DangerBoy

Here are the adirondack chairs a professional woodworker friend of mine made for me. I had researched the design of waterski adirondack chairs and came up with my own design by taking the best attributes of several designs that I saw on the Internet. Another friend of mine had a pair of the most comfortable adirondack chairs that I had ever sat in so we borrowed one to copy every aspect of the ergonomics (e.g. seat height, length, angle, backrest angle, armrest height etc.) to ensure we'd end up with something that's not only cool to look at but very comfortable to sit in as well. I sent the plans and donor skis to my woodworker friend and a couple weeks later he returned with what you see below. Being the consumate professional and perfectionist that he is, he went way beyond what I had asked for. For example, my design had three intact ski tips making up the backrest; the two outside ones angled in a bit and the middle one flat to give the backrest an approximation of curvature. Well, he couldn't produce something that simple and spent a considerable amount of time making very straight and precise lengthwise cuts to the backrest ski tips to make the seats incredibly ergonomic and comfortable. I know almost nothing about woodworking but I think those cuts were very hard to make so perfectly straight and precise on a table saw given the curvature of the ski tips. I was both surprised and ecstatic at the result and am extremely proud to own these chairs and show them off to my guests. You might notice that on the one chair we didn't have enough skis left to make the chair entirely out of skis so he put in SOLID MAHOGANY planks on the seat base and front legs. He chose mahogany both for the look and its high resistance to water and weathering.

My ski made its way across the border and eventually to a friend's place way on the other side of town where it's been for a number of weeks. We finally both had time to meet somewhere central for breakfast so I finally got to take my new ski home and unbox it for the first time today. It's absolutely perfect as far as I can see. Don't know why they called it a "blem". Not even a scratch on it. Like everyone elses, it was originally priced at $1,520 but look at the sale price tag that was also on it! (bottom pic). $229.95! Man, I wish I could've got it for that price! I guess the extra $40 I paid went towards the "free shipping". Now I get to look at it and dream about trying it until May. (Sigh) :/

It looks to me like the technology they developed to accurately lob depth charges at U-Boats during WWII has evolved into its highest peacetime form. ;)

Nice photo, @SkiJay. :p Now that looks like a cutting edge innovation! Revolutionary even. I think it deserves some rigorous testing. Please take video when you try it. ;) It's a good point you made about the seaweed issue. I never thought about that. The lake I ski on doesn't have a seaweed issue so it never entered my mind that could be an issue.

When I open my eyes I find I'm staring straight into the soles of my feet three inches in front of my face and my toes are pointing down!

@SkiJay You say there MAY be some increased tip pressure at the same angle and it PROBABLY would be the equivalent of a small amount of angle increase with the wings on the right way. You very well could be right about this but you have to admit that's just a guess - albeit likely a well educated one. Please understand that I totally respect that you're one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on fin settings but I hope you can see my point that this is sometimes how things get overlooked and discoveries aren't made. People often just suppose doing certain things a certain way will yield certain results but they don't really know until they do experiments and gather data. Data is better than guesses and theories any day, Has anybody ever tried making a fin wing that has a true forward swept design and tested it? I'll go out on a limb here and guess that no one has. If that's true is it because conventional wisdom says a backwards swept fin wings are best and no one questions that? But does anybody really know that for sure? Maybe there's absolutely nothing to this and forward swept or some other radically different fin wing designs are just god awful, but just maybe there's an important discovery waiting to be made there. But no one's going to make that discovery until someone questions conventional wisdom/dogma and does some actual tests. What is there to lose? No one will ever know if a forward swept or some other shaped fin wing design might improve/detract from/have no effect upon fin/ski performance until someone gets curious enough to make some prototypes and does some actual testing like Denali is with their non-conventional fin wings (or fins for that matter). I can think of plenty of successful innovators and inventors who were throught of as being idiots, heretics or crazy until their whacked out theories and ideas turned into important discoveries... ;) And looking like an idiot on the dock wouldn't bother me. Why should I look any different on the dock than I do on the water? :p

It might be that running the fin wings "backwards" might create a bit more drag so it may be that one could run "backwards" fins at less angle to get the same results but this is pure conjecture on my part. There's reallly no way to know without experiments being done. I think the question is quite a fascinating one. For all we know, 20 years from now fin wings may look very different from what they do now and the ones we're using now might look primitive or antique. Or maybe everyone will be using wings that are not much different than what we have now but will be running them "backwards" to the way we run them and this will be the normal way to do things then because some one or some company did some experimentation and found out the wings actually work better that way. In a way this is already starting to happen with fin design with the innovations the mad scientists at Denali are coming out with.

Foregive me if this is hijacking my own thread but some things that were said earlier have really made me curious so I want to ask some questions. I could start a new thread about this if there's any interest in discussing this topic. Let me know if I should do that... Earlier on, @BraceMaker rightly pointed out that @tjones999 had the wing on backwards on the fin in one of his ad pics and @tjones999 explained how that came to be. That got me thinking. It seems to me that we've all (or at least I have) just accepted that the wings are supposed to go on with the angled/tapered part forwards and we've all just done it that way because it seems to make sense. I'm curious to know if anyone has ever questioned that and has tried running the wings backwards like shown in that picture to see what kind of effect it has? For decades it was generally accepted that plane wings had to be swept backwards until someone finally questioned that and did some research. Now there are many examples of high performance aircraft with forward swept wings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward-swept_wing Maybe the ski companies have all toyed with this idea and have done some experimentation with forward swept fin wings so maybe they could chime in on this. @savaiusini ? @adamhcaldwell ? The main point I'm trying to make here or the main question I'm throwing out is if no one has spent a lot of time experimenting with the fin wings turned around in a forward swept-like configuration, how can we be certain that the conventional rear swept configuration we've all accepted as being correct is actually the best way? Again, I could move this topic to a new thread if people want to talk about it so we can keep this thread to just talking about @tjones999's awesome 3D printed wing angle gauges in this thread. Let me know if I should do that.

I don't know how many of you may be interested in this and have seen this but there's a guy advertising a set of six 3D printed fin angle gauges in the Misc section of SIA for $5 shipped. That's $5 USD shipped outside of Canada but for Canadians, it's only $5 CAD shipped anywhere in Canada. The angles range from 7.0 to 9.5 degrees in 0.5 degree increments. If you have a 3D printer, he provides a link to where you can download the file for free so you can print them up yourself. I bought some and they arrived in the mail today. They look to be very precisely made and are of good quality. They're not flimsy either. Just shy of 1/8" thick. Overall length is 4 inches and max. height is in the 1.125 - 1.375 inch range. Here's a pic of them. Pretty good value for $5 if you're in need of a set of fin angle gauges. Here's the link: ski-it-again.com/php/skiitagain.php?endless=summer&topic=Search&category=Misc&postid=40455

Great photo @powbmps

A guy down the lake a bit from me used to have a rail set-up that he built very cheaply and it worked quite well. The rails were just joints of 3" or so oilwell drill pipe welded together end to end and a connecting framework. The transport was just a boat trailer riding on rims with no tires mounted. Can't remember what he did for supporting the front (tongue) of the trailer. For a winch system, all he had was a half or 3/4 hp 220 v electric motor controlled by a reversing drum switch coupled to a 40:1 gear reducer which drove a winch drum via a simple chain drive system. The whole winch system probably cost no more than a few hundred bucks to cobble together. I can probably dig up some pictures of the system if anyone's interested in seeing how it's put together. They later converted the boathouse half of that cabin into a TV room so the system was decommissioned. I got the winch system and installed it into my boathouse. New environmental regulations prohibited me from installing a rail system or pouring a concrete slab or tracks down the beach into the water so my boat has to roll over the beach which is comprised of coarse sand, gravel and some rocks instead of riding smoothly down rails. Because of this, and a number of other reasons such as my boat being heavier, I had to upgrade to a more powerful electric motor and change the chain drive sprockets on the gear reducer and winch drum to make the winch spool faster but now the system works very well for my situation and it's very easy to push the boat out of the boathouse and lower it into the water with the winch and to winch it back up into the boathouse at the end of the season to ride out the winter in a nice sheltered and secure environment. Because the beach is soft in spots and there are some rocks and things the trailer must ride over, I had to engineer and have fabricated a special dual baloon tire system for the tongue jack. Below are some pics of it before I spray painted it with Tremclad to prevent it from rusting. I just purchased a standard cheap tongue jack with a single narrow solid tire and modified it as shown below so it could easily roll over rocks and soft spots. The tongue jack didn't cost a lot on sale and the materials and welder/fabricator's labor didn't cost much more than around $125 all in I think. It may have even been less than that. If anybody's interested, I can provide a copy of the engineering sketch I gave to the fabricator and was all he needed to build exactly what I wanted. Just PM me for it. If I ever need to trailer the boat anywhere, I simply remove this modified tongue jack and swap in a standard tongue jack which can be swung up and locked into towing position. This one can't for obvious reasons. http://i356.photobucket.com/albums/oo9/DangerBoyRoj/20150620_163321_zps4f3tz3nv.jpg http://i356.photobucket.com/albums/oo9/DangerBoyRoj/20150620_163252_zpsrp2rwpg6.jpg http://i356.photobucket.com/albums/oo9/DangerBoyRoj/20150620_163411_zpstgz8k6hj.jpg http://i356.photobucket.com/albums/oo9/DangerBoyRoj/20150620_163435_zpsl3cicig9.jpg

With the sales on locally right now, I can get good deals on a Connelly Outlaw, a 2015 Radar P6 or an O'Brien Sequence for pretty close to the same price. These would all be 67s. I could also get a HO Charger 69" REALLY cheap. I'm not buying it for anyone in particular, would just like to have a widebody ski around for guests who are trying to learn how to deep water start on one ski so I want to buy something that will work for the widest range of weights possible knowing there's not one ski that will work for everyone. My combi skis are 68" O'Brien Celebritys. I also have a set of youth sized pair skis. Oh, and if I want to spend $55 USD more than what I could get the Radar P6 or Connelly Outlaw for, I could get a 2016 Radar Butter Knife 67". Which one should I get?

If anyone is looking for a good deal on a new 65" Connelly Carbon V, I happened across this deal while looking for something else: https://wateroutfitters.com/connelly-carbon-v-blem-slalom-water-ski/426868P.html Same deal, different URL https://summitsports.com/connelly-carbon-v-blem-slalom-water-ski/426868P.html $380 USD shipped. Seems like a pretty good deal. Is it? If yes, Hopefully somebody can take advantage of it. This code might get you another $10 off: 55GFAT6 on the Summit Sports link. Not sure if it would work with the wateroutfitters.com link

@Tom351 The Deep V handle looks interesting. I've never tried one or seen anyone use one before. Do they work well?

I've got a pair of O'Brien Celebrity Combo skis at my cabin for whenever guests who are at the beginner/novice level want to ski. What quite often happens is that they will be at the point where they can ski on one but have to drop a ski because they can't yet successfully do a deep water start on a single ski. This exact thing happened this year where a guest was determined to get to where he could get up on one but just couldn't do it despite the fact that the Celebrity is a mid-width ski so should be at least a little easier to get up on than a standard width ski and he was really stable skiing on one ski when he was on it. This has got me thinking that maybe what I need to have on hand is a widebody slalom ski like a Connelly Big Daddy or Jobe Hemi or the like for just this sort of thing. I have no experience with these skis, however, so I have a couple questions: 1. Do these widebody skis actually make it a lot easier for learning skiers to get out of the water on one ski? Do they significantly help shortcut that learning process? 2. Once people really get the hang of getting up on the single widebody ski, do they then tend to make the leap to getting up on a single regular width ski quite easily? Or do they usually/often end up back at the same place they were struggling with getting up on a single regular width ski anyways?

@Stevie Boy Couldn't you just drill the hole out and tap it so you could use a slightly larger diameter set screw? I think I'd try doing that before shelling out money for a new fin block. Is that not an option for you?

These are scans of a vintage 1956 Mercury Waterskiing brochure/pamphlet I bought on eBay. I hope you enjoy them. I love the stance and the handle she's using. :D I love step 4 (above). What if you're on a lake where it's 20 feet deep 10 - 15 yards from shore? Step 1 (below) looks like a sure-fire way to get a water enema to me. :# There you have it! That's all there is to waterskiing! ;)

@Tom351 The new weapon eh? Looks good. B)

@LakeboyWWK I haven't gotten the V-Type yet. I live in Canada. To take advantage of the free shipping on the deal I found on the V-type, I had it shipped to a border town in MT where a friend of mine will pick it up. He only comes up to visit his son in the city where I live about once every couple of months. Not sure when his next trip up will be but when he finally does, I'll finally get to unbox the ski. I doubt though that I'll be able to try it out until next spring, likely May. My new bindings, a set of NOS 2014 Connelly Talons, have arrived here though and they seem great. Really comfortable, quite a bit lighter than the Approaches and much better lateral stiffness. Check out this thread to find out what other people who got in on the V-Type deal are reporting back on the V-Types: /forum#/discussion/20306/anybody-looking-for-a-great-deal-on-a-nos-15-ho-syndicate-v-type-read-this

Can anybody report back on how they like their ski yet? In all likelihood, I won't be able to try mine out until next May :s

@LakeboyWWK Great first post and welcome to BoS. That's exactly the same setup I've been skiing on since '06! To my mind, the '06 Monza was the coolest, best looking year of the Monza and possibly also the coolest or one of the coolest looking skis HO ever made but then again I'm kind of partial to things red and black. Others may not agree with that assessment. I love the graphics on the base of it (see photo below). My dog Dave did too. ;) The interesting thing about my Monza is that it was sold to me in '06 by Ian Trapp who was the reigning (2005-'07) U-21 World Champion in Men's slalom. If I'm not mistaken, @CaleBurdick won that title the next time it was contested in 2007. Ian said it was one of his practice skis and only had a few sets on it. He was selling off all his HO stuff because he was just in the process of moving over to Radar. He had it listed on SIA and I happened to be the lucky guy who got it. After being skied upon by a world champion, the ski has probably been wondering who this joker is skiing on it ever since it came to me. ;) If I could get a word to Ian it would be to say thank you very much for giving me such a good deal on the ski and for convincing me that the Monza was quite forgiving despite its high performance ability and would be a good ski for me. It took me a little while to get it dialed in to where it worked really well for me but once I did, my skiing ability went up a significant number of levels very quickly. Buying that Monza was the best thing that ever happened to my skiing and I have Ian Trapp to thank for that. If anyone who reads this happens to know Ian, please pass on my thanks and appreciation to him.

I believe the main differences between the Omni Carbon and Omni Syndicate are the core material of the ski and the fin. Both have a carbon fibre layup and the ski shape is the same. The Carbon has a heavier Polyurathane core and a non-adjustable fin and the Syndicate has the lighter, more responsive PVC core and a fully adjustable fin. While those two extra features are nice to have, they're something that really only a fairly advanced level skier would start to be able to take full advantage of. IMO, they'd be of minimal benefit to a beginner and even an intermediate level skier although some might take issue on that point with respect to the adjustable fin. For a skier at your level, the Omni Carbon would be all the ski you need right now and will likely be all you'll need for a few more years. Unless you have lots of extra money to spend, I think your best plan would be to look for a deal on an Omni Carbon now and plan to ski on it for at least a couple years. At the end of that time you could look at picking up an '18 Syndicate Omni at a low price either used or a NOS/closeout. I mean, why pay so much money now to get a level of performance ability you can't really take advantage of now? Better to let someone take the depreciation on that ski and get it way cheaper in a couple years and in the meantime pay a lot less to get a lower performance version of the same ski that can deliver all the performance you'll need for the next couple years? If during the time you're on the Carbon having an adjustable fin becomes important to you, you could look at upgrading the fin and finblock on the Carbon. But before you pull the trigger on a Carbon, do some searching for a blem or used Syndicate. If you're lucky, you might be able to find one for not that much more cost than a new non-blemished Carbon. Then it might make more sense just to go for the better ski right off the bat. Just my $0.02 worth.

AFAIK, the Xmax are not foot specific so there would really be no need to swap front to back.

@powbmps Looks good. Have you skied on it yet? I'll be interested to hear what you think of it.

This will always be my choice for very sentimental reasons. This is a 16 foot 1975 Starcraft American with a 1974 Johnson 115. Her name was "Costa Lotta". My parents bought it new after our first summer at the lake in the fall of 1974. I had just turned 13. It was behind that boat that I really learned how to waterski and got good at it and learned to do many other things as well. I took loving care of that boat. I cleaned and waxed the hull every year, did all of the mechanical work and maintenance on it and kept it running beautifully until I finally sold it in 2015, its 40th year on the lake. I had that thing running the best it ever had when I sold it. I loved that boat so much I actually started shedding tears coming in at the end of the last run I ever waterskied behind her. To sell it, I listed it on a popular Canadian classified ad site, Kijiji.ca. Here's how the beginning of my for sale ad went: I can't believe I'm actually doing this. I feel like I'm putting a beloved child up for sale. This boat has been in my family since it was bought in 1974 when I was just 13. I have lovingly taken care of it ever since. So many great memories tied to this boat... The ad went on for 13 more paragraphs where I discussed everything about the boat's repair and maintencance history, condition and an inventory of the large stock of spare parts I had accumulated for it and would let go of with the boat. I then finished up with this: Why am I selling this boat that I'm so attached to and have so much reverence for? It's because in this, its 40th year on the Shuswap, I've replaced it with a similar but much newer boat. I don't have room or need for two ski boats in the boathouse and I fear its condition will detiorate quickly if it gets stored outside the boathouse over the long winters. So, to be kind to it, I need to let it go even though doing so will tear a little piece of my heart out. I'm hoping this boat will go to a young family with kids and parents who want to give their kids the opportunity to learn how to ski, kneeboard and tube and do all the fun stuff I got to do behind this boat as a kid... The response I had from the ad was amazing. I had people from all over the province - some from more than four or five hundred miles away - wanting to come and see the boat. In the end, I sold it to a perfect young family who live down at the other end of my part of the lake. They told me they would buy it before they even saw it. The day they came to pick it up we launched it down at the nearest boat launch and I took the father and 10 year old son for their first ride in it. It started right up after just a couple seconds of cranking dead cold. I idled it out past the buoys and then with a serious look I asked the boy who was sitting up in the bow section if he was holding on tight. He grabbed the rails with both hands and said he was. I looked over at the father who was sitting in the passenger seat and winked. Then I hammered it. The Costa Lotta came flying out of the hole like a scalded dog. Two stroke engines are great for that. Almost instantly we were at top speed and I was cranking sharp turns right and left to show off its great handling. Father and son were shouting woo-hoo! and fist pumping. Big smiles on those two. When we got back to the dock where the mother was waiting, there were high fives all around. Then, the father turned to me and just handed me a big wad of cash without saying a word. He never haggled even a dollar on the asking price. I was very happy to know the boat was going to the right people but watching her head down the lake with new owners in it was one of the most bittersweet experiences of my life. I love my new boat (Costa Lotta II) and have never regretted buying it but I do miss my beloved Costa Lotta and always will. It's funny how we can sometimes be so sentimental about inanimate material objects. :'( Even though she's an old boat, I think she has beautiful lines. For me, she'll always be the most beautiful ski boat ever. :'(