AdamCord

Welcome @Skoot1123! Looks like it's time for us to start making kid skis too

@Booze no setting up a tent at nationals makes this feel way too much like a real job.

@GaryWilkinson you’re looking good, just keep working on the moves while upping the intensity and working to start and maintain a higher swing. Just because we want less angle off the 2nd wake doesn’t mean we take less into the first wake. You need speed to make this work well, and you won’t get that without putting in the work on the way to the 1st wake. Anytime you have two hands on the handle, you want your elbows locked to your hips.

@Horton time to quit tricking and start this review already! We’re pretty damn excited about this thing... This is a small c75-Insanity at 41off 36mph https://www.instagram.com/p/CDZuBaUhMiE/?igshid=157b5dj6d1vqw

@tjm no if we do that it doesn’t fit at all on some of the other blocks out there

@GaryWilkinson start a new thread and post some video

@coach3 assuming I've done everything I want to do on the way into CL, I'm attempting to get the ski pointed down the lake as early as possible and get into a position where the handle can't get peeled off my body through the whitewash. Easier said than done, especially at 41 since it's hard to build enough speed before CL, so the ski tends to still be loaded at CL, and also since the loads can get so high at the 2nd whitewash. I do try and pull/keep my arms in, but that isn't even remotely possible if the ski is still pointed out when I get to the transition. The other key is letting the boat "open me up" off the 2nd wake, which means my hips/shoulders are rolling in toward the boat on the way out. That pulls me up over the ski and gets the ski to yaw a lot before I even release the handle. If I don't let that happen I'll run parallel to the boat and ski into a pile of slack on the back side of the turn. This move is hard to see in pros if you don't know what you are looking for, but pay attention to how early you see the spray coming off their ski in the preturn. Spray is a sign that the ski is already starting to rotate into the turn. If you're not seeing much spray off your ski until after you release the handle, then you got separated and you let the ski go to the bank way too long.

Thanks @matthewbrown! At this point anyone skiing MM / 34mph is just trying to catch @adamhcaldwell . I'm lucky in that whenever I struggle I can call and pick his brain

@matthewbrown fair points. I think the problem is that what these guys are doing and what the rest of us are trying to do can get a bit mixed. As you said when the skier makes lots of speed into center a lot of this is a moot point. Nate can stand over the ski the way he does because there is no load on the ski anymore, he's generated so much speed into center that he's just riding the ski around the boat. The problem I see over and over again when I coach skiers is that they are trying to get "forward" on the ski through and off the 2nd wake without generating enough speed first, and that almost always translates to shoulders forward, hips back, and handle about 3 feet from their hips. What is much easier if you are finding that that's happening to you is to push your ski and hips forward through the transition. Even if you end up on the tail of the ski, you will be much more connected AND the ski will roll out of angle more naturally. I'll take the position of Mapple above with only the fin in the water all day over being disconnected and having the ski pointed to the bank. This is a universal problem among skiers of all ability levels. When we reach our hardest pass all of us will find ourselves in a position to be trying to swing around the pylon without enough speed because as the rope gets shorter it becomes harder and harder to generate the swing we need. So we need a way to manage that load/speed relationship when the going gets tough. What I see when I watch most top skiers on their hardest pass is something that looks more like CP and Mapple in the above images.

@matthewbrown I've got to push back somewhat on your statement about edge pressure and pushing the ski in front of you. What is edge pressure doing for you through the edge change? And why would pushing the ski in front of you be a problem if you have already generated the needed swing speed to get high on the boat, and you are in a very well connected position like Jeff is in the picture above? There really isn't a need to make it that complicated. Our goal needs to be to create the angle on the gate or in the turn in order to start our acceleration and get our mass swinging as fast as we can around the pylon into the first wake. If you can do that then you need to be able to get the ski out of angle and put yourself in position to stay connected as you swing off the 2nd wake. No edge pressure required. I would argue that pushing the ski in front of you through the back of the boat and off the 2nd wake makes maintaining the connection easier, and also makes it easier to yaw the ski out of angle and get it on the required path. Obviously lots of ways to skin a cat, and some skiers stay a lot more over the ski through the transition behind the boat than others. Personally, I make an effort to push the ski in front of me because it allows me to yaw the ski earlier, and it drives my hips to the handle at a time right when it's very easy to get disconnected.

@buoyboy1 great question. I purposefully chose to use 1 ball from each pass for this comparison so that my early/late-ness in the course isn’t a factor in the comparison. Not sure about other skiers but this offset seems pretty consistent in my own skiing, maybe that’s part of why I’m not out there crushing 41 up and down the lake like Caldwell :#

@GaryJanzig yes good point. I think we’ve all seen the look of befuddlement in someone’s eyes the first time you try and explain to them that you are a competitive water skier. @Than_Bogan I’m on board, let’s lobby for the 10m line length! @Justin_C you are absolutely right. I approach the turns exactly the same way regardless of line length. It’s the work you do between the turns that matters.

Over the past month or so I've been skiing mostly at 34mph because I want to try and catch f*@#ing @adamhcaldwell as he just dominates at 34mph. It turns out that 41 is a really short rope, and anyone who has gotten through it at ANY speed is an absolute legend. I was looking at some video from a set yesterday and trying to really see why the jump from 39 to 41 feels so much bigger than the jumps between any of the previous line lengths. By looking at where the rope's maximum swing lands compared to the boat it becomes pretty clear: You have to get WAY higher on the boat to get around buoys at 41. The amount the rope has to swing from line length to line length looks fairly linear through 39, then it makes a HUGE jump to 41. The amount of energy it takes to get this much higher on the boat also feels like a LOT, as I'm pulling much harder behind the boat to feel like I can make ANY space at 41. Anyway I thought some people might find this interesting. Really impressive not just that Caldwell and others can run 41, but that they can do it with any sort of consistency. It becomes a game of power and control at a level much higher and more precise than most people will ever understand.

Hi @Stathis Ventouris there are no performance differences, we just made some tweaks to the shape to make it more universal and fit in all the different fin blocks that are out there.

@BraceMaker good question B)

@jimski The 2021 version of the ski hasn't "officially" been announced yet, but we will actually have 3 different flex patterns for different performance levels. This will be launching in the coming weeks. The skis are not "softer" or "stiffer" for different performance levels like you might expect, but different flex PATTERNS based on what a longer line skier vs. a shorter line skier needs. We're calling this the Bending Moment Profile, and this is a visual representation of what that means: Ski flex is extremely complicated and describing a ski as soft or stiff doesn't begin to cover the importance of how the flex profile effects the ski's performance. We spent the winter building ~50 skis of varying flex patterns to try and really understand this. We also developed a new method of flexing our skis that gives us more detail and a better understanding of what the ski is really doing on the water. I'm not willing to give much detail about any of this because we think we've really tapped into something that no one else has. I will say that we aren't surprised at how well people are skiing on these new C75s. It's been really fun over the past couple weeks to get these into the hands of customers!

@Dano Radar boots pretty much always have to run further back than other boots.

@klindy Caldwell corrected me, they used Surepath Friday in practice and Saturday in the tourney but not Sunday in the tourney, so it wasn't being used for this set. He turned 5 ball twice on Saturday at 41, then made a fin change for Sunday and ran it.

@adamhcaldwell ran 41 and .5@43off last weekend at the Trophy Lakes record tournament. With all this talk about boat path issues it's starting to feel like every time someone runs 41 in a record event we need to see what the boat path looked like. The images below are from the Splasheye system of the boat paths for his 41off and 43off passes. Jeff Gilbert was behind the wheel and did an amazing job. Boat was a 6L Malibu TXI. Ski obviously a Denali C75. For what it's worth they also were running the Surepath system all day Friday in practice as well as during the tournament on Saturday. Caldwell made the comment that he felt like after some time using Surepath all the drivers in the tourney both felt better to him as well as reduced the deviation in their passes. He also said that the differences between the drivers was reduced once they got dialed in with Surepath. In any case this was some great skiing by Caldwell and great driving by Jeff, Congrats guys!

@Buxrus a setup that works for shortline will feel a bit draggy and slow to turn on your earlier passes. If your setup feels free and light with very quick turns at the longer lines, you’ll struggle with keeping the line tight and over turning as the rope gets shorter. You have to keep in mind that you will be moving faster into the buoys at 38 than 35. So typical adjustments you can make to get your ski working better for shortline include: Fin back Fin deeper Fin shorter More wing The fin is adjustable for a reason, use it B)

Public Service Announcement It's the time of year when people are starting to ski a lot right when the water temps are changing quickly. This is a PSA to try and save people some headache as their ski that was working well in colder water may start acting strange as the water temps rise. In general warmer water will make your ski shut down faster and get behind you if you had your ski working well in colder water. Or it may be turning well but you're getting too loaded up behind the boat. You will most likely need to make one or more of these adjustments: Fin Forward Fin Shallower Less Wing Boot Back Which you should try will depend on your setup. For instance if you are running a 9 wing, maybe try 8, or if your boots are forward of stock, pull them back, etc. If you aren't sure where to start I'd suggest you move the fin forward and shallower first. Typically small adjustments are required as the water warms up, or if you travel to a new site that has a vastly different water temp.

@C5Quest we have several outlines written up, so there is some progress but admittedly it hasn’t been a priority lately. We’re definitely planning to create more installments of GUT. The Connection and Swing thread is sort of a blueprint for the next one or two installments. I’m curious about how helpful the existing articles are to people? Are they too abstract? Anything that we could do better for future articles?

@jercrane I should have said I don’t use 1 because it’s too slow for the power to come on. Whenever I try 1 I find myself getting into too deep a lean and then too overloaded to stand up out of the pull early enough. For your second question, Caldwell is 5’10” and he may do it better than anyone.

@SlalomSteve @dude If the ZO settings always worked as intended and every boat ran the same way with them, then yes C2 or C3 might be ideal. Unfortunately there is so much variation between boat brands, models, years, engine choice, etc. that it's never that straightforward. C2 might feel like B3 on another boat, etc. I typically try and run a C2, as C3 can be a bit too aggressive, but often times depending on the boat and how it feels I will move to either B2-3 or A2-3. I almost never run a 1 number because it's just too slow to come on, and you need to have the boat gassing you on the way into the 1st wake. An interesting side benefit of this technique that I've found is that the better I do it the less I seem to notice the differences in ZO settings, especially at 34mph.

@jercrane PM sent.