Than_Bogan

My experience has been that weight directly under your feet doesn't make the ski feel any heavier in the course. I theorize that weight itself doesn't really mean much -- the water is fully supporting that. What matters is angular moment (what a lot of folks like to call "swing weight") because that effects how much energy is require to turn the ski. Weight under your feet causes negligible change in angular moment. I have no proof of this theory, of course -- but it sounds sensible and seems to match my experience.

Actually, I think Zero Off (after getting rid of these annoying user-parameters) will eventually be very good for the sport. If you're a newbie trying to get into the sport, you can drive for a great skier and instantly have a great coach. And it has some advantages over perfect pass: you don't need to set up magnets and (more importantly) you don't need to enter everybody's weight [women hate that!] and constantly monitor the times for wind-based adjustment [again requiring a level of expertise of the driver]. So I think it helps lower some barriers to entry and level the playing field.

Random thought: Does anyone think the existence of these setting will hurt our chances (as remote as they may be) of becoming an Olympic sport? My understanding is that an important sticking point is the role of the engine in the sport, and the ambiguous wording in the Olympic charter that is something like "the athlete shall not be assisted by a motor." This is a grey area, since it's impossible to do the sport without a motor, but the motor is really the skier's opponent. It kinda seems to me that having options to control the boat weakens that case, and makes it seem a lot more like the boat is "assisting" the skier. Am I completely nuts?

Quick addendum here: When I was putting my plate back on, I couldn't find a dowl to hit to force the Dual-Lock to attach, and so I tried an old handle. This worked great -- probably better than any dowl. So I thought I'd pass that along: Wack that handle with a rubber mallet and it connects the Dual-Lock efficiently without any risk of damage to the plate or ski.

Horton wrote: "And all this is good for the sport? I keep this web site at a PG-13 level but I want to say some very bad words on this subject" Yep. Agree with your implied meaning there! I think all these settings are just a huge distraction, and I really think AWSA should get rid of this. Pick control system parameters and we'll all get used to them! Being able to tune the boat to help your skiing can theoretically add buoys, but so can lengthening the rope! The sport is about overcoming well-defined challenges, so I see no reason to offer this level of customization. A natural reaction to my tirade would be "Well just pick something and ignore it, then." But if I do that it's quite possible I've put myself at a disadvantage relative to a competitor who has chosen optimal personalized settings. And so if my desire is to ski as well as I possibly can in tournaments (and you know it is!) then I have no choice but to care about these letters and numbers. There's an old argument in sports, games, and even politics (e.g. term limits) that if you don't like the existence of a given option, then just don't use it. But when "just don't use it" means putting yourself at a disadvantage relative to others, that is NOT the same as eliminating the option. (Sorry to venture off topic a bit -- I'm an amatuer game theorist and extremely interested in incentives and optimal strategy and the like.)

Found it! http://skibigdawg.wordpress.com/what-zero-off-setting-are-you-using/ (then hit the view results button) But it seems the lesson of this poll is basically that every setting works for somebody. With such a small sample size, I'd say the only significant deviations are B3 and C3, which are noticeably less popular (and yet almost 10% of respondents are using one of those, so obviously these settings aren't completely awful). All of the other settings seem to have a reasonable number of adherents. So it seems like just copying what "everybody else" is doing is not really feasible. Darn! -- that's pretty much exactly what I was hoping to do!

MS, can you link directly to the poll? I appear to lack the competence to find it myself.

I just realized I have a question: Do these parameters work in a symmetric way when the boat needs to decelerate? In other words, does 1 give a long period of a slight reduction in RPM when the skier has gotten free of the boat and the rope is not under tension? This almost seems more important to me that what is going on under load. If the boat slows down suddenly when you release (3?), I'd expect that to feel very different than if it slows down more gradually (1?). For A/B/C, it seems even harder to guess at the behavior when it's time to slow down. Does A similarly delay taking any action in reducing RPM? In this case, it theoretically might be harder to get free of the boat to get wide, as the boat would be making some effort to "keep up with you." But if C is slowing down as soon as possible, I feel like that would contribute to a slack line in the preturn -- consider the extreme of what would happen if the driver just powered down at that point. Now that I'm thinking about this, it seems a little odd that everything I've ever read about Zero Off talks about how it ADDS power. But it has to REDUCE power just as frequently, and how it does that seems kinda important, no?

Better late than never. :)

Mrs ML wrote: "But how come I’m okay sticking with something that is maybe so-so. Do I have to be a special kind of “mental†to go through equipment like that?" This part I think is a personality thing. I'm as obsessed with peak performance as anybody, but that is tempered by the fact that I hate change. I really don't enjoy trying new skis, so I only do it when my ski is seriously underperforming (or broken...). I try to get on something that works as quickly as I can and not look back. But I don't think that's necessarily a "better" method than trying new stuff a lot. If you can tolerate the constant re-learning of the details of a given ski, this may enable optimizing the equipment to a degree that someone with my personality cannot. Of course, this can become pathological at a point -- trying new skis too frequently ultimately means never really getting one dialed in and acheiving peak performance. Aside: Maybe it's more than a "general" personality characteristic, because in some of my other hobbies I constantly experiment -- in online games for example I have more fun trying out new ways of making a character than I do if I stick with playing one! So I fully understand how experimentation can be the fun part. But in water skiing, that doesn't work for me. I bet I'd still be on my 9100, may it rest in peace, had I not broken it in half. P.S.: Ok, for you only, today's special price is $98... ;)

That reminds me: I have some special oil you can sprinkle on your ski and instantly add a full pass*! Only $99 per bottle. Plus shipping. No refunds. *Individual results may vary.

"I would feel safer zip tied to the ski." Too bad this forum doesn't have signatures -- I'd have to use that for mine! I keep laughing every time I read that.

skibug wrote: "I think you need to experiment with all of them at least once to see what each feels like; then pick one setting and stick with it." So this seems to make complete sense, except it seems like one set behind a given setting can only tell me if that setting is or is not a complete disaster. Any letter I paired with 3 clearly did not work for me. But most of the other settings just seemed "different" -- very hard to say better or worse for me. This is even true of 2 vs.1, but I guessed that since 3 felt so bad, going further away from that made sense, so I've been mostly using 1. I realize I could just arbitrarily pick one of the non-disaster settings and stay on it, but the truth is I'd always wonder if I could be using one that would be better for me in the long term! (Yep -- it's a pathology, but one I suspect a lot of folks on this board also have...) Because of this, I honestly believe I'd be happier if AWSA or ZO just decided that everyone was going to use the same setting. Then that would be the definition of the sport and I'd never wonder if I could get more buoys by using some other setting.

GMC wrote: "After reading the 3M literature it seemed like the clear for both sides was the obvious choice as it is made for indoor/outdoor use and the black is not." I don't think that's true. I think black is available in both indoor-only and indoor/outdoor varieties. See http://www.itapestore.com/3mduallock.aspx and note the difference between SJ3540 and SJ3550. That said, it does look like the black tape that I am CURRENTLY using has a black adhesive, implying it is SJ3540 (indoor use only). Hm. Now I'm wondering if the so-called "indoor" one may actually work better for skiers, perhaps because the "foam adhesive" can tolerate repeated flexing better??

Schnitz's page also contains a really interesting idea for measuring DFT with much finer repeatability. At first I was pretty confused about measuring the thickness of the fin, but I finally realized that's just a calibration stage that is used to figure out something about your caliper. Measuring the thickness of anything by those two different methods can give the desired information (or else I still completely misunderstand!). I definitely gotta try that -- I've been way too cheap to get a slot caliper, but my repeatability on DFT is probably not even 0.01", much less the desired 0.001".

Great, so there's actually 27 things to try? 3 boats * 3 letters * 3 numbers?? But anyhow, thanks for the detailed information. Personally, I still feel that PP is just a hair easier, even now that I am alternating boats so practicing equally with both. So the idea of matching the feel of PP is pretty appealing. One thing I note: No mention of 3 in your discussion. So can we ignore that possibility when searching for our favorite setting?

Yeah, I'd be really uncomfortable relying on Dual-Lock as a release mechanism unless somebody could show me some really good data regarding its release characteristics from lots of applications and lots of different directions of releases. In the absense of that, my first guess would be that the release force is highly variable -- i.e. that each time you attach it the amount of force needed to detach it is different. I'd also expect the release force required to exhibit a general decline (underneath the volatility) over multiple releases. These hypotheses -- and I emphasize they are only that -- are based on the mushroom interlock details being completely unpredictable, and an assumption that the mushrooms get damaged a bit by each release. Of course, it's quite possible that rubber boots have equally bad characteristics! But I've been using them long enough that I have the empirical evidence to trust them! To simply hold the boot plate to the ski, though, these issues don't matter. Just make sure it's enough to always hold, and voila. I think it's the best system for that, although I can see the double-sided tape being a reasonable alternative to screws as well. I am so glad to have NO holes in my Goode and to never worry about the screws backing out (like every single set!) or a hole becoming stripped. The additional adjustability is just a bonus.

Has any sort of "consensus" formed on the "best" Zero Off settings? Do people tend to believe there is a single best setting? (I'm guessing no.) Is there a short list of settings that most people will do best with, and if so how do you pick? Or are all 9 settings applicable to some skier or another, and if so has anybody written a document that is sufficient for somebody to figure out which type of skier they are? Personally I don't get nearly enough sets behind ZO to feel confident in experimentally dialing in the best choice. How I feel on a given day can make it extremely difficult to compare one set to another, and changing the setting within a set seems really disruptive to getting good practice. Just wanting to catch up on the "prevailing wisdom" around this topic. Thanks! Fwiw, I *seem* to have determined that I like 1 better than 2 or 3, but haven't been able to see clear preference on A/B/C yet. For tournaments I'm currently using B1, but there's nothing very scientific about that.

Interesting. Using double-sided tape gives up the ability to adjust boot position, though, doesn't it?

Lots of good points there, all. Maybe I'll order 2" next time and just install 2 pieces instead of 4. If that buys me a little more time between changes, it'll easily be the better plan. I'm really fascinated to hear all these differences between the black and the clear. For my purposes, I'm really glad I'm all-black now. I suppose it's not THAT bad to have to swap out the tape each winter. But my time always seems so tight (except when I'm at work and typing on forums!) -- ideally I don't want to have to do anything to my ski for years at a time... Guess that's unrealistic if I also want peak performance. Stupid "not being able to simultaneously optimize everything"! I'll say again that this tape system is great. It has huge advantages over screws. But it's not quite "set and forget" just yet. Maybe we'll get there someday.

Great info, folks. Keep it coming. clemsondave: "Also, I use 2" wide strips instead of multiple 1" strips. I think it holds better. " Interesting. I would have assumed that total area was all that mattered for holding power. This isn't very relevant to me because I just want it to hold permanently, and I think I have plenty for that, but I'm curious: Are there specific reasons you think the 2" holds better? I suppose I could see why it might release more "smoothly," especially if releasing to the side, as opposed to "catching" just a bit on each new strip as it released. Oh wait: Did you mean it sticks to the ski better -- i.e. lasts longer? That would be VERY relevant to me!

"I think it's science mixed with art and some voodoo. Can't write a definitive. one of the most knowledgeable told a friend of mine once, I would add a little depth...or take a little out. " This is so true. And I even think there' s a reason for it, that somebody alluded to earlier (maybe in a different thread). When something is way off, the skier is trying to compensate for it, and may over-compensate, making it look like the problem is the opposite of what it really is. Earlier this year I was trying to help a local skier get his ski set up, and I was pretty darn sure that his boots were way off, because he was rocking back and forth -- sometimes on the tail, sometimes burying the ski. HIs symptoms had me so confused that I actually took a set on it and I found myself doing the exact same thing -- sometimes way back, sometimes way forward. After all this, my first guess was the wrong way!

Wow, that seems like REALLY poor life. Since Goode's manuals don't mention changing it, I was thinking it was more of a "lifetime of the ski" kind of thing. As much as I greatly prefer this system to screws, it's disappointing to think I'll have to change it out so often. Why is the clear easier to work with? Any clue why the black lasts so much longer? I don't think I mentioned that all of what I have is 250.

Also related to this: has anyone found that it takes any amount of time for the Dual-Lock to reach maximum adhesion after being applied? Like a "drying time?" For example, if I were to immediately mount my plate to it (which I purposely didn't) would that be more likely to peel it up than if I waited a few hours (or days)?

Thought I'd share one experience, and perhaps others can do so too and see if there is anything general to learn here. I'm using a Goode plate -- the kind that is NOT intended to release, so is held on by lots of Dual-Lock. Shortly after my ski arrived from Goode, some of the adhesive "layer" began to peel away -- some from the ski side and some from the Dual-Lock side. Over a few months of skiing (interrupted by winter), this slowly got a little worse, and then suddenly became a huge problem, with the whole binding being able to lift off. When I went to fix it, I took a close look at the Dual-Lock mounted to the ski, and I was a bit surprised that it wasn't mounted in straight lines. A single strip was curved along each edge of the ski, which results in a fairly significant bend over the length of the strip. Although I know nothing about Dual-Lock, it would be my first guess that this curvature is not good for the holding power -- surely it must stress the "long" edge and create bunching on the "short" edge? Of course, the alternative also has problems. What I'm trying this time is keeping every strip straight, with the edge strips touching the ski's edge at each end, but not following its contour in between. But that means I don't have any at the very edge of the ski near the middle of the binding. I can't immediately think of any problems this will cause, assuming that I still have enough total holding power. (I estimate I've reduced the area of Dual-Lock by about 20%, which I think is still PLENTY for my 170 lbs frame, but I guess I'll find out.) Has anyone done their own mounting of non-releasable Dual-Lock and found a given method to work well or poorly? Also, all of my failure points were in the clear tape (attached to the ski), whereas the black tape attached to the plate is (so far!) completely fine. I wouldn't really expect any difference in performance based on color, but figured I'd mention that just in case. By coincidence, the replacement tape I was able to beg up was black, so I've unintentionally changed to all black now.