Cnewbert

I have a question: In two different interviews following two different runs, John Travers said the boat was too slow getting up to speed which affected his gate cut in one instance as I recall and maybe both. In any case, with such tight tolerances for speeds, timing and boat path, why wasn’t he given re-rides? Just curious.

@Mateo_Vargas that is a bummer! But that was the reason for my post. I was certainly underinsured until someone else brought this up on a FB ski group. Very sorry about your friend’s boat! Death to all thieves!

I voted for #2 because there is no way at my level octane will help or hinder my skiing. But it’s enough for me that my owner’s manual recommends the higher octane the better. I’m guessing there’s some reason since they gain nothing from higher price gas sales. I may be pulling numbers out of the air since I don’t track gas consumption for my Ilmor 6.0L by the hour. But say I burn 4 gal/hour for the sake of argument. I can presently buy 93 octane ethanol free gas for $3.68/gal. 89 octane is roughly $0.15 cheaper in my area. So I would save $0.60 per hour by using the lower end of the recommended octane rating vs. the higher end. If I put 175 hours on our boat annually (Florida), I would save a whopping $105 per year using the cheap stuff. That’s equivalent to one pair of good ski gloves plus a few beers. Since I didn’t exactly take up water skiing to save money, I’ll go with Ilmor’s Best recommendation.

That is just too awesome for words! So glad Action is our local MC dealer!

@AdamCord well hell, there goes my beer fund. Back to 93 octane I guess. Not that I need any extra power for my level of skiing, but right or wrong it seems to me that if the engine has more power available, it won’t have to work as hard at whatever demands are made of it.

@BraceMaker it is agreed upon value. I have that in writing from the agent. It was only a $68 increase in the premium. Thanks again for advising me to check.

This is a very enlightening discussion, but not having any meaningful background in engines and mechanics, much of it is above my pay grade. I’m pretty much limited to oil, filters and plug changes with my meager knowledge. Because it’s available locally and because my owner’s manual says it’s the best, I’ve been using 93 octane non ethanol gas in my Ilmor 6.0L MPI engine. My thinking was, why skimp on gas with a new and expensive motor. But I had no idea what octane was actually for and naively believed if some was good, more must be better since it cost more. I simply thought it would provide better performance and be somehow better for the engine in ways I didn’t understand. Based on this discussion/debate, this is what I now believe to be true. I’d appreciate any correction to my understanding as applied to my particular motor: The purpose of octane is to reduce or eliminate harmful engine knock. The tendency for knock is increased in high compression DI engines, and these engines receive the greatest benefit from high (93) octane gas. The Ilmor 6.0 MPI with its 9.6:1 compression ratio is not a high compression engine, so 93 octane gas offers no additional performance or knock protection benefits over and above what 90 octane provides, so I’m wasting my money buying the more expensive fuel. Do I have this pretty much right? 90 non ethanol is presently $0.15/ gallon cheaper than 93 non ethanol where we live. Not a dramatic difference, but the savings on a full tank is worth a couple of decent IPAs at the store, so it’s not to be sneezed at.

@BraceMaker thanks for that heads up. I’ll see if I can decipher the policy language to assure that it is an agreed upon value as opposed to a stated value.

The high demand for new and used boats in the past year combined with a very limited supply has resulted in an escalation of used boat prices as most everyone here is aware. It might be a good time to review your boat’s insurance coverage. Based on an evaluation of the replacement cost for a similar boat in model year, hours, condition and extras to our 2020 Prostar, our local MC dealer estimated a replacement cost $20,000 higher than we had it insured for. Our insurance underwriter accepted their estimate, so should the unthinkable happen and our boat get totaled, at least we have a chance of replacing it with something of similar high quality.

We are very happy with our Hero 9 and Ski Doc set up. The image quality and stabilization is superb and more than adequate for video analysis of technique. But you won’t get highlight reel “footage”. The max digital zoom available is just 2x, and digital zoom by nature results in a loss of resolution. Plus, owing to the physical time lag of the camera rotation on the Ski Doc, 2x is limited to lower level skiers who don’t pull too wide and ski out of frame. 1.4x (max digital zoom for higher resolutions) is pretty good for shorter line lengths and better skiers who get higher on the boat, but at 1.4x you don’t have a very tight image. Again, it’s very useful for instruction, which is the main point for us. You can of course zoom in further during replay, but since that is also a digital enlargement you will lose additional resolution. The package is convenient, compact and easy to use, plus the camera is water proof to some shallow depth I can’t recall at the moment, but it’s certainly not vulnerable to getting incidental water damage in the boat. It’s an invaluable, unmanned, hands-free learning tool, especially if you don’t have a knowledgeable observer in the boat who could shoot with a hand held DSLR and a longer optical zoom lens for the absolute best results.

We had an additional rack installed by Action last fall after we bought our boat. $1995.

Love Tony as the anchor, and TWBC always has outstanding co-announcers. Can’t think of a single one who has not been informative, insightful and entertaining. Great that they rotate different experts into the co spot. Keeps it fresh.

We use a GoPro 9 with a SkiDoc. Stabilization is outstanding.

The Ilmor owner’s manual would have a maintenance schedule.

Agree that TWBC is hands down the best! Tony Lightfoot and his guest announcers like Matt Rini can’t be beat, offering real and entertaining insights to both skiers and the technical subtleties of slalom. And their contained enthusiasm was such a welcome contrast to the over-the-top unlistenable screeching at the Masters. I thought Saturday’s production was a bit ragged in spots though, compared to the Swiss for example, which seemed slightly more polished overall. It was still great nevertheless. My one small criticism is this: the Wade Cox interviews are quite enjoyable, but they are meant to be fillers between runs, not main events. Yet sometimes they overlapped the start of the next run. In particular, when a skier like Dane Mechler begins a critical -39 pass, the skier should be given the full screen and the tail end of the interview put in the PIP, not vice versa. Small complaint in an overall great broadcast. Well done everyone.

@swbca I sure haven’t noticed any arch issues. Mine is very comfortable.

I use one and love it. Previously skied with double boots. Tried a RTP, but it felt loose and sloppy, at least the one I tried. Borrowed an HRT from a friend who had a spare and wouldn't give it back until I got my own.

That sure looks like a lot of bang for the buck! Beautiful!

I'm surprised no one has reverse engineered this handle and starting making them. There is obviously an enthusiastic market for an equivalent and it doesn't appear as though the original is going to be revived any time soon.

Another gem.

I think part of the problem is that front, back, inside, outside, leading, trailing etc. might in some instances be a bit ambiguous without a qualifying point of reference to help orient one's visualization of the movement being described.

And here’s something that will help immensely and is completely free: Listen to Rossi and Trent Spraymakers podcasts, both the first season last year and the news ones for 2021.

@HMan66 Swiss is a gorgeous setting, the lakes ski great (I’m told), the event seemed very well run and TWBC did a fantastic job. But this venue is simply awful for spectators to be honest. The causeway between the two lakes is very narrow with steep banks, so there is nowhere comfortable to set up chairs. Worse, there are no full, unobstructed view lines up or down the length of the course from the shoreline as trees, other vegetation or shoreline structures block the view. The best spot we could find gave us a decent view of just 3 buoys, but there were no loudspeakers close enough to hear the announcer so we couldn’t tell who was skiing, the line length or any other pertinent information about what was happening. As beautiful as Swiss is, it’s not set up for spectators. I think that’s why you didn’t see more people attending.

Ecstaski

We trailer our boat, so we aren’t faced with this problem. But I think if we kept our boat on a lift at my own dock, I’d get a couple of 30 gallon wheeled gas caddies with hand pumps and haul the empty one as needed to the gas station in a small utility trailer, always having a full(er) one at the dock while the empty one awaits filling. I imagine there’s a good reason why some (or many) people don’t do this, but I’m not sure why.