eleeski

I've skied recreationally on Lake Tahoe in Homewood (High Sierra waterskiing?) - no course. Decades ago, I skied the course at Boca dam but I don't know if the course is still there and I've heard Boca is extremely low water this year. South Lake might have recreational skiing. There are a couple private lakes between Carson City and Minden but I haven't skied there in a while so I don't know who to contact. Ski in the morning and take a glider ride from the Minden airport afterward. Closer to South Lake as it takes me about an hour to get there from Squaw Valley. There is high level coaching a couple hours away in the Sacramento area. Ryan Nason ( @Nason ) is in Yuba City, Terry Winter ( @twhisper ) spends time in Pleasant Oak (I'm not sure if he's at Liquid Zone or in Idaho) and Bel Aqua in Rio Linda has quality coaches as well. There are a lot of lakes with excellent conditions in the Sacramento area and most weekends there will be a tournament. Eric

I judged the 2.25 run. Lots of runs in this video. Agreed, SLO, BFL, SLO repeat on the 1.45 run end. That's how it would have scored in the day. Not sure if Cory was trying to show off the differences to create a new trick or kill the foot off SLO (which did eventually happen - they aren't legal today). Cool looking but not a scoring trick as presented. Out of time by design? A double step could only happen on a 540 stepover. I've seen a few and they are incredible. Way underrated on points. As are a lot of the tricks Cory does in this clip. Eric

SL5F, B, WL5F, WL5B, F, B, W7BB, RW7BB, BB, W5F, B, RW5F, WO, SLO. That's the complete run on the video (there were some different clips with different sequences so this discussion is confusing). I'm glad I didn't have to judge that in real time with just two views! Or worse, from shore with only one distant view!! Trick lists mattered back then. The other shorter video clips do show a couple variations of SLO style of execution. There were a few years when SLO and (more commonly) SLBB were also done in a more traditional stepover style with a foot free of the ski. Eventually, a rule change mandated that only the "both feet on the ski" version scored to end those (very cool) variations of the ski lines. About that time, I was doing a reverse WLF where the ski stepped over the rope. Fun trick but the powers that be at that time wanted no part of any free ski going over the rope. Rejected! Sigh. All those free ski going over the line could be a class of trick that would be really fun and flashy! Cory was an incredible skier. Eric

I used a panic release for horses that would work in that application. But it takes some grinding of the release arm, some clever modifications to get a rope to release with and a spot on pin person. A loaded up rope prevents a quick release. Still, that was the standard for a couple decades and I have (thousands?) of hours behind that style release. One injury (not hospital worthy). I won’t use one now as there are too many good options. But in your case, it might work until you get a tournament boat with a pylon. Check the tack supply store. Eric

I take a 2 meter (+) long section of heavy slalom rope and thread it back through itself. 1 meter will be the final length of the rope release (cut it as needed, the rule is 1 meter). The rope will be thick for easy holding by the release person. The rope will work itself unthreaded so some occasional re-centering of the rope will be needed. If it slips a lot, try washing the rope with an abrasive soap (Comet cleanser or Ajax). Maybe go a little bit shorter than 1 meter so if things slip a bit, you will still be legal. But some slippage is normal and will easily adjust back. Do not use any knots! This is important to allow the ski rope to slide off smoothly. Don't burn the ends either. The ski rope can hang up on the burned bits but won't on a frayed end. The easiest way to thread that much rope back inside itself is to tape one end to a pencil to the end of the rope. This makes the long threading easy. Be sure to leave a couple centimeters opening to cinch back on itself over the pylon. Note that if you loop it in a cinch loop rather than just hooking it on the pylon it will not slip as much. If you have the rope release cinched to the pylon, the rope release through the loop at the end of the trick rope (your trick rope should have a final loop of slalom rope at its end - spectra is too small and digs into the rope release enough to slow down the release) and your rope release is spliced to be doubled up then the rope release should work and last reasonably well. Also I don't like the release feel for toes if there are wraps around the pylon (I haven't had any issues with pylon wraps and hands - but I don't need it much for hands). It sometimes hangs up on the pylon when the rope is let go. So I unwrap it, clamp it with my left hand and hold the rope with my right hand less than a full turn on the pylon. This way I can throw the rope clear for a quick low drag release. It's tougher with big skiers. Use the minimum wrap on the pylon that you can hold with. For getting up and non critical hands, a couple wraps makes it easy to hold. For big skiers, the Robbins release is best. For little kids, just hold onto some webbing or braid in the boat and throw it clear when they fall. When driving solo for tricks I like the split pin with a foot trigger. Rope releases are cheap and easy - but not perfect. Good luck and have fun with the toe tricks. Eric

I'm not sure what you are looking for. If you enjoy tinkering, slap on a trim tab and play with it. Great project! There is absolutely nothing wrong with the boat's slalom wake at any speed that will prevent you from improving. I have coached so many people through PBs behind my 2004 and 2011 Mastercrafts at varying speeds and rope lengths to prove that claim. Lots of college kids learned with me (enough to earn me an AWSA Coach of the Year award) so my insight is valid. The wake will not hold you back. Fear of the wake or buying into the herd mentality that there is something wrong with your boat will hold back your skiing. The difference between boats is minor, especially comparing a light setup at home to a 3 crew full gas tournament setup. Training behind that MC might actually be an advantage in tournaments. Coaching is a way better value than swapping boats or modifying your boat. The trick wake, wakeboard wake and surf wake are also great for having fun. Don't lose sight of your family and friends. If you just want to ski, go ski. Eric

I played with my 197 - mostly trying to "improve" the slalom wake so they wouldn't overhaul the hull (with its wonderful trick wake). Interesting results. But they changed anyhow. I added a plate/foil to make the slower speed wake VERY nice. But at 34 and 36 it was horrible. I added a bubbler to make the high speed wakes softer (magic!) but it didn't help the slow speed wakes. We experimented with props for minor benefit. It is possible to improve the wakes. You will need to adjust for different speeds and disciplines. The mods were too complex and the boat is too good stock (the reputation is undeserved) so I'm still skiing mine stock. An adjustable trim tab might be the ticket for both surfing and slalom. Just experiment and keep track of the right settings for what you are doing. The 197 is a GREAT boat. Enjoy it Eric

This explains everything! Open skiers at record tournaments are in an alternate reality where the rules of science don't apply. I'm not sure how they channel this phantom excess irrelevant horsepower but it must be critical to them. Make a rule to require the most expensive gas - not for any technically valid reason but "for the love of god"! Eric

@jjackkrash The power loss from 87octane in the direct injection engines tested by Car and Diver in the above article was around 4%. The power loss from using the boat on a hot day in Colorado (or Chapala Mexico where world championships have been held) might approach 20%. Knocking is unlikely on 87 octane at that altitude so the computer should not derate the engine due to fuel octane. @escmanaze The manual might recommend 93 but 87 is approved for use by the manual. No engine damage will occur from using 87 octane. If "cheaping out" only affects maximum power by 4%, are you really willing to pay a 20% extra cost for 4% of an engine's power that you will never use. Especially when environmental variations are commonly a bigger factor (which we as skiers are commonly exposed to and deal with). Gas is hard to get at my lake. I do appreciate delivered gas. If I'm worried about the quality, I filter it through a water separating filter before it goes in the boat. Eric

Interesting reads on the power from different octane fuel. https://nasaspeed.news/tech/engine/octane-vs-horsepower-separating-fact-from-myth-in-the-debate-over-which-fuel-makes-more-power/ Their conclusion on the energy in fuel: "We found that the more expensive, higher fuel grades did not add more power. On the contrary, the engine lost 2 to 3 horsepower versus the more affordable 87 octane." https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a28565486/honda-cr-v-vs-bmw-m5-ford-f-150-dodge-charger/ Their conclusion for direct injection engines: "If you buy fuel with an octane rating above the manufacturer's requirement, you're likely to feel it in your wallet more than the seat of your pants." Standard temperature and pressure where engine power ratings get figured is defined as 60 degrees F, 29.92 barometric pressure, and dry air (zero humidity). Engines lose about 3% of their power for every 1000 feet of altitude as the air gets thinner. Colorado at over 5000 feet will have the engine power reduced by over 15%. A lot of skiing happens at high altitude. So boat designers will certainly factor that in and provide enough excess horsepower to operate properly at altitude - as evidenced by the good results from high altitude skiers and sites. Altitude reduces the tendency for an engine to knock. Octane rates the resistance to knocking. At altitude you need less octane to keep the engine from knocking. Or your computer will need less derating to prevent knocking from lower octane fuel. Density altitude measures how different environmental conditions affect air density reported as an altitude equivalent. https://www.weather.gov/epz/wxcalc_densityaltitude At 3% per thousand feet of altitude loss in engine power, a 90f humid day in Florida will have a density altitude of over 2000 feet or 6% loss in power. A boat's performance has adequate power for the average Florida summer day – nobody's complaining there. Excess power! The max power numbers (calculated at standard temperature and pressure) are higher with premium gas by a small margin. Real world conditions vary this maximum power. Waterskiing is typically done at hotter and higher situations. While the power is reduced by those conditions, so is the need for higher octane. So you can't add the 4% 87 octane loss to the 6% Florida heat loss. In Colorado, the faster burn of the lower octane fuel might actually improve the engine's power output. The owner's manual will specify the fuel that gives the highest numbers. If I'm doing a drag race on a cold winter day at my lake below sea level, I'll run 93 per the manual recommendation. But the same drag race in Colorado on a hot day will favor the 87 (I've experienced the benefits of lower octane on altitude performance in my airplane). That's why 87 is also approved in the manual. And if the manual approves 87 octane, it assuredly will not hurt the engine. Athletes do look for any advantage they can find. On paper, losing 4% of a boat's power looks bad. In real life, that optimally warm summer day sees the engine lose more from the heat than that – while the engine octane requirements are less. In real life, a slalom skier will only require a fraction of the engine's maximum output (that was specified to meet jump requirements). If you aren't using C3+ with its intense and immediate power call, there will be even more excess power. The new DI motors are bigger and more powerful than the engines they replaced in the same hulls – more excess power. Its a stretch to believe that small changes in maximum engine power could have any effect on a slalom skier. @Horton 's boat goes to a lot of tournaments (thank you John!). Since he apparently has bought in to the premium gas myth, his boat will cost the tournaments more (tournaments do burn a lot of gas). Add the IWWF fee, the Safesport class fee, the judges clinic fee and who knows what other surcharges will be created and I wonder if tournaments are really worth it? Maybe I'm too much of a cheapskate. The price of premium is diluted by the $1 per gallon price increase that has happened. And gas is a fraction of the cost of the skis, the boat and the lake (even the taxes on those items!). Add the physical therapy and yoga sessions to keep me moving well enough to ski – waterskiing is an expensive activity. Hopefully I can stay affluent enough to keep skiing. If using premium makes you happy and you can afford it, by all means use it! But don't bring me a fiver of premium for my boat. Eric

@The_MS You have always been able to get alcohol in California so we definitely aren't a dry state! California has lots of normal variability in the rainfall. Since most of the rain comes in winter and the rest of the year normally can have zero rain, all the water must be managed. The water managers are scapegoats for all water issues (including floods). There are lots of water needs - often with contradicting responses. Water is always a complicated fight. Without the managed water we would be a barren desert incapable of supporting a fraction of the population. The Pond is 100% managed water. Its primary mission is as a percolation zone to recharge the aquifer. The recreation is secondary. Always sad when it needs to go dry. Eric

Hmmm. It was a good year for snow skiing in the Sierras. Lots of coverage all season. Squaw stayed open well into May. Lots of skier visits despite covid restrictions. Things are pretty lush at Mom's house in the Bay Area. The Sacramento river looked very high when we drove past a couple weeks ago. The drought situation at the Pond and Folsom is surprising to me. I was a member at the Pond in 1976 - 77 when it dried up. That year had almost no rain, and a horrible snow ski season. An obvious miserable drought. In San Diego and the Coachella valley, it was a very dry winter. But that's not unusual, I often go years without having to rebuild my road from a flood washout. Lake Mead is at an all time low (despite a record breaking storm in Colorado and Wyoming in the spring?). So we are also in a drought crisis in socal. Perhaps a cloud was following me around all winter to skew my perception of how wet it was. Perhaps the water was mismanaged. Perhaps there is a political factor in water management. Perhaps we just need more water than anything but a flood year can provide. I just hope there is enough water that we can still ski. Best wishes to everybody at the Pond for getting some skiing this summer and a good year next year. Eric

Jump requirements drive the horsepower needs of a tournament boat. Slalom does not require as much power. Before speed control, a driver would often bury the throttle for a good jumper but I never saw that in slalom. Larger slalom skiers do not seem to face a statistical disadvantage - something you would expect if there was really a shortage of power. The altitude at Colorado (our Regionals site) lowers the available horsepower yet high level performances still occur there in jump (and slalom). The boats seem to have plenty of power - even with a large percentage of the sea level power missing. Excess horsepower is excess horsepower. How much do we need to pay for extra excess horsepower? We have fancy expensive luxury boats. Of course, a fuel labeled "premium" should be the fuel of choice. But 87 octane plebian fuel will still deliver the required excess horsepower - even if it offends our sophisticated tastes. In half a century of skiing, I've never before heard that a tournament boat didn't have enough power for slalom. Modern boats have ridiculous amounts of power. How stressing over the power differences from fuel choices gained traction is beyond me. It's the skier, not the octane! Eric

A good way to kill the sport is to raise the cost of skiing by 20%. Premium fuel is about 20% more. Hmmm. I don't want to have higher entry fees to pander to the obsessive beliefs of a few. I hope social media does not fuel this irrationality. Eric Note: Oops. Using the official temperature from yesterday (108f) and the correct altimeter setting in the calculator, my below sea level site had the density altitude closer to 3000 feet, not 4000 feet as I stated (it felt hotter - but the official numbers are always less than we complain about). Still a pretty radical change in atmospheric density with an associated large reduction in engine power. Maybe my boat still needs an altitude prop?

87 octane fuel is more energy dense than 90 octane. As long as there is no detonation, 87 octane will provide more power (and better fuel economy). @AdamCord is correct that the computer will adjust to prevent detonation by retarding timing and retarding the timing will reduce the engine's power. It's not given that the change in settings to compensate for a faster burning fuel will always result in less net power. Consider a high altitude lake. The lower O2 pressure lowers detonation sensitivity so the computer will not retard the timing as much (at all?) for a lower octane fuel. Don't ski high altitude sites? Really? Consider my lake. I'm below sea level. But between today's thermal low pressure, a bit of humidity and the hot temperatures, my density altitude was over 4000 feet! Not unusual for a lot of summer tournaments. Low octane will work fine in these conditions. As a pilot who has nearly 2000 hours flying (legally) with 87 octane fuel in my Cessna, I noticed that the plane burns less fuel, climbs better and cruises faster on 87 octane auto fuel than the 100 octane avgas. (Do not run avgas in your boat - the lead will ruin your sensors.) I also experienced less maintenance on the lower octane fuel (but I'm blaming the 100LL's lead, not the octane). Blanket statements about the superiority of high octane are not consistent with the science and technology. For sure, your slalom scores are far more affected by other factors than the octane in the boat gas. Being able to afford a few more sets with cheaper gas should make a bigger difference. 87 octane is an approved fuel for most of our boats. Enough said. Eric

"Never touch anything but the fin (and only in .001 increments)". WTF? I use a grinder on all my skis - unless the sawzall is needed. Bondo (actually Superfil for me) is also pretty useful to undo the grinding or seal up the core you exposed. The reason you have a ski is to ski well on it. If tuning it makes it better, great. Since I'm saying you might want to tune a ski, here are the basics: Rounded edges ride deeper in the water, sharp edges lift. Decide where your ski isn't working for you and make small changes. During the process, take lots of sets. (If you take enough sets, your skills will improve enough that you will get better - regardless of what you have done to the ski.) If you screw up, rebuild the edges with Bondo. Evaluating a ski after tuning it can be enjoyable and rewarding. Sometimes it actually makes the ski better for you. Eric

WTF? This issue was resolved decades ago with Cory's records. It was actually a breakthrough in tricks as he showed us that the ski should lead and it's OK for the upper body to be way behind. The front edge defines the trick! The rules require new tricks to be demonstrated by a skier - not words written in a rule book. Cory's past records and Pato's performance define the trick - not some fundamentalist internet reading of the words in the rule book. I coach everyone learning a RTO or its derivatives (like T7 or T5F) to lead with the ski, hold back the upper body and turn out as soon as you feel the front edge enough to push off it. Everyone I coach scores the tricks. This thread is exactly why I've been avoiding social media. Too much criticism, skewed information, muzzling of opinions (how many posts has Horton deleted of mine? And why am I still banned from many topics? And why am I disrespected with "Infinite Pandas?) A benign social media ski site is using the same tactics as the most sophisticated Chinese controllers. I consider Jody a good friend. We've shared beers and good times. We've agreed and disagreed on many things. But it is too easy to post harmful opinions and criticisms in social media. These posts can have the effect of having future judging different from how people were judged in the past. I hope Jody is not on a panel judging me. Judging like that is harmful to the sport - something a dying sport should not encourage! I get really discouraged when EVERY great performance is unjustly criticized and questioned here. Records voided, tournaments downgraded and skiers singled out have happened from social media gone wild. Should we approve of this? Congratulations Pato on a spectacular performance and a demonstration of what we should strive for! Eric

Mechanically clearing out a small swimming area by hand is doable. Use a handheld sickle or corn knife and cut them at the base. It's fast and easy. If you have a lot of growth, removing the cuttings is a much bigger project than the cutting. Stay ahead of the cattails. Cattails do make excellent windbreaks and backwash suppressors. Until they grow out too much. Then they break off into islands that float into the boat path and leave behind a solid root system wall that amplifies the backwash. They took over the old lake (after 20 years). Surprisingly, they stopped at about 3' of water depth and have not moved out into the course. Realistically, I should drain the lake and rework the banks to get rid of the cattails if we were skiing that lake. It might be worth more as habitat though. I'm not sure anything can keep cattails completely out. Certainly, I haven't been able to control them. I trim them back by hand where I need it clear. That's not too hard but I do have to actually get out there and work. Eric

Wakeless flips are cool but really not that technically different from using the wake - once a certain skill level has been attained. Absolutely they should be allowed. But really, it's not a new trick - either from a spectator or performance perspective. So not a new trick and not a repeat but certainly they should score. I couldn't find a link to the contest. Sounds like fun. Eric

@MarkM With that attitude, I have a better chance of winning! Hoping Nationals works out. @JeffSurdej and everyone at Okeheelee, thanks for your efforts and keep at it for us. Eric

A week or so after I saw the first bulletin from France on the Senior Worlds, Jill Smith sent us a notice that Senior Worlds was postponed. Bummer. But Oktoberfest had already been canceled so some incentive to go was missing. It might help me because I was at the wrong end of my age division. Next year I'll age up (assuming the rapid deterioration of my body allows me to ski at all). I hope we will be able to fly there, find a hotel and be allowed to ski. Those concerns are what make these scary times. Eric

@The_MS They were all in a line last night. Over time they might scatter. But now they are in a west to east general direction. Eric

@T_C I try to avoid sunrises. That's just staying up too late. My insomnia isn't that advanced. The swarm is supposedly in a low orbit. So the window of visibility is not long. I saw them for at least an hour after full darkness. They were so bright that they were visible fairly low to the horizon. Eventually, they are supposed to go higher and will be visible longer, dimmer and more spread out. I'm worried about 1984 taking over society (already happened?). But maybe Terminator's Skynet is what is really going on. Next shortage: tinfoil for our head coverings. Eric

Image from a cracked lens on a phone camera with my palsied hand holding. The bright "star" is Venus, the brightest object in the sky other than the sun and moon. The visible dot to the right is one of the satellites. Brighter than anything else in the sky but Venus! Look for them next clear dark night. Eric