RGilmore

@hemlock At 34 mph, at centerline the boat is dragging you down course at just under 50 feet per second - even if you're going so fast that you're only in the gate for 1/10th of one second you've still traveled 5-feet straight down course. That calculates to about a 43-degree cross angle through the gate. Combine that with the fact that the boat wakes spreads the gate open a bit, and you can bet that neither of your drawn angles is even close to realistic. I know you feel like its possible to cut SO hard you go straight sideways across the course... but it's not. As always, IMO.

@Horton I just watched video of you skiing and I realized you use a well stretched out one-handed gate, so naturally you would disagree with me. However, when you release your outside hand, stretch your right arm toward the pylon, and keep the rope tight at the same time you can only be slowing down and falling back on the boat. Which means you're turning in at slower than optimum speed. That's just pure physics, so if your only argument is that I can't recognize your tomatoes then you're 100% wrong. I know tomatoes when I see them... As always, IMO.

Someone above said "wide" and "high on the boat" are the same thing. I respectfully disagree. If you get as high on the boat as possible, which entails accelerating to faster than the boat all the way "up", you'll actually start to become incrementally narrower - but you'll have the huge advantage of being to turn in on a tight line at boat speed. Meanwhile, "wide" is super easy. Just pull hard til you're up on the boat, then release your outside arm and stretch out your inside arm, letting your ski glide on a wider path. You can always get your skier wide this way, but you immediately sacrifice speed (pendulum physics), and therefore lose leverage on the boat. Somebody else above said "wider is easier, but higher is better". To that I say "+1" As always, IMO.

I spend about 3 seconds thinking about my pullout, and then about an additional 3 seconds thinking about my glide. So, about six seconds total. However, I repeat that sequence around 15 to 20 times per ski day. Technically, that's up to two minutes per day, 4 to 6 days a week. So, over a season, it really starts to add up. As former congressman Everett Dirksen, R-IL once said, "A billion dollars here, a billion dollars there. Pretty soon we'll be talking real money."

The rule of big toe I've been told is you want one or the other in a fall - both feet IN, or both feet OUT. One in & one out is where the most / worst owies come from.

The S-line rope I got has "self-tightening" loops, and if that's what you got too, they may seem small until you learn how to use them. Just sayin'

@escmanaze You proposed "5%" of the world population" for how many people water ski (or barefoot). Not for nothing, but that estimate is way too high. 5% of the current world population would be about 395 million skiers. For many years the estimate has been around 60 - 70 million; even with humanity breeding like rabbits, the most it could currently be might be around 80 million (11 million in the US alone). AND, taking that further, 1% of 80m skiers is 800,000. So it would seem reasonable to say that all "tournament"/ barefoot skiers are in the "top 1%" (unless we believe there's more than 800k of us). But who knows for sure? Once we start to apply math to statistical analysis we're definitely in the world of WAG numbers. "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." [benjamin Disraeli]

@thager YW

@lpskier I disagree. In my experience very few people have identical cant requirements for each foot, and the only way to determine that accurately is to get independent values for each. At a very minimum, the cant-measuring machine offers a good baseline place to start. In the end, some experimentation on the water will be necessary in any case. Also, I think you misunderstand how canting works on a water ski. In that regard, you concerns about the cant-measuring machine being different from water skiing is spot on, because with snow skiing your canting effort is designed to make each of your two skis flat under your individual bowed legs. With a water ski, your goal is the opposite - you want to force each of your knees to be aligned over the ski, thereby closing the natural gap between them. So, if you are right foot forward (and bowlegged) you want the thicker edge of the wedge on the right edge of the ski, not under your arch. Remember the OP's concern about his rear knee dragging in the water on his offside turn? If you place a wedge the way you're describing it you're simply forcing Thager's back knee deeper into the water (on his offside). Instead, you want the wedge to force his knee inward toward the ski's center-line. I know it's counter-intuitive, and you'll probably accuse me of being crazy, but before you do, read this: /forum#/discussion/15667/canting-my-bindings-on-the-ski-helped-me-overcome-years-of-problems/p1

@Drago "Ok, whatever"? Did my wife tell you to say that?

@thager @skialex If you live anywhere near a place where snow skiing is popular, take your Vapor boots to the best ski shop you can find. They'll have a device you can stand on with your boots on both feet that will determine the exact wedge angle you need for each leg. If you're an ORT user, take that along, but wear a thin sock with it, out of consideration for the ski tech's delicate sensibilities.

No alignment arrow? That's disappointing. Sounds like an oversight on the designer's part. I guess, when I come to that dilemma in a month or two, I'll try to align the sole of one of my previous Vapor boots with the sole of the new one and transfer the mark to create one on the new boot.

Canting with wedges is a well established science in the snow-skiing industry, and it works for ME just as well under my Vapor boots. Rather than being relegated to just "very hot messes", boot canting with wedges is universally respected among those who understand it (snow skiers). As always, just IMO.

@TimBeier Take a close look at the very nose of your boot, way down low where it transitions 90-degrees to become the bottom/sole. You should see a small molded-in arrowhead pointing downward - that is the RADAR-determined center-line of the forward end of your boot. No idea how that will affect the rest of your calculations, but that's where RADAR says the center is, so if ya didn't know... now ya know.

@Drago I understand everything @skialex said, and agree with almost all of it. However, I would never rely on the simple overhand knot of an end-splice loop alone, with the tail hanging out, to stand up to the forces in slalom - that's just asking for trouble, IMO. I was merely pointing out that there is a direct correlation between the length of an added core piece and how much it shortens the outer rope. I've been told that an inch of added core rope shortens the overall length by 1/4". It that's true, then a 4" piece would take up a whole inch. I imagine very few skiers arrive at a tournament with their favorite handle section, only to be told by the TC that their handle is an inch too long - but it that did happen, the obvious solution is to add that little 4-inch core piece... and never look back. I mean, how much heavier could it be? As always, the above is only IMO.

@Drago Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the amount of length taken out by inserting a piece of rope into the center depend entirely on on the length of the piece inserted? I mean, I'm sure that there is some length that specifically takes "1/4" out of a handle", but wouldn't a longer length take out more and a shorter length take out less?

@swbca B)

@swbca - Your tagline says, "Home of the world's first submersible slalom course". Well, unless your submersible course was built before 1978, it's the "world's second submersible course". As teenagers we built ours in about 35 - 40 ft of water, and used a whole bunch of steel manhole covers (that mysteriously disappeared from the county maintenance yard) for intermediate corner weights. The pull-down lines came from a huge spool of bright yellow 1/4" tri-strand poly rope that somehow went missing at the local power plant. I only mention that because my attorney says the statute of limitations has probably expired - along with any of the adults who were looking for all that stuff at the time.

@swbca Clincher-style gloves do not have a built-in rigid hook, so they will not hang onto the handle on their own unless you intentionally are trying to grip the handle. If you relax your grip the handle will go away on it's own (with help from the boat). The glove simply increases your grip by creating greater friction between the glove and the handle surface. They DO come with a dowel at the fingertip end, to seemingly create sort of a hook effect, but I have always removed that dowel, with no apparent loss of efficacy. IMO, it's primarily the seat belt-width, coarse-weave strap wrapped closely around the handle that increases grip friction by increasing surface-to-surface contact - and then transferring the load into the wrist band to which it's attached. https://www.h2oproshop.com/products/radar-vice-glove

If you want to be able to move that block, or even just level it where it is, mount a gas-powered trash pump on a floating platform, anchored in place over the weight. Run its 2" hose (typically) down to the weight with a ~ 3-foot x 2" diameter galvanized pipe extension, necked down to 1" diameter at the business end. Using scuba (of course), go down and utilize the high-pressure jet nozzle you just made to blow the silt/mud away from the sides of the block, and THEN out from underneath the block. Be prepared to work by feel, because once you start blowing that muck around you're going to have near-zero visibility. DO NOT WORK UNDERWATER ALONE. Also, FYI, your "700 pound anchor" weighs about 410 pounds under water.

I recommend these. Be sure and specify the maximum-duty spring for extra distance. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003082331038.html

@lpskier I sense you are subtly mocking the value of that "Best Review" on ski ropes, but I think you should remember that it was written by none other than Allen. So maybe show a little respect? ALLEN:

Not for nothing, but once the Athans boys got on them, they helped sell a hell of a lot of Sauciér Skis (early fiberglass skis, made in Minnesota)

@Andre Il n'y a pas de quoi s'inquiéter.

@Andre - It's spelled "spelled" Just sayin'