eleeski

I need all the help I can get. At 10000 requirements are quite different from someone just learning and don't always translate well to the rest of us. A lot of common knowledge is not empirically derived. I am an engineer and a tinkerer who has built all of my own equipment. Everything gets performance tested. I also think way out of the box so I've tried some interesting things (like bungees on the rope). I've been around since Russ Stiffler put steel wire in his rope for stiffness (few skiers have been as innovative as he was). I remember the best hand drivers for trick were the jump drivers that hammered you. So I've experienced and evaluated the fundamental advances in trick tech. Even the B3 and 2 meters of slalom rope added to the spectra are so much stiffer a pull than in the past that it will all feel good. But we were discussing the why of mixed spectra/poly ropes. Adjusting the length with what is available is the primary reason. If you are massively strong and overpulling, soften things up with B3 and some slalom rope. If you need to get everything out of the boat to maximize your advance and level attitude, C3+ and full spectra (with the slalom section termination). When that gets you to 10000, do whatever you want (I doubt there will be bungees on the rope). Eric

Rope length needs to be adjusted for different conditions. Speed. boat model, lake depth, lake temperature and even the tricks you are working on. A slalom section from a retired rope is usually handy and can go on and off easily. Perfect adjustment tools. Get the rope length right! Thin ropes don't come off a Robbins or rope release properly. A slalom section works well for the release safety. The Masterline split pin release chews up rope ends - replacing a slalom section is cheaper and easier. For safety and utility reasons, don't terminate your rope in spectra. Stock ropes often come with a float. This is a lot easier to make with poly rope so the stock rope will come with a ploy float termination. Usually there are a couple spectra sections to adjust gross rope length. @Bruce_Butterfield stretch in a rope takes away energy available to the skier. Especially bad for flips (I've done the tests - both of rope stretch and flip crashes). Fortunately, there's not enough stretch in a couple slalom sections to make a difference. Don't add lots of stretchy rope to help your flips (or any other trick). Often, hands are done faster needing a longer rope. Do get the length right. Eric

@Gloersen Do I need WiFi at the boat when I'm programming or can I pre load my laptop at home? My lake is pretty remote with sketchy internet from the phone and my trailer situation does not encourage moving the boat. Also, I'm planning to upgrade two boats (the ZO American Skier as well). Does this create problems? Eric

OK, I got the adapter cable (but not the programming cable) and the single puck. Hooked it all up to my 11 MC. No GPS. I'm on rev R but I haven't done the rev S programming. I guess I must do the rev S to get the single puck to work. My Garmin 18x LVC, 5m replacement puck (not from ZO) didn't work. I'm down to one puck. I hope I get the rev S stuff before the last puck fails. Note the original puck has failed by giving widely variable inaccurate speeds. Doesn't throw error messages. The ride is unskiable on that puck. It's OK on just the one good one but it might feel different than before (it could be my imagination). Definitely doing the upgrade just to get back to the way it was. Eric

On a serious note, counterspins are not in the mainstream. They should be! Everyone should go out on their next trick set and try a trick against the grain. At worst it will build skills. At best you will be able to fit a new trick in your run. Thanks for showing this! Eric

Key switches fail - often. Test and jumper the back of the key switch. Wires rot. Rewiring the critical circuits with new home run wires might be needed. Part of the new key project? Eric

Define "softer". Old school soft was a time on the slow end of tolerance. Often slow times were in response to a massive pull where the driver or PP didn't make a strong enough reaction. ZO will give perfect times regardless of the setting. (That's both the beauty and curse of ZO.) Somewhere the ZO pull will hammer you to make the time right. Where do you want the power (needed to get the perfect times) to happen? A1 gives you the most time to get in position to take the hit but must stay on the power longer. I love this setting if I'm super smooth. C3 hits you as soon as you load the line but also unloads you quickly. I like this setting because it helps me decelerate at the buoy - especially if I overpull. B2 never felt right for me - hit me hard and pulled me over at the buoy. I've skied the + setting on Rev R (C3) and hardly noticed the difference but my skills aren't where they were so the setting is the least of my problems. That doesn't stop me from wanting to try the + settings on Rev S that some people are enjoying. There are some real differences in the pull that I wonder if I'd like. The process of evaluating the new settings might do more for my skiing than any actual difference. My pucks are starting to fail. A single puck looks inevitable. More than anything, this will drive the upgrade to Rev S. Eric

ZO matters. ZO started in 2008. The run from 2008 to 2013 was a fantastic all around boat. Maybe the best tournament boats ever. My 2011 was one of the last Indmar engines which were better than the early Ilmor engines. There was a lot of talk about how bad the slalom wakes were on those boats. BS! I taught so many beginners through the course that any wake issues aren't a real factor. And once the line got short, the wakes were as good or better than the other boats. The trick wake was perfect. I miss it in tournament! Eric

All good ideas. But if all else fails, a sanding flap disk on a grinder will remove everything. Once clean, use a pad that keeps your back foot as high as your front foot. Most trick skis have a hardshell front foot so a bit of padding is called for. A heel strap is also useful once you start hitting flips. Some bicycle innertube under the horseshoe works better than a tight kicker. Eric

So get a camera or phone, take pictures of the course with reproducible reference points. Take some end course video (yes, you can get a pretty reliable feel from most end course views). Measure some ropes and handles. Get some real data. Better yet, volunteer to help. If you have expertise, it will be useful. If not, you will learn a lot. And keep everyone honest - regardless of the agenda. Hopefully this thread will get back to celebrating good scores. Or a discussion of tolerances, perfect storms and how to make sites that generate ridiculous scores. Speaking of anomalous sites, did I mention that my lake is for sale? Due to the prevailing weather and unique (totally legal) bottom contours, the site can GUARANTEE incredible scores? Must sell, reasonable price. Eric

@MillerTime38 At the L tournaments I chief judged, someone was always monitoring the end course video. Either the chief boat driver, myself or an assigned judge - that's required. Replay scrutiny? We never had to do it. There's hardly any money in the sport today. WWE or MMA make more in one event than the entire year of waterskiing. Regardless, I'm not interested in WATCHING wrassling. Waterskiing is not a spectator sport, it's a participant sport. Very different fundamentals. Stirring up a controversy over rule strictness might help viewership but will not encourage participation - with skiers or sponsors. This will filter down to the pros with fewer tournaments, smaller prizes and less sponsorship. @Horton The differences between L and C are substantial in the manpower needed and the quality of the manpower. Surveys, cameras, extra judges, strict anti conflict rules, official's experience requirements, latest model boats and more paperwork make them a challenge. What do you get from the skier's performance perspective? The best boats, judges and drivers at their best - so your performance should be enhanced. Why do I prefer L tournaments? The scores from L tournaments go into the World rankings lists that are qualifiers for world tournaments. Eric

So the sport is better off with ridiculous standards for tournaments? Is it good that Imperial and Adobe no longer do L tournaments (because it's so much more difficult logistically)? Wouldn't losing one cash tournament opportunity hurt the pros more than dropping a spot on the list? "Tighter specs" help this how? I think the sport should be run for the fun of the participants and for entertainment. Not for a religious adherence to the rule book. Sammy Duvall made the cover of Sports Illustrated back in the days of stopwatch timing and favorite hand drivers. If it's in tolerance, it counted. The sport was a lot healthier back then. And the leading media people weren't questioning every performance. If something is wrong, fix it. If people ski well, don't whisper innuendo, just enjoy it! Eric

@Than_Bogan It's pretty insulting when @Horton says we don't have any idea of what we are talking about if we don't agree with his selective spreadsheet analysis that every good European score is bogus. He may not have specifically said correlation or causation but he is certainly championing a conclusion that the scores aren't legit. A review of the skier's ride, boat path and survey may be a reasonable investigation. Happens when a record performance occurs - even local records. Probably happens any time a question arises. Irregularities have been discovered in the past. Usually everything is in tolerance and the scores properly stand. Perhaps the issue is with tolerances. While it is against the rules to intentionally use tolerances to effect performance, scores count as long as everything is deemed in tolerance by the officials. Some calls involve judgement so the internet judges might disagree. What do I know? I'm just a senior judge who has chief judged L tournaments, hopped in the water with a measuring tape when someone complained about a buoy placement and verified the survey, called a world record, talked to most of the Open slalom skiers in the west recently, ski in an elite division and is married to a statistician? But I'm part of the problem because I want some proof that something is wrong before I condemn it? This thread started as a celebration of good scores from some top skiers peaking. I still congratulate these fine skiers. Eric

Journalism majors don't take enough statistics classes. Correlation does not equal causation! If you have proof of rules violations, expose it. If it's just that a couple of pros say it felt too good, that's just rumour. If you question tolerances that the local senior judges and homologators accept then you might be a bit too uptight. Good for your traffic but bad for the sport. Eric Note that the scores @Luzz mentioned were discovered and properly dealt with. Other good scores were investigated and upheld.

The QWERTY keyboard is even stupider than ozzez and libs or whatever the imperial system uses. A keyboard designed to slow down the typist so keys wouldn't jam??! Every typing record is set on a Dvorak keyboard which is engineered for speed and ease of learning. Hopefully voice recognition will improve enough to obsolete all keyboards but Alexa thinks I'm creepy... Eric

@oldjeep ZO can toggle between imperial and metric. Every rope I've bought has had both markings. When judging jump, the metric distance is the real score. Every recent car (including American cars) is all metric. My old jeep (57 Willys) is imperial. It's also a novelty antique. Perhaps you need newer equipment? Eric

First, the USA is officially a metric country. That we are too set in our ways to popularly abandon an archaic and counterintuitive system is just sad. Fortunately most engineering is done in metric so the quality of what we design and produce is first world. If we would talk in terms of the actual rope length instead of some inaccurate retarded line off of a rope length rarely seen, specify speed accurately and give temperature in something that makes intuitive sense (0 is freezing and 100 is boiling - what's hard to get there?). Waterskiing officially switched in the 70s. Skiers should have had plenty of time to adapt. Eric

Give us a review!

I built a lake that was shallower behind the boat (4 feet) than at the buoys (6 feet). The ski had solid water to accelerate beautifully in the pull while decelerating marvelously in softer water at the buoys. Everybody loved that course for slalom. I made more 35 offs at that site than everywhere else combined. Surveyed course. Same water and orientation as the adjacent course which felt tougher. Lake depth is a real effect even for a ski. Note, the lake is for sale! Eric

At rest, the boats will sit exactly the same in a shallow or deep lake. But wakes are not a product of a non moving boat. Water is fairly incompressable so any pressure generated by a moving boat will reflect off close objects like a shallow bottom back to the boat. This nearby reflected pressure will lift the boat. The pressure wave ( both primary and reflected) has a lot more room to spread out in a deep lake so it will not affect the boat much. 5 feet is shallow and will have a lot of bottom effect. 20 feet is deep enough to not notice it. In between the effect might be hidden by things like weight, balance and water properties (salinity, turbidity, temperature, chop, etc). The human variable is also relevant. Our observations are affected by prejudice, opinions of others, advertising and our own mood. Sometimes trivial differences are magnified irrationally. Or sometimes real differences are ignored. Bottom line (see what I did there?) is that the boat will ski fine on any lake. Adapt to the differences. Eric

The black plug in the ZO harness is for the jump switch (the others are grey). At tournaments we often plug directly into that with our own jump switch harness. The jump switch is a white plug that plugs into the other end of that harness. Look under the dash? Eric

Lots of good info here. I'll summarize based on my hundreds of insert repairs. Inserts hold in the top skin only. The core foam is weak. Use epoxy to reinforce the top skin from the inside and build up a strong mounting area. Use a somewhat flexible epoxy. Brittle laminating resins may be stronger but adhesive epoxies will keep inserts seated better. JB Quik is a reasonable epoxy that is widely available. Standard US inserts are 8-32 machine threads. Ace hardware sometimes stocks them but be careful to get small diameter inserts - the big ones are great for pull out repairs but not for the first fix. They are widely available on the internet. Brass works fine. Find a wood screw that matches the threads on the outside of the insert and use this to tap the ski before installing the inserts. Use a 1 inch long screw and a jam nut. Screw the jam nut on first then the insert. Fill all the insert threads with the screw. Tighten the jam nut to the insert. Quite tight. Make sure the screw doesn't drive in further when you screw the insert in the ski. Put epoxy both in the hole and on the insert before installing the insert. Drive it home. If the screw starts turning but not the insert (your jam nut wasn't tight enough) screw it in with the jam nut. Get it all the way in but don't push it. A little epoxy under the jam nut is OK. Add some heat with a heat gun to get a good bond and speed up the cure. Wait patiently until the epoxy cures (overnight). Hold on to the jam nut securely (I use vise grips) and back out the screw all the way. A cordless drill makes this easy. If you don't hold the jam nut well, you will back out the insert. Once the screw is completely out, break the jam nut free from the epoxy. It's easy if you screw the screw back in just to the depth of the jam nut and break it off. Clean and smooth the excess epoxy but a little excess is OK. Treat the hole with anti seize. Don't over torque the screws when you mount the binding. Only mount with stainless mounting screws. It's pretty straightforward to install inserts aftermarket. Good luck. Eric

B2 is never a good place to start! Start with A1 if you are light, transition from PP or want a smooth pull. Start with C3 if you are heavier, use PP with the switch or like a firm response to when you load the boat. These are the start settings. Experiment and find what you like. Do try the + settings. If you end up at B2, great. But it is not a practical default, ZO just goes there for programming reasons. People might like ZO more if the program defaulted to A1. Use C3 as the default for tricks. Nobody likes a springy rope - or boat. Eric

One of my pucks is failing. It's intermittent. ZO with bad data really feels horrible. Next time I get to the lake, I will try by backup puck. If that doesn't work, I'm following @Ed_Johnson and going rev S and single antenna. Darn Russians messing with the GPS. Eric

Personally, I like a fairly soft hardshell. But I pin the cuff with a bit of forward lean to stiffen stock shells. I also add a foam pad above the heel which adds a little more stiffness. If yours feels too soft and you can't pin the cuff, try taking the plastic out of the tongue of a snow ski boot liner. Clip that inside the shell and outside the liner. It might take a few tries to get the feel you like. Another possibility is to add some thin plastic inside the heel of the shell. This can stabilize things a lot. It might be enough just placed there or you can pin it. You might have to experiment with the hardshell, but it's worth it. Eric