DangerBoy

AFAIK the only difference between the Carbon Omni and the Syndicate Omni is the core material, PU vs PVC so you'd be paying a lot for that PVC core which may not make that much difference to you depending on your level of skiing. I think I'd be leaning toward either the 2018 V or the used Carbon Omni with the repaired ding both of which are in the 300 range. With the money you save using your existing bindings you could perhaps look at upgrading the bindings later on when the end-of-season sales start happening and better deals start appearing on SIA. I don't know enough about the differences between the Carbon Omni and the V to recommend one over the better but I suspect the Carbon Omni is the better ski. Not sure though.

@powbmps I know! Crazy huh?

@Melissakimball Excellent first post. Let me be the first to welcome you to BOS! I've never seen a pair of Kimballs here in Western Canada. Sea Gliders were the predominant brand around here. I definitely need to acquire a pair of Kimballs for my vintage ski collection that I have on display at my cabin which you can view most of in this thread

 

https://forum.ballofspray.com/discussion/20995/show-off-your-vintage-skis

 

It will be near impossible to find a pair locally though but I'll find a way. ;)

@powbmps I was mainly referring to the differences between the second and third settings I used but the difference between the settings @Horton published and the stock settings were also very noticeable too, even for someone at my level. That third set of settings I went to made that ski great for me and I could tell very quickly (like within just a few turns) it was the bomb. Such a huge difference from either setting, even though the changes in any one adjustment were small. For me, that was quite surprising and interesting having been one that never fooled around with fin settings before and was pretty skeptical over how much difference a small adjustment here or there could make. My mind has been opened now.

 

I should point out that I was a bit confused about where the measuring point was on the front binding placement so I had the front binding in the furthest hole forward for the first two settings and moved it back one hole on the final setting. I don't have one of those plates that lets you micro adjust the front binding distance so all I can do is move it forward or back a hole at a time. It's possible that moving the binding back that one hole on the last adjustment had a bigger effect than the other fin adjustments did.

 

How are you getting on with your V-Type? Is it working well for you?

@dvskier I was thinking Canada is an underdog because competitive water skiing is not a well developed or participated in sport here. In the USA you've got so many more dedicated waterski lakes, clubs, leagues and competitions, etc. You've also got waterskiing as a sport/program in some Universities and Colleges. That may exist somewhere in Canada but I personally am unaware of it. Do we have any Universities and/or Colleges with waterskiing teams here in Canada? You've also got 10 times the population and have got so many more kids competing and moving up through the ranks competing and lots of good coaching at all the levels and other things you need to become a powerhouse at the sport. In Canada, we have very little of those things and our season is so short compared to what it is in a lot of the USA.

 

Now if you look at hockey, we have thousands of kids playing, zillions of leagues going, heaps of excellent coaches at every level and all the infrastructure and things you need to turn out a high number of elite players and be one of the top countries in that sport. It's like the USA in baseball, basketball and especially football. In Canada, competitive waterskiing is pretty much right at the opposite end of that spectrum with few athletes being funneled into the system/moving through the ranks, very few places to do it, not a lot of top coaching available and a very short season for doing the sport. Given all that, I think it's quite surprising that Canada is able to offer up enough high ranking athletes in the sport to actually be competitive with the US in overall team score and in this case come out ahead of them at this year's World's.

 

I have to guess it's only because we're able to channel at least some of our athletes through the US system and get them into US schools that have waterski programs, etc, that we're able to do that. Certainly, having them be able to live and train in a place where they can do the sport year 'round and have access to great coaching and top notch facilities like they can in Florida is a huge help. Without that, there's no way we could be competitive in the sport. The same thing can probably be said for a number of other countries as well.

@Drago Of course I figured the Canadian competitors at least winter in Florida if not live and train there. Florida is the world's undisputed epicenter for the sport and a large part of the world's infrastructure (e.g. lakes and coaching) is there. As far as I know, the sport is way, way more developed in the USA than in Canada or any other country for that matter. Is that a correct assessment? If yes, that would make Canada a pretty big underdog in the team competition wouldn't it?

What's this?!! Do I see that Canada won the Worlds team Championship?!! iwwfed-ea.org/competition.php?cc=T-19IWWF02&page=overall_team_classification

 

Wooooooooo Hooooooooooo! :) Considering the fact that our lakes are frozen half the year and the center of the universe for the sport is in the USA where you have places people can ski year 'round, I'd say that's quite an accomplishment and quite an upset. Congrats to Team Canada!! And congrats to all of the teams and competitors who soldiered through the conditions and gave it their all. You've made us all proud and represented your countries well.

@PeterAK as someone who due an economic downturn in his region has had to live within an extremely tight budget for the last 4 years, I totally understand where you're coming from. If you can make due until the off-season, better deals will start to appear on SIA and with retailers. You just need to be vigilant on SIA to be Johnny-on-the-spot for great deals when they appear. They don't last long when they do so you have to be checking at least 2 times a day.

 

By being patient and vigilant last year I managed to pick up a HO V-Type unused from a pro skier on SIA for $180 and a set of new unused Connelly Talon bindings for $100 from a different vendor. Amazing equipment for the price of department store stuff. There's also a lot of terrific generous people on this forum who have gear that might be great for you and will be kind enough to give you a sweet deal on it so be patient, persistent and hang in there and the right deal will come to you in time as it did to me. It'll all work out so don't worry. :)

FWIW I bought a boat in Minnesota and had it shipped about 1000 miles to a border town in Montana. Found the shipper through uship and everything went great. Couldn't have been more pleased with the whole experience going through uship.

That'll buff right out.

 

On second thought, Duct Tape! :D

 

Seriously though, you've just been handed the extremely rare and highly coveted "I get to buy a brand new ski and wifey can't say a damn thing about it" card. Use it before you go and do something stupid that will cancel it out!

Okay, confused about something. I went on the site to check the men's overall scores and saw that as indicated above, Adam Sedmajer did slightly better in the slalom than Thibaut Dailland but only got 918.18 overall points whereas Thibault got 1000. The rest of the field shown above I assume weren't competing in the overall. What am I missing here? Why did Thibaut get more points for slalom than Adam?

I keep checking into this thread hoping I'll see some scores but there never are any except the first post. Instead it's mostly talk about a lot of other stuff not related at all to the scores at the world's. I'm interested to see the actual results, particularly in slalom and overall.

@Deke I guess 'cause I wanted to give 'em a fair chance. I didn't really attribute my crashing to the settings at first, I thought it was just me. But when I went to the last setup and everything changed instantly, I knew it wasn't just me and must've had something to do with those settings.

 

I don't know why that second set of settings didn't work for me and had the effect they did but I'm guessing those settings weren't right for my style of skiing and/or the speeds and rope length I ski at. Perhaps they're more for someone who skis shortline at 34 or 36 than someone who skis in my domain.

 

If anyone can offer a theory as to why the longer/shallower more forward fin settings had the effect they did I'd be sure interested to hear it. @Skijay?

I was at the Men's finals in Calgary! Unfortunately again, not ideal conditions that day. A bit windy and choppy. Still saw some great skiing though.

To be perfectly honest, I've always been a bit skeptical that minute adjustments to the fin settings on a s\alom ski could make a whole lot of difference to the way a ski performs, at least for a skier like me. I ski open water only, usually 22' off at about 31-32 mph (our speed control is not precise at all).

 

Some of you may recall that last year, I asked for advice on what would be a good ski to upgrade to from my trusty and much loved '06 Monza. I was looking for something that would be better but not ski all that differently so it wouldn't be a big adjustment for me. I do most of my skiing during the 3 weeks I get at my cabin each summer so I don't have a lot of time to spend getting used to a new piece of equipment. Of all the suggestions I got, I went with @MS's suggestion to go for an HO V-Type and @Horton's positive review of the ski. Thanks for that @MS

 

So this June, I got a couple of early weeks skiing on the V-Type using the stock fin settings for the 67" which are below:

 

29.5

6.870

2.49

0.725

7 degrees

 

With those settings I found the ski to be nice and stable and predictable but it didn't turn as quickly or as easily as my old Monza. The ski was easy to ski but a little sedate and not what I had hoped. A bit boring and ho-hum it seemed.

 

Right at the end of that 2 week stay I switched so some settings recommended by @savaiusini which were shallower and longer and the fin and the front binding were a little more forward. Those settings were

 

29.625

6.970

2.450

0.74

8 degrees

 

Right off I could tell the ski turned easier but the ride was a bit more hairy. I was taking a lot more falls and that's something I don't usually do. It seemed like the ski was hooking up a little at the end of turns and that was pitching me forward causing me to OTF or to nearly go OTF a at times.

 

On the first ski outing of my 3 week stay at the cabin this summer, I decided to go for a third run which I probably wouldn't have normally done that early in my three weeks but my ski partner dropped out of his last run in some really calm water and I thought what the heck, I'll just drop in and try to make 10 turns or so and call it quits. That turned out to be a bad decision. Just after getting up, I swung out to the left and made a light cut in simulating a gate turn as if I was running a course. I went scooting across and hit the wake. The next thing I remember was coming up out of the water, after having been knocked unconscious or nearly unconncious for a split second. My O'Niell tournament jacket was completely unzipped and almost off me and absoulutely everything from about the waist up hurt, especially my back which hurt like hell. Even my hair hurt it seemed. It was all I could do just to get my ski off and get back into the boat.

 

My friend who was spotting told me I stuck the tip on the first wake and tomahawked two times. Basically, grip a barbie doll by the ankles, hold its head over water moving about 50 mph and then with a good firm snap of the wrist, smack its face into the wake as hard as you can two times. That's a good description of how I hit the water. I have no recollection of that. All I remember was hooking my gate turn, getting to the wake and then coming up out of the water stunned and in major pain. It was the worst fall I've ever had in over 40 years of skiing by far.

 

When I got out onto the dock I had to go to my hands and knees 'cause my back hurt so bad. Eventually, I could stand. Our tradition is to follow up every early morning skiing venture with coffee and Bailey's on the dock and for some reason after a couple of those my back seemed to feel a little bit better. ;)

 

I figured that all I had done was pull some muscles in my back so it was not too serious. It just hurt. I live for those 3 weeks of skiing at my cabin so there was no way I was going to let that crash and a little back pain keep me from skiing if I could help it so I continued to ski for the rest of the vacation albeit relying heavily upon the miracle that is extra strength Vitamin I (Ibuprofen) which I was taking every four hours or so.

 

A day or two after that bad fall I had another nasty OTF coming out of an off-side turn which also may have knocked me out for a split second or nearly knocked me out. That one also hurt and jarred my back a bit. A day or so after that I had another fall that was jarring to the torso but not an OTF.

 

All this falling and taking OTFs was very unusual for me as I typically hardly ever fall and when I do it's often only because the rope has popped out of my hands just as I'm finishing a turn. I never take hard falls that hurt or put me at risk of injury but that ski was beginning to scare me and I was starting to fear crossing the wake, especially coming off an off-side turn.

 

At that point, I decided I needed to change the fin settings (probably should've done it sooner) so I went to the settings @Horton said that he had preferred on the V-Type. Those were as follows:

 

29.50

6.875

2.490

0.725

8 degrees

 

So, the front binding a little further back, the fin a little shorter and a little deeper and a bit further back. But each change was only a few hundredths of an inch. How much difference could that possibly make to me? A HUGE DIFFERENCE!

 

Within two or maybe three cuts on that setup I could sense a huge difference. The ski seemed completely different! It still turned way quicker and easier than it did with the stock settings but I could make the ski do what I wanted, when I wanted and it was now much more predictable and stable feeling than it was on the second set of settings I tried. It was no longer hooking up at the end of turns pitching me forward and somehow I instinctively knew I no longer had anything to fear crossing the wake. All of a sudden, I felt much more comfortable on the ski, my confidence was coming back and my fear/mistrust was disappearing. In that one run, it seemed like my ski and I had figured each other out and we had finally become dance partners. I'm now back to being myself: smooth skiing yet aggressive, leaving it all out there but falling very rarely and rarely taking OTFs or bad falls. Believe me, my back is VERY thankful for that.

 

Such a profound change coming from such a small adjustment! I never would've believed it before. I do now. :)

 

 

 

How about Shred Betty?

 

Nice lookin' rig BTW. B)

The guy I ski with ran over a small piece of driftwood while sking and bent one of the wings maybe 20 degrees or so. I can't remember if it was bent upwards or downwards and I don't remember which side it was. Ironically, his skiing seems to have improved with the bent wing so we've just left it in place! We're just open water skiers skiing at 22' off at about 32 mph so without a ball count it's kind of hard to really say for certain if and how much his skiing actually improved. As his driver, I can say with some certaintty that he sure seems to be falling a lot less with the bent wing. At any rate, we're going with it and not changing it!

 

If you want to buy inexpensive but good quality wing angle gauges buy these ones off of Ski-it-again. Full set for $5.00 plus a little shipping.

 

ski-it-again.com/php/skiitagain.php?endless=summer&topic=Search&category=Misc&postid=40455

 

Terry makes them on a 3-D printer. I have a set and they're good.

Given the type of skiing you're doing and that you don't require speed control and all that, I don't see why you should limit your thinking to dedicated and often expensive mid-engined inboard fixed prop ski boats. I do the same type of skiing that you do and absolutely love my Glastron GT180 with an Evinrude 150 HO outboard. It's great for waterskiing behind. It has a great wake that's small, soft and has a real nice shape to it. You just slice across it without ever thinking about it or feeling it. In terms of design and passenger seating, etc., a runabout like that has a number of advantages over a mid engined inboard fixed prop ski boat so it makes the boat a little more versatile and practical in some ways.

 

Everybody that I ski with in the bay where my cabin is absolutely loves skiing behind my Glastron and the build quality and design of their patented Super-stable-Vee (SSV) are phenomenal. Truly a great riding boat that I'm willing to bet rides much nicer in rough water than any flat or nearly flat-bottomed ski boat.

 

As far as the Evinrude ETec outboard goes, I can't say enough good things about it. Just a teriffic engine in EVERY way. Great power and AMAZING fuel economy. Do a search on Evinrude ETec on this forum and you'll find a posting I made a few months ago detailing my experience with owning and operating an ETec.

 

So, if you're not locked into considering only mid-engined inboard fixed prop ski boats and are open to other types of boats, I recommend you take a good look at the Glastron GT180 or perhaps a slightly longer model in the same ilk.

How hard can it be, @Horton? It's a slalom ski! The thing slides on top of the water when attached to a skier being pulled by a speedboat and it turns right or left depending on which way you lean on it. What more is there to it than that? ;)

See you out there @aspski. You've got my contact info, right?

@UWSkier Is it possible they may be using one of those other blocks like the 6.2 and just stroking it a little differently to get the 6.0 displacement rating? Have a look at the bore dimensions on the 6.2:L Gen 5 engine and on the Ilmor 6.0 L and see how they compare. It would cost way too much to build a different block for this application so methinks they're probably using an existing block and stroking it a little differently to get the different displacement number. 0.2 L is only about 12 cu in so spread out over 8 cylinders you don't have to decrease the stroke distance all that much to get a 6.2 L down to 6.0. Maybe others could chime in here. Does that sound plausible?

I kneel before thee, @adamhcaldwell the exhalted King Slaloman.

I'm really interested to hear how everyone that got in on this deal liking their v-types. Reports? @powbmps? @Tom351? @Timr71? @btb24? @wheelskis?

 

I've only been able to get a few runs on mine so far so I don't have much to report other than I liked it but I didn't ski as well as I have on my old Monza but that was probably mostly due to me not being in ski shape yet and also not having the settings dialed in yet. That and my first few runs of the year are never my best.

 

I did 3 or 4 runs with all the stock settings. The ski was stable and predictable but I thought it wasn't turning as quickly or easily as I would like so I tried out @savaiusini's recommended settings for the 67 (longer and shallower) than stock. Only got one run in on those settings and it was definitely better. Need more runs to really know though. I have a few other settings to try after that as well.

 

My summer vacay starts in a couple weeks so then I'll have three weeks of hopefully skiing every day to get things figured out. Long story short, we're just starting to get to know each other and it's going to take more time and a lot more spins on the dance floor before we really dance well together.

@Horton Congrats on doing that. That ties your tournament PB right? What's your practice PB?

@jjackkrash I don't think they would be safe for surfing as it might be possible to fall into the prop. Personally, if I was in the market for a 300 hp outboard, I'd only look at an Evinrude etec. I love my 150 HO etec!