don’t use a safety chain in addition to the front winch strap. The front winch or strap either failed or the operator failed to secure the ratcheting device. Had a chain been in place it would still be on the trailer.

@jim_s the purpose of having a goal like cross the wakes and get high on the boat. Is to keep you honest. In this case if you pull long or past centreline, you will not get high on the boat. It also rewards you for creating speed before centre line. Drills that are designed with purpose should not promote skiing slow and lazy.

I agree with @swbca, I've found free skiing does not really translate well into course skiing. That is, if you simply go out and link turns together. There is too much time and, it can't really replicate the intensity of a course. for me i use free skiing to work on/try different things. Rather than simply trying to get high enough, why not try to get as high as you can. See if you can get 90 degrees to the pylon with tight line all the way up. This is a really good drill if you can already run some passes, and you will learn a tonne from it on your first attempt. Or you could practice wake crossings without worrying about how good you made a turn. Focus on keeping the handle low with straight arms. Try just standing on the ski correctly, try straight legs, or bent knees, even weight on the balls of both feet, etc.... Mess around with things. Most of all take video. Use your time on the water to explore different ideas. What works, what doesn't.

I put an OJ 310. CNC 3 blade 13x11.5 on my Centurion falcon 1:1 trans. Hole shot is unreal and the pull while skiing is very good. With my old 13x13 stainless steel prop the boat felt under powered, and the pull while skiing felt weak. This prop fixed all of that. By the way perfect pass works way better with a boat that doesn't get pulled down easily. putting this prop on this boat made Perfect Pass feel much better and the ball times have very little variance from specified. The OJ prop was probably the best money I've ever spent on this old boat.

@SlalomSteve it sounds like they are using the same liners. I'm have the carbitex, am 10.5 shoe, and I buy the size 12 carbitex boots. The 11's i can get on but they are not at all comfortable (too short) The 12's are comfy, supportive and always release as they should.

I don’t ski at this level. But -32@34 is a pass I can run maybe 50% of the time. “Be a weight on the end of a string” has helped me. I really focus on keeping the handle in tight to my COM, and the ski underneath me off the wakes with a tight line. Really working to keep COM connected at the handle and not behind the handle path. I would not say I am “pulling” at any point here. It almost feels like I’m “dragging” the handle out to the ball line with me, as if my COM is ahead of the handle if that makes sense? I know it’s not the case but it’s that sensation that your momentum outbound is pulling the handle along with you rather than the handle pulling you. One of the Adam’s had a thread that talked about coming out of angle sooner and following the handle path which is what I was trying to do with this thought process. Coming out of angle sooner for me seems to really help in managing load and having the ability to stay connected all the way out. Like Adam says in his thread, too much angle after CL will cause separation since you will be skiing away from the handle. Working to keep the ski underneath you I think does 2 things 1) maintains speed and 2) prevents your shoulders from moving to the inside which maintains that connection and “swing up” or outbound or tight line whatever you want to call it. I had also had some video coaching from Marcus Brown who commented I was edge changing too abruptly and moving to the inside too soon. His suggestion "don't let the ski roll onto the inside edge so soon". I think that advice is inline with "keep the ski underneath you" It’s been working for me, I hope it helps somebody else.

Quiksilver makes some nice stuff. I also own some oneil tops which i like very much. Camaro didn't fit so I gave it away but it did look and feel delicate.

For anybody following this thread. I'm on public water that is really hard to get good water this time of year. The tweaking I've done isn't honed to perfection. I have too many variables with wind and boat wakes etc.... But the changes have resulted in a much faster lock to set speed. If you are running a carbed boat with a 4 barrell and you find the boat runs past set speed, and takes several seconds to adjust back down. Try this. Run auto cal to get your baseline RPM's established, enter the baseline RPM screen and lower the set speed RPM by 30rpm for each speed. You should now find that the boat settles into set speed a little faster. If you find it is now settling in below set speed and then adjusting up, simply go back to baseline RPM screen and add some RPM's. Maybe it's just my particular set up. but This does seem to have resolved my concerns.

I took the boat out today and messed around with it a little. Ran it through auto cal then confirmed it was still running past set speed. manually lowered baseline RPM for each speed by 40rpm. This definitely helped it settle into set speed quicker. I think 40rpm may have been a little too much. I made several no skier passes through the course and both timed out perfect. Thats starting from a short set up and throttling up hard. boat was settled nicely before the 55's. I say 40rpm may have been too much because the wind came up and the water got a little lumpy, the tail wind resulted in best results but head wind saw the boat hit set speed and fall slightly below before PP brought it back up. But that was all much quicker than the original Autocal settings. to be fair to perfect pass autocal may work pretty good in more controlled environment. i'm on a large public lake that nearly always has wind even when it seems calm. I've run several autocal's and it kicks out different baseline RPMS depending on the day. For instance today autocal headed north consistently set 34.2 baseline RPM at 3420 but turn the boat around and head south and the baseline would set at 3370 consistently. This was at a time when the wind was very light if any. So perhaps big lakes have stonger currents than I thought. 50rpm difference seems like a lot.

@jpattigr those are all good mods and I think they would help with throttle response, if I had time and money I'd likely do the same. I did upgrade the prop to an OJ CNC 13x11.5 which was such a big improvement It really has made the want for more power non existent. I haven't had a chance to mess with things since my original post. I did talk with PP and they told me if everything looks to be set up correctly it's possible the motor simply doesn't react as quickly as others to decelerate. It is lower compression and lower HP, perhaps the vacuum secondaries play a roll etc.... So his suggestion is to run auto cal again to see if it calibrates differently. if not, then manually lower the base line RPM for each speed so that PP will lock onto the RPM earlier and not run past set speed. PP sets a temp RPM for the set speed on each pass as it gets GPS readings after it beeps when throttling up. So changing the baseline RPM should not effect set speed or ball times. As it is right now once PP beeps and settles to set speed it does a very good job of maintaining speed, i get good individual ball times and overall. I just want it to settle to the set speed a little faster. Other peoples boats do, so I want mine to as well. I do not think this is a PP issue so much as it's new tech on an old boat.

@Horton with the 7 points you've listed above. They all sound like your following some advice Adam Cord put out in another thread titled "connection and swing" where he talks about coming out of angle earlier. Is this what your trying to accomplish?

@Wish was right. Hot summer nights sold a lifestyle. If you want to bring spectators back you have to sell the lifestyle. It's one thing to host tournaments, it's entirely different to promote the tournaments as an event that everybody wants to attend. Hot summer nights made things look like a party was happening and "some people are doing cool things on skis too." The shore lines looked like the place to be for anybody looking to have fun. I don't really know what goes into hosting a tournament currently. Are organizers out there informing and hyping up the surrounding communities? Is there any advertising taking place? Is there anything at the lake for the spectators? A fun way to stay cool? Beer Gardens? Good food, good entertainment, and hot sun shouldn't be too hard to sell. wakeboarding took off in the 90's as the new extreme sport. Snowboarders could easily relate to it and already had a culture to support it. Big jumps are cool and impressive, the boats could hold more people and the speeds were much slower. Surfing is easy and everybody can enjoy it. But when I see ads for both sports i see company's selling the lifestyle not so much the sport, they show somebody riding a wave and then the camera pans to the people on the boat seemingly having the time of their lives watching the surfer. So the consumer sees "if I learn to surf or buy a boat, this lifestyle could be mine". on my local lakes I see surf boats enjoying the lifestyle, loud music, cold drinks, loads of people, and rarely is anybody surfing. Point is they bought all the gear, the boat, the boards, the ropes, the lifejackets, etc.... when really all they wanted was a boat, music, and the ability to say they spent the day "surfing".

For tv How about recorded viewing rather than live with the down time trimmed out. Get the whole day or weekend down to just 2 hours. I don’t know what went wrong back in the 90’s but I can remember watching tournaments on ESPN. I think it was called hot summer nights. If we could just get back to that I would watch every single one.