JohnN

Forget the waterskiing - sign him up for football :-).  I don't have experience with the Annex, but the RS-1 is pretty snappy and not as smooth as a D3.   The D3 skis seem to make the speed jump easier with their smooth turns and controllable speed.ÂÂ

Guys who have ridden the RS-1, Spurred on by the good deals on MPDs out there, this past weekend I demoed an RS-1 since I couldn't find an MPD to try. I've got a couple of questions, though. At 5'9", 180, M4, 28-38 off, 34mph, should I be looking at the 67 or 68"? I demoed a white 67" RS-1, and loved the cross course speed and angle of the ski. It turns pretty good as well! Every now and then it would snap too hard on the turns (on side) or, wheelie (off side), and overall it just feels small. It did feel better at 32 and 35 than 28 if that helps. Stock fin settings from proskicoach.com, front boot (animals) at 29.25", which was one hole back of center. I felt similar things with the RS-1 boots as well. Second question, what does the MPD do differently than the RS-1? Is the RS-1 worth double the price?  Last, I took a number of sets on the RS-1 boots. Loved the comfort of them. Easy to mount, and I didn't notice a huge transition from my Animals. The lateral control I felt was maybe a little more than Animals, but not too much. I found the amount my rear foot moved in the boot very distracting, and had it come up significantly in the turn a few times. Ulimately I decided to not go with the RS-1s because I just couldn't get them to be consistent. I had to loosen the bungees to get the liners back in, and then I must not have got them the same level of tightness. So, the boots seemed to feel different each set, and sometimes even in between passes. Not sure why, but it's more variables than I want to deal with.  Didn't have the opportunity to test the release function :-).  Anyway, thanks in advance for any thoughts you have on the RS-1 or MPD skis!

I wish you well on your quest, John! I too like to scramble, and it didn't pay off in my tourney results last year (except for the one round behind PP). My thoughts for this year are 1) be disciplined as possible and stay invisible to the boat, and when that fails 2) in scramble mode aim to maintain as much speed as possible after the ball by driving my body, hips, everything forward when stuffing the ski around the ball. I'm thinking that maintaining the speed will give the boat time to catch up and not get caught in the cycle of powering late. Unfortunately the only time I'll get to try my theory is in tournaments... It's interesting that you're getting pulled down course when you scramble. Why is that? Too much power, too little power, or too late application of the power? Maybe the new breed of wide skis will help to lessen the boat's reactions?  EF - ++ 15 probably won't feel like ZO :-). Some say - and 15 I think. In my limited experience with SG, it's cool, but doesn't resemble ZO and probably won't help tourneys. PP classic is more fun to ski behind IMO.  John

1997 MC PS190, LT1/Slot with Accuski (foot pedal version). Love it and haven't found any new boat that skis better (many drive better). Maintenance is nil, and fuel economy is better than most. Now if I could just re-flash the Hammer mode to be a crazy ZO mode I would be able to simulate Tourney pulls.ÂÂ

Set rpm would be a pretty big speed variance, wouldn't it? At 1 lb per rpm approximately it would put my speed 1mph slower than my 10 yr old for the same set point of 34mph. I don't think you could get near tolerance with today's boats. Of course if you add in a skier weight factor to eliminate that issue you pretty much have pp classic or accuski. Not a terrible thing, IMO /vanillaforum/js/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-wink.gif.  John

Good point, I hadn't really considered the angle thought. Wonder why a switch works, though. Probably a sensitivity thing.  The predictive algorithm would just be a starting point and have some give in it.  The only reason for it would be to make the boat's job of adjustment quicker and easier so the boat doesn't get behind.  By response, do you mean rate of change of speed (either acceleration or deceleration) of the boat? I think that's what we want to feel the same behind different boats as we load/unload the rope.  The problem is,  the boat needs to "know" that a change is coming before it happens or we end up with the current ZO, and the corrections come too little too late (or too much for some). A good hand driver would feel the increase in pull and block or squeeze the throttle to prevent the boat from slowing. If the pull would come early or late the driver would adjust the timing of the movement. But, how can the boat know that, and, how much throttle to add or reduce to compensate appropriately? you know it's getting cold out... John ps - Not to hijack this into an Accuski thread, but doesn't Accuski have some sort of "predictive" algorithm? Especially at lower speeds, without a skier there is a distinct increase and decrease in rpms as you pass each ball. I didn't know Accuski used speed at all, I thought it was just rpm based.ÂÂ

I've been noodling this over as well and I think John's on the right track here. Ideally, per the rules, we want a consistent boat speed. From the skier's end we want that to be predictive like a good hand driver, not reactive like the current ZO. It seems like the boat could have an ideal profile of power adjustment, or rpms, to maintain a consistent speed throughout the course. The trick would be to adjust the curve based on speed feedback from the gps as the skier is skiing. In other words move the curve sooner or later in time relative to the overall course time, as well as adjust the amplitude of the curve. This should get pretty close to the feel of a good hand driver who "learns" the skier as they perform and adjust to each skier. It wouldn't compensate for the random "oh my god" big hit, but neither can a hand driver. I think programming of this nature would be a great step.  The ultimate, should the technology exist, would be to have a the boat learn how much throttle (rpms) it takes to resist a given amount of drag. Then, use a very accurate strain gauge on the pylon to sense what's going on with the skier - the change in drag -  and react before the boat speed changes. Kind of a super-switch.  Regardless of the specific solution, the profiles should have a learning capacity. With differences in elevation, water, etc. the boats need to have much more flexibility in their controls than they have now, when they are dialed in for sea level power, temps and water. As long as this is a wish list, real time wireless transmission of times or speed map to scoring would be sweet. For troubleshooting, downloadable data acquisition of rpm, speed, sensor data during a set would be killer as well!  Now, for the off season try to figure out a plan for testing the 9 settings during the 9 tournaments next year.  John

Hmmm... I just had a flashback. Substitue Accuski for PP and PP for ZO.  That being said, SG seems to be skiing really well now. We ran a round last weekend with PP SG and there was an incredible number of great performances and at least 3 records set. It felt like the switch section was added or something (although it wasn't - with the records the ropes got measured plenty)!  John

After last week's tourney they had a 1 round wood ski for anyone that wanted to do it. Most everyone skied on either a 5?" kid's wood ski or a 67" adult wood ski, hand made by Colorado's own Norm Speak, although there was also an old pintail wood ski and dumpster red/white/blue ski available. You could start where you wanted, with points scored for all gates and buoys made, in no specific order, with the winner being the one who scored the most buoys total.  After a successful pass the boat would spin and speed up 3 Kph. The strategy seemed to be to find the right starting speed to give the most passes.  The final came down to a runoff between a M3 skier who ran about 5 passes spinning (43K - 55K) and my 9yr old who made about 7 passes, going from (34K-52K). The round was judged and scored by a 7yr old and an 8 yr old, and a great time was had by all! John