RGilmore

@boscoman - the "reward" from a check-up x-ray is not observing minor improvement. The reward is discovering something bad you didn't know you had. Or NOT.

If I recall correctly, French skier Patrice Martin (who was recently named as one of the candidates for the "World Games Greatest Athlete of All Time") retired after suffering a serious injury as a result of getting an arm through the handle in a fall. This was during a big "all stars" tournament around 2009 or so.

@LLUSA "Covid"? Is that supposition, or do you know that as a fact?

I would think the Cubco bindings could have had some influence on the more recent "MOB" concept and its forerunners. https://www.skiinghistory.org/history/release-history-safety-bindings

@jjackkrash Sorry, I can only explain it to you; I can't understand it for you.

@jjackkrash Yeah, our boats will slow down relatively quickly when you throw them into neutral. But what you don't realize is that when you do that, the propeller continues to rotate on it's own in response to the high-pressure water passing underneath the boat. If the propeller simple locked into a non-rotating condition at "WFO", your boat would instantly stand on its nose and possible dive for the bottom. Historically, this is a known cause of a number boat-racing injuries and deaths, due a failed shaft coupling or a broken shaft. When that happens, the shaft slides out through the hull until the propeller jams against the rudder, and then the tremendous drag of the suddenly-stopped prop forces the back end up out of the water and the nose down into the water. If the boat is moving fast enough the nose will catch and the boat can flip end over end. This is why inboard racing boats are required to have stop collars clamped onto their shafts directly below the shaft coupling. When a propeller is suddenly stopped "cold" at high speed the resulting drag is unimaginable. Unless you have actually experienced it first hand, you have no idea how abrupt it can be. https://www.pyiinc.com/shaft-retention-collar.html

@LoopSki I don't think it will fit any of our boats, not due to the strut, but rather, due to the smallest diameter offered for the "NX Inboard" version being 25" in diameter.

@Bracemaker "tilting at"? It's an easy effect to observe. Go out in a Zero-off equipped boat and set the slalom tournament mode to 15.5mph. Now ease your way up to full throttle (shift lever "buried") and head out across the lake. Reach up and start rapidly tapping the UP arrow, noticing how quickly the boat can jump to the next speed each time. You can do this extremely fast - probably two or thee button pushes per second. So NOW, when you're going 36.0mph, reverse the process and start tapping the DOWN arrow as fast as you can, back down to 15.5mph. If you can't observe the amazing braking effect that's happening, due to propeller drag, then this is not a question of "opinion" but rather a question of perception. There's no free-wheeling in the transmission, and when you're rapidly reducing the speed setting, as described above, the speed-sensing system will be forcefully dropping the rpm at the prop as far down as necessary to reach the ever-changing target speed. If that isn't a form of dynamic braking, then I don't know what is. As always, just my opinion - but , in this case, also correct.

One thing I've never seen mentioned here, but Zero-Off is not only super responsive in accelerating, but can ALSO "put on the brakes". It does this by actively ramping down the RPMs enough to create drag with the slower-rotating propeller. So it occurs to me that those large openings in this Sharrow propeller might require a much greater and more abrupt drop in RPM - which would result wider swings between high and low revs from the engine. Not that any of this matters, 'cause I ain't EVER paying $5K for a propeller. Not in THIS lifetime anyway.

I'm glad some other members had the courage to point out the one major flaw in the Camaro product - durability. For me, it was the LEAST durable ski suit I've ever owned. Insofar as they are not "cheap", I genuinely felt cheated as the suit began to fail miserably by year 2. However, I found the solution for me, when I tried another guy's O'Neill suit. I ended up buying one right away, and after two seasons of use it is still in excellent condition and still works perfectly. The suit I bought was an "O'Neill Psycho One, 3/2 Back Zip Wetsuit" (SKU: ONL4964BLKXLT), and the material ("Techno-Butter") is super stretchy and comfortable. After diligent shopping I found the best price and delivery at "Cleanline Surf". This is the only O'Neill product I've ever owned, but I could not possibly be more satisfied, and I'm going to buy a second one this spring so I can take two sets per day without having to get back into a wet wetsuit. I'm sure there may be something even better out there - but for me, I found my brand.

@swbca The benefit of the path shown in the bottom image is that the skier has boiled off less speed in the preturn and therefore can snap off a more efficient finish at the ball - resulting the following good things: 1) maintaining a more solid connection deeper into the buoy; 2) finishing with greater angle and a smoother "hook-up"; 3) needing less additional speed from the cut to get to the next turn; As always, IMO.

Reminds me of some of the old black & white physics films we watched in high school, where they fired one bowling ball out of an air cannon while they simultaneously dropped a second bowling ball straight down, proving in ultra-slow motion that both balls landed at the same time. I have to say the skiing footage is much more interesting - in case anyone was pondering.

There are no low handles; only high hips.

I don't know... for your million$ you not only get a lake, you also get a ho-hum house with formica counter tops, AND some grape trees. Ya just have to hope that will help offset the back-breaking state and local tax burden you're gonna carry.

Cale Burdick made a YouTube video promoting this technique nearly a decade ago, right around the height of the open-shoulders-100%-of-the-time era of conventional skiing wisdom. His point was presented more along the lines of the age old "hide the back shoulder" concept, but the reasoning and end result were the same. For those who don't recognize the name, Burdick is no slouch.

Cold water vs warm water is all about smear. IMO, of course.

They make various single-step and even multiple-step "ladders" that mount directly under your swim platform and fold up out of the way,. Hey, there's one now: https://www.wholesalemarine.com/stainless-steel-under-platform-telescoping-boat-ladder/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA-eeMBhCpARIsAAZfxZC68LU_sUcUsIyhq0tamWtuNGkPndnSpiMgLjoibcjzJEspGEKfj5oaAolOEALw_wcB Mounting process:

One consideration not mentioned yet is the perception of increasing success as the rope on each successive pass becomes shorter. Waterskiing is like golf, in that the smaller the number [in metric] the better you're doing. It's conceivable that someone watching a pro golf tour stop who had never followed golf before might wonder why the guy with a score of 63 just beat the pants off the guy who scored 72. In the same way, to the uninitiated, "three at thirty-eight" Just instinctively sounds like a greater achievement than "five at twenty-two" - which it is. So they can immediately understand why "six at forty-one" gets everyone at a tournament very excited - 'cause it sounds BIGGER, and everyone knows "bigger is better". I mean, just look at Ashley Graham: http://micetimes.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/4f2a22ce312bce61c44500c2521e620d.jpg As always, IMO.

Fail from the get-go. You need to DEFINE "slow" and "fast". Without the meanings of those relative terms being agreed upon the poll results will mean nothing. For the record, cold water is dense and sticky. So, it may feel "slow" because it's much harder for the tail to slip free ("smear"), making the turns have a much wider radius and therefore feel "slow". BUT... that same reason it is harder to get a good angle out of the wakes, and the same physics that cause the turn to feel like driving a bus ALSO direct the ski more directly downcouse after the second wake - resulting in the sense of coming into the ball way too "fast". Therefore, if you had a third poll choice of "BOTH", that's what I would choose.

@BraceMaker - The Chris Parrish "thing" was an O'Brien Sixam, airbrushed with HO Monza graphics - both 2005 models (IIRC).

@So_I_Ski and others - One aspect not mentioned so far is the significant difficulty of tying two loops (secure enough to take major loads) in a total length of only "10 inches". It can be done... probably - OR maybe there's some special way of grabbing the rope at those tiny length changes that doesn't require extra pieces somehow spliced into each other in the length of less than a foot. Which, by the way, happens to be 0.3048 meters (for those who think Americans only understand the correct system). Now, before you dismiss this concern outright, go getcha one of your old ropes and try it. Gonna be harder than you think. But once you do figure that part out, what color are are you gonna make your new loops? Cuz we're about out of those, too. Chartreuse? Magenta? As always, IMO.

"Is Joel Poland the greatest skier of all time?" No way to know, because "all time" isn't over yet. Change the question to, "Is Joel Poland the greatest skier of OUR time?" and you can probably answer "yes". "all time" includes hundreds of great skiers before Joel Poland was even born, and [hopefully] hundreds more to come.

@lpskier The technical term is "defur", as in "the number of methods by which one can defur a feline is greater than one".

Depending on your angle gauge set, you can add two together and you won't need a spacer. For example, if you're looking for 9*, a 4* and a 5* will stack to get that. An 11* and reversed-4* will get you 7* (a common Denali setting). You just have to get creative.

IMO, the single biggest hurdle to running the next line length is knowing for an absolute fact that you CAN - especially under tournament pressure. We haven't seen Mechler's last -41'.