AdamCord

Once again, 35+ high level skiers are punished and required to quit the sport for several years and then come back if they want to ski competitive events. How is this good for anyone except the egos of the guys who want to win one of these events more easily?

I tried my best to avoid this thread because I knew I'd get sucked in....and alas....here I am. I apologize in advance for what comes next: It would appear that this all started when @bko asked a seemingly simple question...does a shortline skier need to cover more ground than a long line skier? I read through all of the responses and I think I can confidently say that everyone here is right ! Hooray! Also everyone here is wrong. Boo. The reason is that because the original question seems straight forward, there's actually a lot of nuance in the question: "does a shortline skier cover more ground than a long line skier?" The answer is YES! ABSOLUTELY! Except for the times when they definitely do NOT. Let me explain. At a longer line length, the options for where a skier can ski and which path they can take are many. They can ski wide and early, and they can ski outside the buoy by a wide margin, making what could be considered a version of a square wave. Conversely they can take a path that is straight from buoy to buoy, drawing Zs all the way down the lake. As the rope gets shorter, however, our options for where we can ski are reduced. By the time we get to 41off, the path is probably not just "as wide as a garden hose", but man it's close. Also as the rope gets shorter we MUST take a path that's more buoy to buoy. When you're approaching 90 degrees to the boat there isn't enough kinetic energy to keep the skier out there for long, and when the rope is crazy short it may be just enough to slip your ankles outside the buoy. Having said that, let me address some of the excellent points made above. @Bruce_Butterfieldand @Menzelskier I like where your heads are at, but I think you are ignoring the fact that the speed of a 15 off skier (relative to the boat) is vastly different from a 39 off skier. So just because the 39 off skier covers more ground relative to the boat, they are moving much slower (relative to the earth) at the start of that swing and much faster at the end. What results when looking from above may actually be a pretty straight line. So if we're asking if the skier covers more ground relative to the boat, you're spot on. If you're talking relative to the world...maybe not. I think @MarcusBrownhad it right from the beginning...IF you're talking about the same skier. Will Asher at 15 off could get to the next buoy line 50 feet early AND 8 feet outside the buoy line. That is obviously going to be a longer path than what he can run at 41 off. But compare him to someone like @Horton who can barely run 15? Then their paths may be pretty close. I also want to address David Nelson and Schnitz with coordinates since it was brought up and also since I'm on a work trip in a hotel and have nothing better to do....I don't think those guys were totally wrong. I also don't think they were totally right, but if I understand coordinates correctly they were talking about moving the apex of the turn closer to the buoys instead of trying to apex way up course...? If that's what they were preaching then as I have said above, you can only be 90 degrees to the boat for a moment, so at super shortline that better be right when you're at the buoy and not a moment too soon. As we have also tried to preach with GUT the handle path going to swing up and past the platform of the boat when the rope gets short...trying to take that handle to the shoreline will get you nowhere. So again I don't know that I fully understand what those guys were talking about, but in general it doesn't sound too crazy to me. end of dissertation 😅

@Jayproas often happens in development with us we felt like we were pretty well done with the ski development…until a few conversations led us down the path of discovery…again. We are getting closer to having a production ready ski, and the concepts we’ve uncovered in the past couple months have been SUPER exciting. Suffice to say the discoveries we’ve made with ski technique, looking at what top skiers are doing and what has been successful in our skiing and those we’ve coached, is starting to really coalesce with what we are asking the ski to do, and how we design the ski to make those technique improvements more automatic. So without saying anything specific, we’ve made some really big leaps this winter in designing a ski that will make a skier more automatically ski like a better skier…because the ski naturally puts you in the right positions behind the boat and through the 2nd wake swing. I realize that all probably sounds like hype BS, but I can honestly say I haven’t been this excited about a new ski in a very long time 😁😁

Success 😃😃

@RichardDoane you’re doing a great job with the Hilltop club boat! I also can’t thank you enough for scheduling the engine swap for when I’m at out of the country at Ski Paradise 😎 Can’t wait to ski it when I get home

@Jody_Seal We currently have the 422, is that a bad choice for this new engine?

This is the boat I ski behind regularly, sooooo looking forward to this new engine. Thanks @RichardDoane for getting this done when the weather sucks anyway 😀 @Bruce_Butterfield This boat has had more and more issues over the past two years as the hours have really racked up. Last year Richard had to put new exhaust manifolds on, replace the injectors, and many other items that have caused us to be without the boat at Hilltop. We have a lot of members so there are days in the summer where this boat barely stops from dawn to dusk... I do have one question for @Jody_Seal or anyone else who may know....We currently run an Acme 422 on this boat with the 5.7L, should we be looking at a different prop with the 6.0L?

I know Nate has run 41 a million times....but when CP was at his best he made that pass look easier than anyone ever has

A quick update on Adam - He's out of the hospital and improving. It will be a long road to full recovery but it sounds like it's getting better every day. I'm pretty sure the hardest part for him is going to be not skiing.

With regard to what @FlowPointMethod said: Knees Over Toes guy exercises plus VooDoo Flossing exercises....It's like magic. I have a shredded lateral meniscus in one knee and I went from where I could barely run to now where I'm playing soccer 1-2 times per week, not to mention lots of skiing in between 😀

Not bad...

@Horton maybe you should ask ChatGPT

@swbca thanks for pointing that out, we'll definitely be paying more attention to that with our test team moving forward. My first thought is that it should be softer through the wakes as this ski will lift and accelerate a lot earlier than a normal width ski, which will let the ski start to come out of load a lot earlier. - Take that for what it's worth because I haven't tested that theory at those speeds and line lengths yet... @RAWSkiThere's PLENTY of real estate on the sides of the bindings so it's definitely worth trying!

@rico well our one and only graphics supplier closed shop a couple months ago so I hope you like black.

wow check out the size of this guy’s hydraulic force generator 😆

FYI this is a 39@36 pass from this fall riding a C95 prototype that would be equivalent to an XXL size c85. It is WIDE. There is secret sauce in there that is letting us run a much wider ski and get the benefits that come with that without the negatives. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CjJnDeYg7Ml/?igshid=YWJhMjlhZTc=

@ricowe have the XXXXXL for you

@BraceMaker you're right about the issues with prepregs and cores. I've always thought "Prepreg" was something of a misnomer because the carbon is not really "impregnated" within the epoxy, it is just sprayed onto the surface of the epoxy, and it doesn't soak into the fibers at all before being cured. Prepregs were developed originally to be cured in an autoclave, with high pressures being used to ensure the the epoxy then gets pushed into the fibers and that any air is either removed via vacuum or it's crushed down to nearly nothing by the high pressure of the autoclave. When you use the same material in a part with a core you run into a couple problems. Like you said the core cannot handle that kind of pressure without getting crushed. Also for a long time prepregs were made specifically and only for autoclave curing, so you couldn't get it with higher resin content. Quite a bit of resin is needed to ensure any ski gets a strong bond with the core, because the core is somewhat porous and non-uniform on the surface. So if you cure prepreg on a core, you never get a really good bond. I think today you can get higher resin content prepregs and even bonding prepreg layers (I have no idea if Goode uses these), but those would help with bonding to a core as well as improving surface finish. When I was building the AM33 with prepreg I had to be super careful about what materials were used to cure the laminates to avoid starving the fibers of resin and ending up with a porous or pitted surface. We were using a vacuum bag in a cure oven, so didn't have the added pressure of an autoclave to help with fiber consolidation and air removal. I've now been deeply involved with RTM, Prepreg, Compression Molding, and I've even built a few Vacuum Infusion skis. I can say that hands down a properly built* Compression Molded ski has the best balance of strength, performance, and consistency. *Not all compression molded skis on the market are properly built IMO B)

@Horton does it require that extra forward set of inserts to work? Looks like it

@Horton I have lots of pictures of @ColeGiacopuzzi, that's totally normal right? @Horton also to your previous post - Managing the load in the "corner" is a two step process. Step 1 is to get the ski off the cutting edge before the corner. Step 2 is to position yourself to handle the centripetal force that will come through the rope when you hit the corner. If you've completed Step 1, then you can't "add" load at Step 2 anymore than a weight on a string can add load when swinging like a pendulum. The load is a function of your speed, the line length, and your weight. What you CAN do is put yourself in position to hold that load without the handle getting pulled off your body, which back to the original point of this thread, is what @JoelHowley is so good at. @Dano yes I think you have that about right as far as the physics involved. As the rope gets shorter you will typically see top level skiers on edge longer though, not because they are trying to hold the edge longer but because it becomes harder to generate enough speed to edge change that early when the rope is super short. I would get caught up less on whether the edge change is exactly centerline or not, and more on what their ski path is coming off the 2nd wake and what their body position is that lets them stay connected. My goal is to take as little angle off the 2nd wake as possible, so that my path can match the handle path more closely, this reducing the centripetal load and making staying connected easier.

Just to piggyback a bit on what @JoelHowley mentioned about high load through the 2nd wake and edge change... The path the handle takes from the back side of the turn all the way to the next preturn has a unique shape to it. It's not a straight line, and it's not a constant curve either. It has a distinct "corner" coming off the 2nd wake up into the preturn. This has to do with the acceleration into the wakes and then the radial speed the handle has around the pylon coming through the 2nd wake. This transition is where the handle goes from more "across the lake" to more "down the lake". If you're not in position to ride this corner transition and keep your body connected to the handle while it's happening, you get separated and take a shallow path to the buoy. Put yourself in position to stay connected through the corner and you're on a path to be wide and early to the ball. If you're connected the rope load will max out through that transition. As Joel said slowing the edge change down will facilitate this as it keeps the bulk of your mass between your shoulders and the pylon. If you let the ski and your hips go away from the boat too soon you'll get completed separated here.

@brettmainer the ski did release after impact. He said his ankle was a little sore the next day but he wasn't limping or anything.

I'm just impressed with is ability to go airborne so frequently

@Skoot1123 don't listen to @Horton

It's all about width when it comes to deep water starts. If your goal is easy deep water starts, get the widest ski you are comfortable skiing on.