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Not exactly breaking news but I recently asked the OffCourse guys if they were considering an upgrade that would add width stability by "dynamically leveling the guns independently of the boat". This was the reply: it shows they are still developing the product. "We have a couple of things that we are looking for when creating the next version, I will have your thoughts in mind regarding dynamically leveling the guns independently of the boat" Robert Ungurjanovic @coach3 Regarding your questions 1. Driving straight doesn't require gates. Targeting something on the shore ahead of you works. 2. Training for 32/35 off. Skiing only with OffCourse without frequent use of a conventional course, will not fully develop your skills for skiing in a real course. It will help you develop the general performance level required for skiing in a course at different rope lenths, but skiing around the splash is much more forgiving than skiing around a physical marker >> you don't care if you run over a splash but you never want to hit a ball. That changes how you ski. 3. The position of ball zero . . . they drew a straight line from ball one back through the center of the starting gate and put marker zero where that line intersects with a line through balls 2,4,6. They give you extra space because there is no way to know precisely where you should make your first cut towards the wake. 4. We only recalibrate OffCourse when we have a real course to drive through. To keep the guns accurate we distribute six 10 pound rubber coated dumbells in the left and right side pockets to get the boat level with every crew combination. In our case we have 3 drivers and no observers, so we know where the six dumbells go for each driver, moving weights on the fly when changing drivers between sets. We never take OffCourse out of the boat. It is locked to the windshield with fully imbedded security Allen bolts and removable Locktite. If we took it out of the boat we would have to recalibrate OffCourse every day instead of simple leveling the boat. The digital levels we have attached to each of the guns read 6.8 degrees for regulation width with the boat level. ** On our boat the vibration and shake of the windshield when running over choppy water slowly unwinds the screws used to adjust the angle of the guns. This causes the splashes to become narrow. I have thought about adding a Nut to the adjusting bolts to lock the position, but so far have been using a small strip of duct tape to secure the position of the adjusting bolts. The Digital Levels we have installed helps us level the boat to match our current crew every time there is a change in crew. There is no way to keep the boat level once a short-line skier starts skiing because the skier rocks the boat. 1 degree of lateral roll changes the width of the splash by about 6 feet (depending on how high your OffCourse guns are above the lake surface at speed). With OffCourse, I am used to skiing inside some markers and too wide on some markers because they are always changing width once you start skiing. For me the value of OffCourse is to maintain my ability to ski the required width and a sufficiently aggressive pace needed for a real course at 35off@32. To run an actual course at 35 off takes a couple of days of adjustment because real balls require you have a precise preturn and timing for the turn to keep your ski a few inches outside of each ball. When the splash varies in position by a few feet with each turn you can't train for that precision.

A Dry Robe is wrapped up for my wife . . . Every morning she comes into the kitchen at around 7:30 and says "Get the boat ready. We should go before the other boats come out" Maybe the Dry Robe will make it easier on the cooler mornings.

Congratulations The success of this forum can be attributed to the total involvement of it's publisher.

@rawly can reverse delete is reaction.

Agreeing with many other posts on this thread . . . . The MasterCraft person that sent this out should get his act together. He makes the MasterCraft company look bad. You can't fix this problem with a call to action that has no relevant direction. To appose this action you should know which regulatory or legislative entity is actually considering this. The proposed restrictions are absurd . . . . Did anyone mention property values and ultimately property tax revenues ? The 1500 acre restriction would exclude more than half of the lakes in Minnesota. Green New Deal . . . This sounds exactly like something that would come out of Washington to further their current fossil fuel policies. Get rid of all gas powered cars and as many gas powered boats as possible. This is not a joke. You couldn't water ski if your lake is smaller than 2.5 miles long and a 1 mile wide. Bad for families . . . Many baby boomers invest in fun things to do so the their kids and grand kids will hang around on weekends for family fun. On on our shoreline its the boats. It wouldn't be the same if no one could pull their kids behind the boats

No one has told us what the legislative context for this is, but any blanket rules are going to cause damage to reasonable interests of many in the population of lakeshore owners . . . and the population in general. There should be a provision in the law that allows for local variance-permitting for water skiing closer to shore on small lakes when the established population lives there to water ski. Two Minnesota skiers bought land on a semi-rural lake and built "nice" homes and a submersible slalom course. They have an agreement with the few other households on the lake that the course will be positioned near the center of the lake creating about 300 feet of clearance from shore. That may be written into the last version of the county issued permit. Other examples for local permitting as well for much smaller smaller lakes where the lake shore owners as a group enjoy a slalom course 80 feet from shore etc. Allowing for local permitting for variance from draconian rules would be the reasonable thing to do. The permits for exceptions could include a second set of standards for Wake Boats if necessary to serve the lakeshore owner population.

Random observations Would this affect man made lakes in planned communities for water skiers ? 1500 acres is huge. Christmas Lake in Minnesota is 265 acres, 1 mile long and 3/4 mile across at its widest point 200 feet is not a long distance from shore. To be a good neighbors, we ski at over 300 feet from shore where there are homes with docks. If its too windy for 300 feet, that's our problem. 200 feet is way to close for wake boats. If I were to drive a wake boat on our lake I would be at 500 feet.

Back when I had unlimited access to practice for 20 consecutive years, I had full double wrap arounds. I had switched from an RTP in the back to a wrap around rear boot for safety. As I recall l didn't come out of both boots more than few times in 20 years of heavy practice. And, I never came out of one boot but not the other. This means I never had the risk of a twisting ankle injury . . . . both feet in or both feet out 100% of the time. Only if I were to switch to an RTP would definitely switch to a front release design now. Maybe part of that decision is I don't recall ever having an out-the-front fall in my lifetime except when I ran over ball 3 and broke my arm in the handle. I have slapped my ribs into the wake 3 times with a broken rope (twice in tournaments with committee ropes) but the type of boot release won't help that.

Traditional rubber boots or modern variations of them require different forces to have them pulled off of your foot compared to the forces required for a mechanical release to separate you from your ski. As a result the continued trajectory of the ski and skier can be different when falling at speed depending on the type of boot. What about the chances of the skier having a collision with their ski depending on the type of boots ? This doesn't measure the overall safety of one type of boot over the other. It just addresses the risk of having an significant impact with ski during a fall with the different types of boots. "Collision" means the skier had an impact with his ski during a fall that was at least slightly painful. The impact may have happened before or after the ski was detached from the skier in the progress of a fall.

@KRoundy I started this thread asking about going to a release system. Having seen a few videos of front boots releasing while guys were crossing the wake and now from your comment, I am reminded that I don't think I would ever trust a mechanical release. Its not rational if they are set up correctly, but like you, I know I would be thinking about it every time I skied. I think I stick with dual T-Factors for the few years of skiing I have left. In the 65 Nationals my front binding was ripped when I started this pass. It ripped in half when I hit the wake a moment later, leaving me with the RTP.

My toes touch the front boot. Exactly the same spacing as I had on the ski. Foot spacing is the issue with dual release boots. I don't want more spread and that's not easy to find. Even the new T-Factor MOB has a piece of hardware on the back of the front boot.. My reason to do the Carbon plate was to speed up testing settings. My ski partner and my home driver both have very short time windows for ski outings, so there isn't time for making changes in a given morning. Have been frustrated having to wait a full day to try any small change. So, Also bought a second KD fin block and fin for a quick change of settings. For better or worse constantly testing changes has always been one of my favorite things about the sport.

I checked with Radar . . . The Radar Brand Manager said the spacers have not been included in the Carbon Sequence Plate for many years and the parts that we have left over will not be compatible with the new carbon sequence plates. I made a spacer with 1/4" threaded aluminum tubing. The screws tighten the tubing down against the insert as tight as you want. The length of spacer controls how tight or loose the plate is to the top of the ski. Used 3/4" bolts to get plenty of thread in the insert. This is the T-Factors on the Radar Carbon Sequence Plate. The front boot was easy to install. I have the rear boot angled so drilling the holes and countersinking had some some minor conflicts with existing slots in the plate. The boots are positioned on the plate so the front boot is at 29 1/8" from the tail of the 66' KD Titanium ski when the Micro-Adjust is at the center of its range of adjustment.

@aupatking Not directly familiar with the various release systems. But I can see now that release systems are not going to work on the Radar Sequence Plate, so scratch that ! Looking at the dual boot setup on MOB system, or maybe with any dual release system it forces a greater separation between your feet which I don't want. With size 12 feet, the 'effective' spacing between my feet is already greater than for skiers with size 10 for example. It would be much simpler to use a front boot release product if I went back to an RTP, but I tried an RTP 2 years ago for a while and couldn't stay with it. Decades ago I was skiing into 35off at 36 in tournaments with an RTP but once you use dual boots for several years its hard to switch back. If I find there is no dual release option without increasing the spacing between feet I will give up on the mechanical release idea. I will contact @mmosley899 to see if there is any dual release setup that works for me. Without release boots, in the very rare event of an serious injury I will probably just equip my boat with the best tools for cutting boots or removing boots from the ski. Such as @BraceMaker and @503Kento have suggested. ***anyone have a specific suggestion on a scissor for cutting boots ?? I have the cheap throw away medical scissors used for cutting plaster casts but I don't think they would be the best for cutting the shell off a binding. Thanks everyone for all the feedback . . . obviously I know little about boot release products but BOS is the fastest place to learn.

Removing the boot from the ski sounds like the best idea. If you have ever had a broken bone from skiing, any movement is extremely painful. The skier might be able to get himself sitting on the platform, but the ski will still be in the water until the boot is removed. Having a screw driver tethered to a small pool float and some goggles for someone else to remove the boot is something I will keep in my boat if I keep using the T-Factors. Its obvious this would never happen but it answers "What if".

I currently love my T-Factor boots so why change? Years ago, I broke my arm when I put my arm through the handle when I fell forward hitting a ball. It was no big deal because I just held onto the swim platform with my good arm and was pulled to the dock. I ski too cautiously now because of that experience and don't want to be stuck in a binding in the middle of a lake with a broken angle. Again the broken ankle is not the problem, it being stuck with no painless way out because it takes a lot of force to get a foot our of a T-factor front boot. I would like to get boots that can mount on the radar sequence plate because I just bought one of those. I have custom mounted the T-Factors to the plate but that can be reversed. What's the best choice in dual boots that will fit the Radar plate ? Does that mean having plate on plate or just new boot on plate? How big a deal is it to learn how to ski again with that change ?

Just ordered one for my in-house driver for Christmas. A little more comfortable driving on those chilly mornings. Maybe even willing to stand-by for a 5 minute ski adjustment and another set. Colors go with the boat

There may be many skis of different brands that a skier could setup to achieve their personal best with binding and fin settings, but no 2 skis will be the same. Each ski will require a different response from the skier to achieve their best performance. Even if a skier has setup 2 skis to achieve equal performance under specific site and wind conditions, with different conditions the skier is likely going to do better on one ski over the other.

@The_MS @Horton I was trying to figure out how to avoid clamping down the front and back of the Radar Sequence Plate. Today I found Radar already has the solution. The plate comes with metal spacers that fit in the front and rear slots of the plate. The screw / washer tighten down on the metal spacers that are in contact with the inserts. With these spacers there is no clamp-force from the screws on the plate. The Sequence plate can float freely front/back, and the spacers prevent the plate from moving left/right. This was how radar did this some prior year. I will have the plate I ordered next week to see if this is still how they do it in the current model.

With most skis, I doubt if the stiffness of sequence plate changes the feel of the ski as much as having the ends of the plate locked down too tight.

@S1Pitts This is the adjusting feature on the Radar Sequence plate as it appears on the @Horton Youtube Video he produced explaining how it works. This center point of the Sequence plate shown in the photo is locked down so its not going to move when the ski flexes. The two ends of this long plate have to move some trace amount when the ski flexes, otherwise there would be big shear forces on the front and back inserts, and possibly effect the flex of the ski . I am using the Sequence plate on on a KD Titanium with T-Factor bindings. Does Radar have something special to accommodate the movement caused by ski-flex at the end points of this long plate on the ski ?? Or would standard aluminum D3 cup-washers let the ends move a small amount ? Afterthought - - - I won't have the sequence plate from Performance Ski & Surf until next week. Maybe there is something in the hardware bag that comes with the plate.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm glad I saved my leather hole punch set.

Do you mean the insert patterns on a D3 ski won't work with the Carbon Sequence plate ? Or the boot fastener pattern on the Radar plate won't work with the D3 boots. ? If I drill all new holes in the Radar plates for the D3 boots, does that matter ?

@jjackkrash @DW It looks like T-Factors plates can be replaced with the Carbon Sequence Plate. In the picture currently 8 screws through the rear T-Factor aluminum plate into the boot. Any issues with having all the screws going through new counter-sunk holes in the sequence plate to match the boots ? I am assuming I would figure out the position of boots on the plate, so I would only have 8 new holes for the rear boot etc. No new slots.

RE Radar Carbon Sequence plate. When a ski flexes, the bottom skin gets longer and top gets shorter. If the fasteners near the ends of the plate don't allow slippage it would affect the flex of the ski . . like laminating another layer of carbon to the top of the ski. Does use of this place assume the fasteners let the plate slip a little to avoid this ?

I just received a Mikro-Just in the mail for the front T-Factor boot. The REAR T-Factor boot has 5/16 spacing for the mounting screws. Would you modify the 5/16 slots on the back plate to match your new preferred Mikro-Just position on the front, or use 2 Mikro-Just devices ?