schroed

Interesting post. Thanks for the info.

It seems to me that this issue can be solved more easily on how we judge the gates. As @eleeski stated, it really comes down to the strictness of the judges. I think we should simply have the boat judge be the only judge who can pull a gate. That way we could eliminate all the extra technology and delays from video reviews that have occurred the past. Then change the rule to something like "clearly missed the gate". If it's not obvious, the skier gets the gate. I think changing the rule and eliminating the need to go through the entrance gate would change the game too much. Personally, I think my gate and one ball is the worst part of my skiing and I continually strive to improve it. I have also experimented with not worrying about my gate and I know from experience that if I go a bit early at my harder passes I almost always get further down the course than if I go through the gates. Hence, you'd think I'd be in favor or the rule, but as I stated I am not. I enjoy the challenge of getting through the gates and trying to get a good one ball. I vote for keeping the challenge of getting through the entrance gates and simply changing the way it's judged.

Why didn't they just base it off USA Waterski national rankings or equivalent IWSF scores? It seems rather arbitrary to set the line at 6@39. In other words, for the protected time period, let anyone sign up and sort everyone from their rankings. If more than 45 people sign up, then the people with the lowest averages are placed on the waiting list. After the protected time period people are placed on the waiting list in order of their entries received. That would seem to make more sense to me.

I broke my middle finger water skiing a few years back. I didn't notice it at the time it happened. I noticed it taking my gloves off and driving home. I didn't think it was broken and I kept skiing. I ended up going into the doctor a few weeks later as it still hurt and they said it was broken, but almost healed. So, depending on how bad the break is, I would bet you could start skiing again in not too long.

I'd call the number on the "contact us" page of the D3 website: http://www.d3skis.com/Articles.asp?ID=139 . I bet they'll send one out to you. I've replaced mine a couple times.

Are any results posted anywhere? I can't seem to find any information on what's going on today.

He's skiing 36 on that ski.

I agree with @bishop8950 to try both if you have the ability to demo both. However, I would guess that a 66 would work best for you. I'm 155 lbs and have gone back and forth between 65 and 66 D3 models in the past several years. I decided on a 66 Quest this year and was very happy with the results. I think the longer ski will give you more stability and a bigger "sweet spot" to ride on the ski. Typically the only issue with going with a longer ski is getting it to turn. I found the Quest to be a very smooth and can be a quick turning ski even at the longer length. I just run my fin a bit shallower than normal on a longer ski and I get the added stability while maintaining fast turns. I don't think Nate weighs all that much and I think he's on a 67.

Ouch. That seems really high. I was under the impression it was going to be in the mid to high 50s. Even with 9K for the 6.2 L, that still puts the price at 68K. That's 10K more than I expected.

@Horton - I completely agree with your comments. It's my favorite event of the year. Greg and Debbie deserve a huge Thank You from all of us skiers for their vision and effort to put this together and keep it going. It sounds like it may be at Bell Aqua again next year. If so I think that presents a great opportunity to grow the event. Perhaps they could get two lakes going so that more amateur skiers could sign up. For the last 10 years you always had to get your entry in early to get a spot. Maybe with two lakes they could take up to 100 amateurs. Also, Diablo Shores didn't have a jump ramp so there's never been a jump event. Maybe if it's at Bell Aqua again perhaps they could get a jump event going? I think it would be great to have slalom going on lake 2 and jump going on lake 1 over the weekend. Also, I'd like to add that I was the boat judge for the mens 4 event on Friday and I saw a few ballers that skied really well. Specifically @Horton and @richarddoane looked great out there.

From what I understand, the Senior Tour invites were based off the US Qualifiers with a few spots reserved from the European qualifiers. 40 skiers were invited to the Big Dawg finals. That 40 was based off anyone who made the sweet 16 at either Mississippi or Michigan, some spots reserved based off other tour stops (Chile, France, and Austrailia), and the remaining spots given to the top single highest scores from the qualifiers. The next 16 single highest single scores were given invites to the Senior Tour head to head. There were some people that declined the invite to the Big Dawg finals so a few people were moved up from the Senior Tour head to head to the Big Dawg finals. Guys were then back filled into the Senior Tour again based off their single highest score. There were also some people who declined the Senior Tour invites and guys were again back filled to fill out the brackets. In the end, I think you needed to run about 2.5 @ 39 in one round of the qualifiers to get an invite to the Big Dawg finals and about 6@38 to get an invite into the Senior Tour. I qualified for the Senior Tour final by running 1.5@39 in Michigan. I agree that the Senior Tour probably needed a different name and was a bit confusing. However, I couldn't really think of a good name for it. I like to call it "the best of the rest", but that may not go over to well. I know it was suppose to be geared towards guys that have averages of mid 39 that didn't really have much of a shot to get into the sweet 16 for the Big Dawg finals. Hence, the Senior Tour final head to head final would give guys like me an opportunity to ski some additional rounds during nationals week and thus encourage us to participate in the Big Dawg qualifiers. Personally I was a little bummed that I didn't make it into the Big Dawg finals. However, I had a great time skiing in the Senior Tour final. It turned out that all 16 of us in the Senior Tour final were pretty closely matched. Most of us had averages of 2 to 3 at 39 so running 38 was not automatic for any of us. Throw in the added pressure of a head to head, 32 and 35 off starts, and the increased wait times at the end due to the head to head format and not many of us ran 38. I was fortunate enough to make it into the final 4 and got the opportunity to ski under the lights. That was a fantastic experience for me. I'd personally like to thank Greg Davis and Nautique for coming up with this format and supporting it. I'd also like to thank the Will and Elaine Bush for driving and judging as well as the other drivers and judges that worked the first two sets of brackets on the North/South lake. Also, many thanks to Tim and Becky who drove the Big Dawg finals as well as all the other officials and staff that worked the Big Dawg final. I'm hoping that our final four head to head under the lights gave them a chance to get everything ironed out before the final 8 of the Big Dawg final got under way.

I'll be there Thurs - Sat. Skiing M3 and the senior tour big dawg head to head. @Roger - Hopefully we'll meet and I'll get to ski behind you....

Two points on this thread: 1. The "picture" posted by @skibrain is not a picture. It is a computer generated image from a CAD model created in Creo Parametric by PTC (www.ptc.com). So, don't expect your fin block to look like that image. 2. It's almost impossible to see the rocker in the rocker block when the fin block is on the ski. When I got my Quest I thought I got one without a rocker block so I pulled the fin block off and just as @bishop8950 said, when I put it on a flat table I could definitely notice the rocker in the block. The fin block screws do provide enought force to "pull" rocker into the tail of the ski and I do think it makes a difference. It took me a little while to setup my Quest, but now it's really working for me. In fact, last Sunday I tied a six year old PB in a record tournament!

Here's a video of his whole set: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-S-zL_uMA8&feature=youtu.be

Nate almost got to three ball at Shortline Lake in Elk Grove, CA yesterday. It looked like he was only a foot or two inside it. It was pretty exciting to see him smoke 41 like it was 32 off a few times this weekend. I've never seen anyone turn 2 ball at 43 before, but now it looks like it's going to be possible to break the record.

Great video and analysis. The C-curve position at the ball and staying open out of the turn seem to be very fundamental things to work on. What doesn't seem so obvious to me is what is going on in the transition. Do you guys think the "butt back" position is a result of how these guys initiate their edge change? TW told me to think of the edge change like mogul skiing and move your ski to the other edge by sucking in your knees and moving them to the other side while your upper body stays still. I think the "butt back" position may be a result of this type of action where only the lower body is moving to get the ski on the other edge. Thoughts?

@rodltg2 - I completely get what your saying and agree with you. When I first started doing AWSA tournaments after college I was coming in last place all the time. However, I still really enjoyed it and tried to simply ski against myself. I set some personal goals of qualifiying for regionals and then nationals and ended up progressing up through the ranks over the last 20 years. Now, I'm really glad I stuck with it and am getting my kids involved at a young age. That being said, I think it takes a different kind of person to "ski against themselves" and not worry about what everybody else is doing. I think most people want to be right in the thick of competition one way or another and entering in waterski tournaments just to get your but kicked is not that fun for many people. I think AWSA should adopt a handicap system like golf so that everybody could compete against each other. It would be easy to do based off the ranking system. We could still keep the age group divisions, but wouldn't it be fun for all tournaments to post a handicapped standings for everyone in the tournament and give out prizes for the top three people? Matt Brandt has been doing that in his nor cal ski league and it's really fun. It also tends to make people pay attention to how everyone is skiing and may even get some people to hang around the trounaments after they ski.

I agree that Terry is a class act and a great coach. I'd highly recommend his coaching. He has definitely helped me a bunch in the last few years. Here's a link to find out how to contact him for coaching in the Sacramento area: http://www.skiwestcoast.com/coaching/

We recently went through a quick but dramatic swing in water temperature at the lake I ski at in Northern CA. I noticed during the gradual warm up of water temperatures this spring that my ski started to over turn on my onside as the water temperature was increasing. So, I started to add depth to my fin to counter act this behavior. When the temperatures dipped and the water cooled down I had a hard time getting my ski to turn on my on side so I took this added depth out. The water has now warmed back up and my ski is over turning again. The behavior I described above seems counter intuitive to me. That is, in faster, colder water you should run a shallower fin and in warmer water you should run a deeper fin. Does that seem right or am I different from what everybody else does? If I'm right, why does running a shallower fin in colder water help?

I agree, missed gate. I also agree that the gate cam sucks and that we should just get rid of those. As discussed, I think we should have a boat cam and the judges and then just give the skier the benefit of the doubt. In other words, if it's close, give it to the skier. If he clearly missed it, then he gets a zero. The lower right cam shows a clear miss in my opinion.

Rod, if you can't find a solution to the binding issue, you could try spinning at the far end after your first pass so that you're not out there as long in order to get 6 passes. For example, go out at 32/15 and run it twice without dropping. Then, go 34/15, 34/22 and take a couple shots at 28. I find spinning rather than dropping gets you in better shape for tournaments and it could cut down on your overall time for a 6 pass set and thus stop your rear foot cramps. Just a thought...

I really doubt that fin design is maxed out. I've been working on some new shapes for fins and I think there's some promise there. Advancements in CAD/CAM and even 3D printing will probably lead the way to some new fin shapes. Stay tuned!

@ripa38 - I'm on a 66" with my front binding at 29.25 which is .25 back from factory. That turns out to be the center hole on my T factor bindings. I tried the front binding forward and back of that and found that 29.25 was really good for me. However, with my rear T factor binding mounted in the middle slot, I found that my onside (1,3) turns were a bit hard as I got to 38 and 39 and I was also a bit on the tail on my off side. So, I decided to try moving my rear binding to the foward slot since there was a bit of room there. That worked really well. I think I'm at .760 DFT on the fin. I need to remeasure to be sure as I was moving that around a bit too.

@ripa38 - I found the Quest to be sensitive to binding placement as well. I accidentally installed my bindings in the wrong screw hole after someone tried my ski and I was really struggling. I realized my error, moved my bindings back to the original spot and it was like a different ski. This weekend I decided to move my rear binding closer to my front binding and it worked even better. I'm now running almost all of my 38s which is really good for me in April. I'd be patient and experiment with binding placement in order to find the sweet spot of the ski. Once you do, I think you'll really like it.

I'm 155 lbs riding a 66". My bindings are at 29.25 to the rear heel of the front foot. Running T factor bindings front and rear. I'm at 6.885, 2.495, .760 (flat from tail) and 7 degrees.