danbirch

OB, I'd love to see your path on a GoPro. You will be amazed at the different "appearance" of a skier's path from the boat vs. from his head. The angles/distance from the boat are skewed (in the skier's path respect). The GoPro gives a much more accurate perspective of path.

Bruce, Thank you for your comments! If you ever get a chance, would you consider posting a GoPro headcam video of your path skiing a set? That would make a lot of things come very clear, (to me, at least). It would sure helpful. Thanks! P.S. If you don't have one, I'll send you one to use.

OB, I think the best way to say it is I am skiing a "longer" line, and each time the rope shortens, so does the intensity/angle. The visuals/tempo (arrival at ball) look very similar, but the intensity increases. I thought Rossi said that when he skis 39, he tells himself it is just another 32. I know you saw the tape of Ham Wallace on the GoPro, but to me it looks like he is timing things so that the casting out of the ski will just make the ball, not much more. I believe that pass is 32 (not sure).

"So did he answer how wide he skied? The answer above doesn't say how wide he skies, just that he wants to get there quickly. How wide do you shoot for at 32 off? I agree there's more than 1 way to ski, and I've tried the narrow approach at all lines and I've tried excessively wide at the earlier lines. I personally shoot for somewhere in the middle. I try to think of it as "run this pass with enough room to run the next one"" 9400, he said he only skis TO THE BALL LINE (or that what his goal is). All line lengths. Admittedly, these guys are very good, so going a few feet wider (east/west) would not be hard for them to do, and may happen at times. But, that isn't necessarily their goal, as I understand.

Scoke, am I that "someone" you are talking about?

I agree with you about early. Just not as much width as you are saying. I recently spoke to a very good big dawg skier, and asked this specific question. "How Wide (in relation to the bouy line) do you ski?" His answer was, "I ski TO THE bouy line as fast as I can get there". And likewise, you can ski any way that you want. There ARE more than 1 way to ski, that's what makes it such an amazing sport!

(I meant ball line) 9400, I'm looking at some aerials and not seeing that much width (at 32 off). Do you have any aerials (or better yet, GoPro head cam's) to demonstrate your position? Also, you mentioned that you wanted the ball at the "end of your turn". I have heard that "the course is 2 turns separated by an edge change". As I understand that, that would put the "end of the turn" at the edge change, not at the ball.

OB, I don't believe the pros do what you are describing. If they were, they would be 7' outside of the ball line when skiing 32 off. They are not. Why not save all of that energy (wasted) for your big 39 pass?

MS, that was my point (and that was a very good explanation). According to this article, wide means early, not wide. I think everyone agrees that the goal of the skier is to continue an outbound trajectory after the edge change, thus putting the skier out to the ball line early (without giving into the down-course pull of the boat). But the Wide/Narrow terms would be defining east/west positions (wide being more east than narrow).

Maybe what is wide to you, is early to me....or what is narrow to me, is wide to you? Because I don't see a good definition of what "wide" is to trent (only how to achieve this position), maybe he could ski with a GoPro camera on his head and SHOW us his definition of wide? If he is only skiing to the ball line, I would call that narrow skiing, because, you cannot ski any narrower (than the ball line) and still make the course.

They are way heavier boats, have a lot more drag, and use a lot more gas than ski boats. Gas = Power. Therefore, More power = more electricity need....much more.

I understand that the Prius batteries are lasting much longer than originally anticipated (in fact, they are still not failing, and have come down in price). Hopefully, that will translate into the boat's batteries as well. It is great that CC is trying to advance with this technology. It is also amazing that they would be doing it with "ski" boats, since it seemed as if these boats haven't been selling very well since the recession began (08). I would assume that they cannot do this (very well) with wake board boats, due to the high load they need (wake). Maybe this could help promote water skiing?

Excellent interview! Great information. I'm not buying the $2.00 for 3-4 set cost for everyone's electricity, though. The reason is that electric companies (here, at least), charge customers based on how much you use. So, if you are a person who can stay within baseline rates (near impossible, as you could never use your A/C or heating), you will receive a very low price per Kw used. If you are a person who has a pool, spa, uses plenty of A/C, Heating, etc, you may well be in the 5th+ tier. That means you pay an enormous price per Kw more (they "punish" you for using too much electricity). Therefore, if you plug in a 10 amp charger for 4-5 hrs., and were already in the 5th tier, you'd get to pay a much higher electricity bill, and may well be paying MORE than the price of gas.....Solar on the roof starts to make more sense, combined with the electric boat. Now, if they can just come down from the price of solar, we'd have a great, viable option. On a footnote, here is an example of what I mean. I compare electric bills with a neighbor. He typically uses about 1.5 times as many Kw's as I use. He gets nailed for 3x my bill (punishment). Neither of us use a lot, compared to the Heavy A/C, Pool/Spa/Salt Water fishtank/etc. owners...

No laws were broken, 1st come 1st serve.

clemsondave, it appears that USA Waterski is creating loopholes to deny insurance claims. The form says the boat must have 500k insurance, have USA Waterski listed as additional insured (along with it's volunteers, etc), That ALL "participants" must be USA Waterski members. Not sure if a 3rd is considered a participant. It would sure be good if someone from USA waterski could shed some light as to why this new form is being implemented.

Drago, what do you mean by "have to"? Have to what? Change edges??? thanks!

ShaneH, You asked me to give it a rest. I am happy to. Do you want me to answer your questions, or to give it a rest?

Brent, I guess your answer is YES. That was what I thought. If you really hate WSF, why to you and your friends all visit it? We welcome everyone, including you. Neither you or ShaneH sound very "civil" in you last posts. I asked a simple yes/no question, and you go off on me....Whatever.

Brent, Are you the same "Brent" on the WSF who bragged about trying to foil my injury database survey by submitting several bogus survey's?

Thanks, Marco. You and Ed can accuse me of creating a simple Ski Injury Survey to assist some imaginary lawsuit, and it's NOT OK for me to defend my intentions? Please post ANY evidence of a pending lawsuit...ANY. There is none, and you guys are creating this whole thing. Again, I am answering both of you, not attacking you.

Ed, It was an accurate evaluation of the product. I am sorry if you found it offensive. Your claims that these "lawsuits" may take years to surface is ridiculous. There ARE NO lawsuits, and there will be NO lawsuits. What year do you want me to re-address this, to demonstrate that to you? -Dan

ShaneH wrote: "If you wish to join this discussion, feel free. Please tell those who are in the discussion why you feel your db has merit." I am happy to answer your question. While it is in no way a perfect survey, There were some interesting insights shed. Some major manufactures of bindings even were helped by the reports, which if we don't ask for injury reportings, then HOW WILL WE KNOW if we are advancing towards SAFER products? The information highway is a very valuable asset, if used. Other's just sit back and say, "you can't know anything, so don't even try". I'm just not one of those.

I'm sorry, but he attacked the water ski database first, and did so again in THIS THREAD. I have responded to him here for that reason. You say it's not ok for me to answer him? Maybe you need to re-read his post.

Ed Obermeier Sep 22nd 2010 Wrote: "Here we go again. Who is the end user wanting the information and what are the true intensions for use of this information? Are we feeding stats to some law firm who is looking for basis to sue someone or are the OP's intentions truly pure? How to know? I would like to assume that magpie's intentions are pure but we've seen this before on several other skier message boards and this subject specifically has been pushed quite a bit in the past year especially. New and anonymous poster to the board asking for very specific information about a specific item (bindings in this case) the results of which are to be used who really knows how. This has been getting bounced around pretty frequently on several of these message boards of late and we really don't know who is behind collecting all of this info and how they ultimately intend to use it. Maybe no one, maybe not? Although it's fairly well proven that random internet polls don't carrry much weight, over time with enough responses collected from enough different sources who knows what a court will and won't allow as evidence. Think before you start feeding info to some unknown entity that can be used against a company who supports the sport. I mean no personal afront to magpie (whoever you really are), no I really don't have a dog in this fight, and no I'm not paranoid. Just acting as a cautious member of an increasingly litigious society. Now where did I leave that aluminum foil hat liner...? Ed" Ed Obermeier, You made the claim that the Water Ski Injury database would bring about law suits, and that NOONE should participate. Well, as you know, I am the (accused) anonymous person who made the survey. Where are all of these "law suits" you claimed will happen??? Answer: NO-WHERE! You make these false claims as if they are fact. You also stated that these "internet Polls" have no credibility. Even if only one thing could be learned, that would be much better than learning NOTHING, which is what we would learn if we only listened to you. Maybe you would be better sticking to making your low-tech slalom courses. -Dan Birch

Thanks, ShaneH. My error on the thread. I will post at the appropriate thread.