chrislandy

Surely a very similar situation could happen with a normal handle? And add into that situation your head or arm passing into the triangle, so on balance I reckon it has the least worst outcomes vs the traditional handle. Looking at the video and photos, the T isn't extremely stiff like a carbon rod and the stiffer central section is quite short so there is some additional wiggle room in how the handle reacts in such a fall. If the centre bit was longer, then yes it could act as a hook. I've been doing some more sketches based on what I've observed (which I won't put up) and there are some really good engineeringy funkiness going on and I can see how much development has gone into getting this far 👍

It would depend on which handle you are comparing it to, mechanically speaking you could reduce the T length to get a similar feel to a stiffer triangle handle (one where the ropes are PVC tube lined), which I suspect as @JPeckham has done from his comments. But you couldn't replicate the feel of a non stiffened handle as to stop the handle rotating you need to introduce a moment force though your wrist and arm to keep the handle in line (the bottom sketch). Although, I would think that given the ease of adding a shield in the triangle to achieve a similar level of safety, the aim was not to replicate a typical handle, with the same feel and make it safer but to develop handle technology. I love seeing this stuff as it goes with my own philosophy of trying different things out, some work, some don't. To get this far in development, it's obviously been working. 👍

@03RLXi it's a force-vector mechanics "problem", with a traditional handle (eg Syndicate 41 Tail), the chords forming the triangle from the handle forwards cannot take compression so the handle cannot rotate off axis as much. I struggled to explain it in words so did some sketches, I think the explanation is that under light one handed or unequal hand loads, to keep the handle dead in line with the rope then you have to put some twist into it from your hand/arm/body. I'm not sure if it's better / worse, just different. Now, if you ski with a "solid" handle like the radar barlock pro or ML Ergo series where the upper section of the rope is plastic lined then you're likely not to feel too much difference as the rope section can take some compression (so the force sketches above for that system would be somewhere in between)

You can see in the video that the handle wavers and pivots at the leg tip where it joins the rope during hand on/off and at slacker points. Whether it's better or not will likely be personal preference rather than any performance benefit, when under load the physics/mechanics are the same, it will be unequal loading at light load conditions that's when things change and feel different (for better or worse)

2014+ mastercraft prostar with bow seating & tower 2010+ Nautique 200 open bow & tower Both have loads of space for cruising / floating, foiling, surfing is possible (kids can surf without a rope, adults will struggle) skiing is excellent, both under 3500lb, both can be found under 80k or if more surf/foil/float bias then MC NXT most surf / wake boats even sub 21ft will have a total weight well in excess of 3500lb when on board ballast is taken into account (which generally they do when talking max boat weight)

It's a difficult one, very easy to scare off after the first attempt i.e. the first fall. Mine has been over 7 times and not skied away yet (so close on at least 3 of them). He's planning a trip to a specific club for a weekend early season that has a 3ft ramp to "get it done" (and apparently I have to go over too) before going back to 4ft6 back home.

My boy (13) wants to get into 14m/55 and wants to qualify for national again so 3-4 3 event comps this year and coaching each week

Hydrogen ICE has some very nasty emissions that the car companies are trying to sort out for years (some have junked the idea, others are still trying to make it work), hydrogen fuel cell EV will likely be the "winner" given the right amount of initial funding for infrastructure and global political will to achieve. One major issue with hydrogen is the generation of it, it takes a lot of energy and it's a case of where the energy comes from i.e. burning something or solar electricity. Then there is distribution as it requires high quality equipment so it doesn't leak through the tanks / pipes. But, you could have localised generation at the point of use which solves a lot of the distribution issues.

@DW Very true but with the increased complexity of ICE for emissions then there is a lot more to the engine than just the block/heads/rotating assembly. My Ford Ranger 3.2 hydrolocked at 70k (4rys old) when the egr cooler fractured and it sent the coolant into the inlet manifold. CATs fail, oil changes every 8-12k etc. Whereas I now have 2 EV's, both "old" (2014 (60k miles) & 2017 (100k) and show negligible battery deg. I think it's part of the same study as @jcamp posted about, but there was one that showed you could replace the battery completely and still be better off in terms of whole life. The batteries are also recycled, there is a huge market for old EV batteries in large scale home storage as the battery isn't dead, but just not "good enough" to use in a car. The killer comes when you compare WHERE the electricity comes from, now here in the UK around 40% and rising is from wind and solar, some from nuclear and the rest is LNG, the coal power stations were turned off this year I believe. I also have a large solar array at home so 70% of the year I can run at least one car for free and would be wasted or uncaptured energy otherwise. Whereas, if you are live in a State where 90% of the power comes from coal burning, then it's most likely worse than an ICE in terms of emissions.

at 200k difference, it feels like they tried to get their R&D costs back in 3-4 boats

@Shell Don't get me wrong, one of mine you can't keep off the water and the other will do it when she feels like it. The issue we had was lack of "other fun" at the lake i.e. no one to thug around with 3, 4, 5 up on tricks / kneeboards, skulking around the undergrowth, chilling in someones RV / clubhouse etc between sets, in other words "lake life". When our last club had a few other kids there, they would ski or be on a boat for pretty much the whole day, when they left it took a lot of the fun out of it for them so we ended up training, resting, training and going home. Most clubs for us (except this new one) are 1.5hr drive away minimum so we like to make a day out or weekend in the camper. The new one is 35mins away and has loads of families as members so all different ages and skiing levels

We are going through this now, just moved clubs to make sure the kids are surrounded by peers. I've found over the last few years that if the kid does have a friendship group at the club then they are more willing to push themselves. Like most places, you do get the odd not so nice kid, but again I've seen children turn this around and they use it as a lever to push themselves to beat them in competition.

Because of the time difference I get to watch a lot of US live events as it's late afternoon / evening generally - very hard to watch the night jumps / slalom comps live though as they are typically about 2am here

I've long thought the values for flips vs spins vs flips with spins has been squiffy and doesn't reflect the difficulty. It also means that the trick runs these days look very similar for each skier (if not exactly the same for mid level trickers) if they want to hit certain points. It does need an overhaul, I liked the way the wakeboarders did it when putting their original trick lists together and just made a load up which hadn't been achieved yet with most variations of flips/spins/surface/1 wake/2 wake etc.

you've still got the pair of wooden skis you learnt on in 1985

The Hovercraft is a full edge to edge ski with a deep concave, and to say it's not challenging says you've not tried one through the course. You can run the course on it, I have up to 24mph then slowing the thing down and turning it gets VERY interesting. It's a very good ski to have as part of your boat arsenal as you can use it to get beginners up, rehab skiing (bad back / shoulders etc), have some fun on it at the end of the day, hot-dogging etc

In France, you have to have a licence for anything over 5hp. It'a a theory and practical test where you have to demonstrate competence in maneuvering the boat, be able to identify things on the boat, flags, signs etc. On the lake I go to there it does mean that generally people know how to operate a powerboat, the police will pull you and check for licence and insurance and if you don't have it, they will escort you off the lake. If you act like an idiot, likewise (jetskiers don't last very long)

I was doing this building wakeboards 15odd years ago, using the "I" beams through the core allowed for better torsion control and you could profile the stiffness / torsion along the ski / board. The rebound was amazing, the riders who demo'd them loved them down the wakepark as they could lean as much as they wanted into the nose/tail and pop off as much or as little as they wanted to. The cores never degraded (or the effect of them possibly degrading was never felt) as the carbon spars or webs transferred the majority of the shear through between the top and bottom and therefore the core was pretty much only there to help form the shape during the cure. Time wise, it was a long process as you had to carefully dry layup each core section with the various bits of carbon/kevlar/glass (and others 😉 ) prior to laying up in the mould / cassette. it took me around and hour to cut the fabric, 2hrs to lay up and the cure time was over 12 hours per board as it had an 8hr post cure so as not to deform during the summer. Compare that to a traditional sandwich construction, it's minutes.

@03RLXi pre my current boat, I was developing a small digital dash for my old 96 prostar with a separate sensor array to the main gauges i.e. completely independent. It had a oil pressure, oil temp, water temp, rpm and a raw water flow meter, plus rolling log so if something ever happened I'd have a log of some critical info. They key was using decent 3 wire sensors and using a 0-5v scale Unfortunately (or fortunately) I sold the boat on and got my newer prostar before I'd finished it. I might still resurrect it but just use water flow and exhaust thermocouples like the above - but for £130 ~ $150 it's probably not worth my trouble and I'll probably end up just buying that other one.

I've been looking at SM022D Dual sensor, exhaust / engine temperature monitor (siliconmarine.com)for mine, it uses a thermocouple inserted into the exhaust flow so if the water mix drops off then it's almost instant rather than waiting for the manifold to heat up

you mean these?

@Downunder It's got the wrong name on the side 🫢 It is a lovely boat though, my favorite colours too 🙂 Hopefully you'll get many hours of joy behind it

Dog leash, Trick release, bow / stern ties, washing line

On first reading I through this was going to say tap on the binding to find the resonant frequency of your ankle... I need more coffee

There's a much simpler thing called a strain gauge, we use them a lot to directly measure and compare surface (or subsurface) changes and compare them to the modelled (calculated) properties. The best methods are the simplest, real world cause/effect is mighty complex so the easiest and most repeatable methods to check structural behavior is based on primary axis and first order static forces i.e. bending, shear, torsion, axial and then elongation & deflection in x/y/z axis. No matter how complex your design/model, the end result is you would not try and mimic the in service load cases for a ski as it is nigh on impossible. You apply "test" load cases in the model e.g. what it takes to deflect the ski 1/10" at certain points with certain supports and record the strain & deflection; Then with the ski in front of you, you do the same in the real world and compare the two sets of data. This then implies that under other load cases the ski will behave in a similar manor; obviously this is a structural test method rather than a behavior due to surface contours.