aguylikeshark

Going stock fin is a good idea this time of year. Warmer water is softer = the whole ski is set deeper and (to me) there is less resistance. During the season I put my boots back to trim the ski up a bit so I can stand on the front without sinking it. In warm water the fin is less effective so you need a bit more holding power - which means either move back or add a bit of depth/area (per Andy Mapple). Wing to suit. All depends on where you started from tho.

Hi Chef, We ran out of small shells - sold a ton of them. BUT just got word we have a shipment of small boots on the ocean dock right now. These are white shells which should look cool. We build to 404 (yellow) spec. - or can supply parts and you can build your own to save $. Should have them here in a few days. For other users - we are the only supplier of these older 404 and 400 releases in the world. They have not been manufactured for several years.

+2 or +3 (I forget what I used) - a free skiing STUDY EXPERIMENT ONLY. I still remember the day I tried it. Didn't last too long OK here's a pix of the force balance on a water ski. I'm showing two of the forces that the wing imparts - the downforce and more subtle the wing torque. WING R US> Stand on the front boot, the wing anchors the back of the ski and the skier can mash down on the ski's pressure center = more forceful contact with the water. Stand on the rear boot the wing lowers the tail raises the tip - making the ski faster.Wing torque adds tip if the skier is balanced over the center of the ski. That is why these baseless wings which eliminate so-called parasitic drag is not worth it. That parasitic drag is actually building some power into the ski by adding a bit of tip pressure.

Good timing. I was going to make post on one of the boards about this topic. As the water is getting softer I am moving my boots back, back and then back again. True a lot of top skiers (RFF) are tip high in the glide - but this is the fast planing mode of the ski and we are seeing the effect of the wing pulling the tail down at 7 or 8 degrees. When they arrive at the ball the ski is dropping in pretty well. Some skiers that don't ride so tip high are JT and CP and even JB (all LFF). Jon typically uses less wing angle than most. I had a discussion with Jack Travers about Jon's setup for the Nationals. It's piping hot in Florida and Jack expected cooler (firmer) water at the Nats. He tuned Jon's boot and fin placement using FM rule of thumb calcs and obviously got it correct! Jon skied to 2nd place ripping 2 @41. If the ski stays under him, he can ski it! One advantage that we build in the E-Boots is the ability to micro-set the boot placement. I am surprised that this feature is not standard for pro-level binding plates. We use special fasteners to make it work. Small increments can make the difference. IMO "one hole" is too much. I think at minimum you need 1/8". Attached is my ski and as you can see the plates allow very fine adjustment of the front and rear boots. They're dialed! ADJUSTING BOOTS - E_Series

Try putting your wing at +2 or +3 degrees. That is drop it past the zero point so it's the "wrong way". The wing creates lift as soon as you ride the ski - pushing the tail of the ski up and tip down, turning your ski into an unbearable monsta. Give it a try.

Skiers were breaking Fog plates 1/4" thick aluminum in half. The force of the heels coming upward as a ski blows out in hard shortline turn is HUGE. In our early protos I snapped a thick polycarb plate at 35 off - it was like a gun shot BANG. (But felt good). If you ski longer lines & slower speed there is much less force delivered at the ball. Going OTF at the wakes not such a big deal either. But short lines and fast speeds there is a ton of energy being put down to the ski at the ball - then the fin can let go. So the connect between the boots needs to be flexible or come apart as we have in our Dual Sole system. PS: Will uses the first gen Ski tech boot, a 404 Silvretta release, Intuition liner and a modified plates - all painted flat black. Not a Reflex. You can't buy it. Probably built up with the help of KLP. I am surprised the boot stays on the ski. Not much heel contact there so for our single boots we widen the heel platform and toe connection for better stability.

it's explained in more detail on the link. the above is point form. too busy to type out an essay.

wing does in fact create true lift at a brief instant - that is lifts the ski out of the water. I call it the jacking effect. Andy, and Will are probably the most pronounced visually. it also requires a bit of help from the 2nd wake, but the ski's wetted surface is reduced, increasing it's speed and reducing drag. Also (the wing) helps the knees upward movement (off the 2nd wake) that scavenges space (or distance) in course. The wing in the (blades) down (screws up) position increases lift height but also makes the other effects more pronounced. Remember that person on the air chair can go up, way up and down. The wing turns your ski into such a device - works best with a healthy dose of compression, speed and shorter lines. PS - to the bottom of the lake is why i prefer to call it downforce THE WING>

---> with a wing I tend to dig a big hole on my “Onsideâ€/ “Heel Side†this is true because at this instant (weight on back foot) the wing is pulling the tail down. F1 - what does a wing on the back of the car do? Downforce - but under braking the whole car is lowered. Same with a ski. The wing allows the skier to stick the ski to the water with more force. How it operates all depends on weight distribution of the skier at that point in time.

My A1 was great down in Mexico. Got back here and the ski suddenly developed the rash - sandpaper rough spot on the tunnel just at the front of the fin area. Riding the ski a few days ago it felt really sluggish and dragging - even with 5 Deg wing. Turned over my bud's ski and the same thing - same spot!! Our water is about 77 Deg now and getting softer. rode the X5 today - much slicker through the water and skied easy. I've wet sanded that bottom area and will see what happens. Seems like not only rough surface but the tunnel is slightly bulged under the inserts. kind of a critical area for a ski. very strange.

Batch of Slalom Harnesses The FM Harness

Ran some 36 MPH this morning. Boat was screaming like 3960 RPM. Burnin' mucho gas at those revs. Made the fast water even faster. No pulls and felt like I was in a constant turn. It was cool. Sure is a rush. 36 MPH VIDEO I have never seen a score past one at 35 off at 36 on lakes around here. >> 0.50@58/12.00 42.50 1000 1 This won mens div regionals in 2008 at McIvor lake - about 1.5 hours north of us.

We have sold quite a few harnesses, more than we expected to so far. Cleaned us out in fact. I heard there are skiers making their own versions in Florida as well. The FM harness does a couple of things that the PV does not. First it imposes counter-rotation which is a good habit to get into. It keeps the handle closer to your body and helps in preventing that early release and reach to the inside. So the reach is more progressive. You also become more aware of where the handle is in relation to your body. Another feature is shared loading. The FM harness is adjustable and dynamic. So it can take a little or a lot of the rope load. The more you extend your arms toward the boat the more the harness takes. The harness directs pull to your core so it helps keep your hips from dragging, especially if your arms are extended - giving a safer pull through the wakes. You can clip in or out of it right in the water, use your own gloves (not clinchers but can be clinchers), lightweight and it's what $90 which is mostly labor! I started the season last year with the harness and was a better skier for it. This year we have not done as much skiing and I have not used it. As a result I am much more off in terms of countering and smoothness having to work really hard to get that back. I left my personal harness (#001!!) at Club Med for guests to use and we are out of stock but just got some tubing in last week and can start manufacturing more of them. Training for style or to ski through a pulled muscle etc. it's a great device. I would not want to see it being used in tournaments like the PV is. Any more questions let me know.

Notches for DFT adjust are usually 0.010" I had a Goode once that was 0.005 crazy sensitive. But all other skis I've ridden 0.010 was it. Forward fin adjust will put you wider into your toeside ...but the tip of the ski will ride a bit higher going into the turns. and a few additional caveats I won't mention. What ski/your numbas now? Also temp/ski ditch or big lake? PS - you know Asher's numbers for the A1??

All of the above are correct and it depends on which side you are talking about. The offside exit you need depth, leverage and less slip in the ski (fin to the back). The onside the opposite is true. So it's getting the balance right between both sides. Having ski edge in the water is key too - because the ski edge up front works to build outbound angle, opposing the action of the fin (onside). So you can effectively run more fin improving balance. In softer water you can run a deeper fin, get wider & still have wicked fast turns with better overall balance. The softer the water the easier it gets. For better cast out after the pull, the ski needs to come out of the water.

Thanks here's a 2010 update - corrected some calc errors and removed images for quicker download. http://www.jagersport.com/product_info.php?cPath=87&products_id=243 I have not skied any new skis this year. riding the 66.25 A1. The A1 ripped down in Mexico on the salt water, temp was like high 80's so it was much softer than our lake has ever been. It was so much fun. I ran stock settings for a set and then had to use the slide rule from there since I could only view xls files from the Club Med computers!

A skier jets through many phases while skiing the course, all rapidly linked together. For example the turn entry, apex and exit or finish etc. So fin adjustments affect each phase and each side a bit differently. It's a very dynamic force balance, nothing more and much easier to talk about than write about. If you write it all down it'll be a thick tech manual and probably take a couple of months to draft. Lakes around the world ski very differently. At FM we created the skier's workbook about 5 or 6 years ago using a few dots on the graph. We have written about viscosity changes and the affect it has on skis. The Skier Workbook & tools work pretty well and has been downloaded by 1000's of skiers. So have a look at that for a primer. How the ski rides for you is very important after that the fin is (to me) fine tuning. Many of the top pros are on custom built skis. Settings start make real difference at shorter lines and higher speeds. 15 off 30 or 32 mph getting boots and DFT right is about all you need to do off stock. It is much better to share settings with skiers in your local environment than across the globe.

every fin adjust does the same thing both sides that how you experience the effect is different. so fin back basically adds to the tail of the ski, raising it (the tail) up and putting the tip lower - but also making the turns rounder, finishing tip lower. reduces slip on the ski moving boots ahead is very similar. with boots you need to find that center point on the ski. water conditions, ski flex and the type of boot you are in will change how you stand on the ski. (i don't like plates with these 0.25" jumps in position.) in cancun right now skiing warm salty water. this spongy stuff is much harder to read what is going on with the ski. adding fin length just increases the fin surface area - this will be a boost to offside but hurt your onside unless you reduce depth by ~1/2 at the same time. 9 degree wing is pretty steep, tried it here didn't like it. the new goode models are running 7 degrees ?? the pros i've talked to run 7 or 8.

GMC wants a non-release plate as do we. To mount release bindings (eg. E Series, Revo, and the like) on skis with no inserts: ie the Goode and the Warp. (Warp is a really nice ski, I miss it.) Obviously dual lock is a working solution - plate and sticky tape - cheap but easy?? Oh man. There is a friend of mine on our lake got the whole factory pkg as a wedding gift. Perfect test pilot! And pilot he is...we watched him do cartwheels through the wakes for about a month. He's setup really strong right now - full 250 coverage. I've seen his plate with a sick bend upward under the front heel after a crash. Hammer and big wood dowel. The front heel needs relief or to be able to come up in a safe binding design. There are 3 plate systems right now that don't allow for that. Backward release - no. because lose that toe connect you lose control of the ski tip, look out. Have you seen a dual lock plate separate from front toe area? Usually into the wakes, humungous crash = eyeball splitting concussion. If you bail backward you will spin around right away anyway. the front of the ski is what levers against the front ankle. most of the load is directed there 90% of the time. so engineer properly for front ankle loading in a skier self-test (able), repeatable system. that's what we are doing.

For our 3MX or FM8 plate - we use the 400 on the plate, clear 250 on the ski. I had 100% coverage. Release bindings can pull quite the load depending on the tension. For the release to work right you need a stable platform. The clear 250 with VHB will come off the ski clean for removal. I am amazed that skiers trust dual lock to adhere or release as required. our tests showed it to be very inconsistent, fluctuates greatly with temperature. the plastic that makes up the mushrooms is low end and not durable. With 100% coverage on a ski it does OK. there is enough surface area to form an adequate margin there. Dual lock is essentially a bond-breakable two sided sticky tape. The bond of lox has to be weaker than two-sided sticky tape, otherwise it will pull off lox stock and barrel. So imagine your binding plate being held by strips of sticky tape, no screws or mechanical backup. that makes me way too nervous! As a matter of fact I just talked to the engineer who consulted on the first hardshell system using Dual Lock. He said dock soap was his big worry, and that came true when his ski went one way he went the other twice in a tourney. So yeah - no engineer 3M or otherwise would be using it for that in-between mode. Chipper you need a temp spec, water lubricity spec, wear spec, total area spec and distribution and some sort of assembly test - an indicator to show it's actually fully engaged - to make that table you have fully defined. is there an engineer (PE) out there that would put his/her stamp on it??

to remove a dual locked plate from the ski(alum or otherwise) - just pry up the rear/tail of it (i use a wooden spatula that has been sharpened). Lift it just enough to get a drumstick or thin 1/2" dowel in there. Then run the stick or dowel down the length of the plate. Doesn't matter how much dual lock or what type - the plate pops of so easy. have some one catch the boots or do this on carpeted/grass area.

http://twitter.com/FluidMotionSki @ Asher's iPhone - Waterskiing Royalty, From Joe Cash on up this is the waterski dream team right here. Willy's photo Added brightness and contrast - just barely read the names. Starts in '59 that was a good year.

Couple of notes: Liners do work back a bit after molding esp if stretched during the molding process. We find it's best to put a lot of toe room in by stretching out before going into the boot and not rely on caps so much because the toes curl! Cold or just water shrinks your feet so if they are snug on land they should be OK. This is the reason it's nice to be able to adjust a boot in the water without fear of altering the release properties too much. Liner Molding Fluid Motions

Got a couple of requests recently to do a video showing how the Z releases. Did that today. The laces can be done quite tight and the Z will release because we pin the cuff in the neutral position - which leaves room for the foot to exit the shell, when the heavy-duty cords expand. We use 3/16" cord which is double the diameter of anything else I've seen. " /a>

I got hurt a couple of times on the Fogs before the re-design began. It was our starting point for the Quattro system. After 10 years of injury free skiing my forward ankle is permantly scarred up and my back foot has issues through the middle of it. So yeah not to be taken lightly. I talked to Miller before he passed away. Miller was the guy who designed the releases. The biggest issue here is taking a design from snow with direct application over to water. I could go into tech detail but think TRS summed it up. No matter what gets said on forums or boards about anything, sooner or later the results speak for themselves and the word gets around. that's what i've noticed. there is a lot of truth in the sport of slalom.