ToddL

The rankings list data is not easy to obtain. You have to search it by age division, then manually copy and paste into Excel, then clean it up dealing with random merged cells etc., then add a column to indicate which age division those pasted rows. You have to do this for each of the roughly 30 age groups. The rankings list database needs an export all to CSV file button. Then, that information can be used to establish ability based formats and handicaps. Heck, nearly every data element in AWSA needs the export all to CSV file button. Current Microsoft Excel products have amazing data management functions which could allow for analytics that AWSA leadership only dreams of. The barrier is simply making the data available to users.

All Adult Skate. Remember when skating rinks would kick all the kids off for a song or two and only allow the adults to skate? Why couldn't the same work with water sports? Establish some hours when large wake sports are prohibited (No waves over 2 ft). These hours then become the non-wake sports "skate" time. Obviously, the 2 hours round dawn and dusk would be good for slalom skiers.

Trickle down tournament structure. That's why. Whatever is done at Nationals is what will be done at Regionals, and then at State. Then local tournaments all want to prepare for those. In some areas with a handful of elite skiers, a lot of tournaments are run as L for world rankings lists. That's why there is so much resistance to ability based. I guarantee that if Nationals was structured with any portion of ability based (D1/D2, or Advanced/Standard/Beginner) format, it would trickle down. Side note: I know other sports have the Advanced/Standard/Beginner type of designations within the age groupings. Some have rules like after 3 podiums as Beginner, you are moved to Standard and same for Standard to Advanced designation. It both increases competition and still drives people upward.

Could your boot be rotated differently? For me, when my boots are rotated in certain ways, it affects my hip mobility.

Possibly mount a go pro at eye level and mostly centered where most drivers' heads would be. Record some really good boat path trips down the lake. Then, determine the center point from the videos, and estimate the tolerances???

Something fun... When we think about counter rotation, our shoulder are biased opposite of the way we are preparing to turn and opposite of the way we are leaning. I wonder if a slalom skier could master this faster than the normal person.

@ShaunT This video was discussed quite a bit back in the day, Andy Mapple's rear heal:

When I look at the picture series of Nate above, I focus on his ankles. The angle of his shin relative to the top of the ski definitely changes due to ankles flexing forward. He doesn't really stand up much more at first. His front knee stays almost the exact same amount bent until the last pic, where he does start to get taller. I do see his back leg starting to straighten in conjunction with his ankle flex. Horton said it before. If you straighten your back leg your hips will move forward. I see some of this happening with Nate above. Notice that it doesn't take a whole bunch of change to move the weight forward and put more ski in the water.

How fast is the internet service there?

After skiing and hopping into a boat (still dripping wet) with SeaDek to pin for a tricker, my wet bare foot seemed to be secure on the floor. However with a little force while adjusting to balance the boat wakes, my foot slipped and my toes jabbed into the engine cover. It seems that SeaDek is and feels grippy, until it's not. I've never had anything similar to that happen with carpet. Conversely, I have never seen anyone slip while entering/exiting a boat via stepping on a SeaDek covered gunwall. I have seen that from bare (polished) gelcoat.

@Bruce_Butterfield - The first time I saw the video, I immediately said, "skied over the line!" But damn, that ends all other mere mortals' ski rides. Not Regina! She has a history of "wheelies" at the ends of turns but has developed the "slam the ski back on cutting edge" technique like no other skier I know. That muscle-memory skill saved the pass for her. She must have been only a frog's hair clear of the rope when she slammed that ski back on edge.

So, two skiers have commented that they have discovered a preferred surface area which then can be applied to length & depth configurations. Now, my mind is wondering this... Assuming most stock fins use a common leading edge curve profile, this concept is sufficiently stable for those skiers. What about the CG fin and Whisper fin? Has anyone considered a surface area factor comparison? For example, if @bigtex2011 have found that surface area of 17.06 is his sweet spot, then what would his CG fin sweet spot be? What would his Whisper Fin sweet spot be? Does this even matter? IDK.

Stance, stance, stance. This is #1. But you can't stand in a good stance if you don't also chill out at the finish of the turns. To the casual observer, slalom looks like it is all about digging in at the finish of the turn. That is why nearly all recreational skiers ski back foot heavy and can't hold a lean through the wakes. Rather, consider that course slalom skiing is about efficiently getting from side to side. Try not to focus on leaning so hard and fighting the boat's pull at the finish of the turn/start of the lean. Rather, try to just be ready to establish a leaning posture. As the boat's force comes onto the handle, focus on retaining this leaning posture and simply not letting the boat pull you up out of your lean. The max effort to retain your lean should occur in the zone between the white water and through the first wake. The idea that the turn ends smoothly and the effort to maintain the lean builds through the wake crossing is what is meant by a "progressive" lean. When you do this correctly, the amount you lean away from the boat is more consistent from the start of the lean until you decide to start to let up. You are in control because you built the lean progressively. Conversely, cranking and digging in at the finish of the turn means you have already used up your power. When the boat comes on the handle, you do not have enough left in the tank to resist the force and stay in you lean. The boat pulls the skier out of the lean and onto a flat ski. This makes the wakes scary. So chill out at the finish of the turn, reserve some intensity for maintaining the lean through the first wake.

@ReallyGottaSki - There is this video. Watching Horton navigate 26 mph is what most beginners need to strive for... If the wake is a concern, one could do these types of drills - the focus is on starting in the proper stance and KEEPING it while moving outward under load.

@unksskis Per the "unofficial" www.waterskiresults.com for M3 slalom, Andy ended up with a score of 0 total buoys.

My advice is to keep it simple and functional. More angles mean cameras which mean more operators and more production effort. Don't over complicate something that works well to the point that the simple things are diluted. This team probably worked 10x harder than anyone realizes. They are often the first to arrive and last to leave. Kudos to all involved in any way!!!! Quality is always limited by on-site internet bandwidth. If more money is thrown at this, I would set aside budget to augment/ensure dedicated upload bandwidth for the feed. (Not that there were issues this year, but future sites might pose a challenge.) Things that worked: 1) Having a dedicated announcer per active lake. 2) Dock cam of next competitor getting ready - neat perspective 3) Not sure which I liked best on slalom (shore view vs. boat view). Either one is sufficient if constrained in the future. 4) Overlay of skier & current score 5) replays / slow-mo, etc. were a great way to fill time between live passes Opportunities for improvement: 1) Add current division and skier seed # to the overlay so that at a moments glance the view can know where we are. Possibly keep the current division overlay in the corner and always on. 2) possibly keep the skier name overlay always on Nit picky stuff, I hesitate to even mention: 1) announcers need to be careful to not over analyze or be critical. Maybe a summarized of the AWSA Announcer's Manual is due. I heard only a couple of slightly negative comments, which could be taken the wrong way vs the reality that the announcer was just innocently commenting. Always, keep it positive. Describe what is and not why might be. Hold off on judging uncertainties until the resolution is known, etc. 2) Avoid the temptation to comment about the other lake because the viewers can't "turn their head to see" what is going on. Again, keep it simple enough that it can be done well. One thing done right is always better than 20 things done poorly.

@Horton - a lot of meats taste really good with just salt and pepper. (...if you buy decent cuts.)

I expected a lot of criticism on the premise. I still wondered about it. Worth the dialog IMHO. I have been skiing Radar since 2011. So, maybe my view of this is skewed by that consistency of the test team driving the "stock" settings. I imagine that other brand loyal skiers have also found some consistency regarding stock settings within their brand.

I am wondering if top level skiers who always log their fin settings have noticed a trend in their preferred fin settings vs stock settings as the move from one ski to the next ski. What I mean is: have they noticed that their final/preferred settings are always 0.xxx +/- from stock? The hypothesis is that a skier likely ends up a similar amount away from stock when they setup a new ski for themselves. Skier "A" might always like a little bit longer fin and ends up with length always +0.100 above stock on every ski. Skier "B" might always like a little shallower fin and ends up with depth that is always -0.050 below stock on every ski. And so on... I suspect the same question might apply to binding positions. Any fin tweakers out there ever study their logs to see if there is a trend? Also, if so, did you apply those personal preferences to any after market fins (Whisper Fin / CG Fin), and find the same to be true? Maybe every ski requires a unique setting, but I just wonder if personal preference results in trends for an individual. (PS: I keep crappy paper logs of settings. I wish I had started a spreadsheet.)

"fully faster" <- so true

@lpskier get a grip, dude.

IIRC, there was a Baller here who started making really excellent guards at a fair price. He got a "cease" letter from the lawyer of a patent holder who doesn't even provide the product. It is a shame that this patent hold can't even come to a minimal license agreement or something so that more manufacturers could offer products. I see too many home made solutions. I guess something is better than nothing...

If tournament season were to have been fully cancelled, I would not have renewed. My membership renews in June, so I was on the fence until it was clear that tournaments were going to happen in my state. Adding to what @Drago said above... We were a family membership (family of 3 (only child)). New rates made it more affordable to register as 3 separate individuals. Now, USAWS has to send all physical mail 3x to our house. SMH.

SLB - N/C

Further, let's just say that AWSA/IWWF changes the rules such that any formerly-approved towboat with ZO (or even Z-Box) is allowed to pull _any and all_ classes of events without the need for an exception request. Let's just say that an upcoming nationals will be pulled by prior year boats. Let's just say that the demand for new boats plummets due to that change. And, let's say that manufacturers stop making 3EV boats... Now what? Well, the used market would fill that void accordingly and used pricing/supply/demand there will adjust. Eventually (5-10 yrs), the used-boat supply will attrition and the demand for new boats would increase to the point of becoming compelling. The smart manufacturer would have retained their last 3EV hull molds and will likely kick off a limited run build of new boats and possibly be the only one in the game at that moment. That might spike another manufacturer to do the same. For a limited time, new boats will be sold and the market would adjust again. Maybe the cycle would repeat itself. If there is demand for a product, some manufacturer will find a way to make money off that demand. Fear of the sport dying solely due to lack of manufacturers building brand new, 3EV-capable boats is unfounded in my opinion. I think we have the cause and effect backwards.