Tom351

I prefer to use a leader as you mentioned- and just pull the anchor along the bottom. We would always then just attach a green buoy to the end of the leader for easy anchor release/retrieval. The navy-type self releasing anchors seem to work better than musrooms...(link below)- they dig in really well and will easily release when you pull on the leader: https://www.insta-slalom.com/proddetail.php?prod=026-123

@ScotChipman1 interesting...I did not know that about the new iPhone.

@ScotChipman1 - You will probably lose a lot of resolution, frame rate, and overall video quality if you were to us the front camera.

Lake depth does make a difference- We occasionally surf behind my 99 Sport Nautique and I remember once the wave just losing all push while I was riding.... boat came back around to get me and we were right on top of a shallow spot at 6' deep (on depthfinder). There was a noticeable difference from the rest of the area that maxed at about 17 feet deep.

Go do a few deepwater starts behind a jetski...two things will happen: 1.) You really get the feel for trimming the front of the ski down to help it plane out (and help the jet ski actually accelerate)- useful when inboard drivers give you a weak pull. 2.) You will stop noticing much difference between inboard drivers.

That is some great manual follow flying considering how sensitive the controls are in sport mode! If you want to do an automatic follow the app to use is Litchi instead of DJI-Go. In Litchi's follow mode the aircraft will follow the controller's GPS signal (much more reliable than optical tracking). You can disable obstacle avoidance and follow at about 33mph (+or- depending on wind). There are also settings to follow from any angle rear, side, even from front where you kind of "push" the drone with the boat). You can set a "subject offset" to make the drone point camera at skier instead of boat (if you are close and following from the side). Here is a sample of using Litchi follow: (the first part of the clip- some stationary shots in the middle- and at the end I had the gimbal aimed too far downward obviously) That clip is at 32mph if I remember correctly.

I have decided to start wearing the safety cutoff lanyard while driving if only small children are riding in the boat....for the very unlikely event that I have a stroke or something while driving.

Shortline IPA

At an event like the Masters I would imagine that the prize distribution is similar to how the attendance distribution would look if tickets were purchased for each individual event. If it were simple "gender discrimination" they would payout more for men's tricks than women's slalom or jump- but women's jump and slalom payout more than men's tricks because those events drive more attendance.

To expand on @Orlando76 ...$200 entry fee, 18 entries in men's slalom. 11 entries in womens. $3600 vs $2200 collected in entry fees....

This is less important in 2019 with speed control on every boat- but still a good habit for more precision throttle control (I bet everyone here already does it): Many beginning drivers move the throttle lever by moving their arm at elbow/shoulder. It is a great practice to teach them early to rest/immobilize the elbow on the gunwale and make throttle adjustments with wrist and finger movement. This lets a driver operate throttle in a similar way as a computer mouse while inexperienced drivers tend to approach it more like a shift lever in a car. Anyone who learned to drive the course before speed control would have learned this very quickly- it is still a good skill to have for starts/stops and around the dock & skier though.

I can't speak for shortline as this is just 32mph/15off. But my GoPro accelerometer (chest mounted) shows 1.5-2G (lateral and acceleration) - Gs are plotted just to right of the speedometer here:

Using one ski instead of two for slalom.

Great interview, I think the audio difference is not specifically the microphone, but that you hear a lot of Horton's room. It does not bother me when I listen, but the early reflections from the small/reflective room seem to makes things sound a little harsh. The in-person episode with Freddie had a similar effect, but the quick reverb was less harsh on Freddie's lower pitched voice.

@vtmecheng I just found some curves:

I think the inboard V8 is there more for the fairly flat torque curve than just the peak HP number. I don't have the torque curves in front of me (HP is just mathematical torque) but even though a 300hp outboard may have 75% of the HP (compared to a 400hp inboard V8) at 5000RPM- it might only have 40-50% of the torque at say 2000-3000rpm. That would really slow down the "hole shot" unless you are talking about reducing the weight of the boat by 50%. You could add a transmission with gears to get the RPM up more quickly but that is just weight and complexity.

If you really wanted to make it interesting and require skiing both orientations: add a 7th turn ball so the gate shot orientation flips with course direction- then skiers would have to strategize pass selection for course orientation as well as wind direction. That being said....I am all for keeping it as is- just going along with the concept.

will this work? http://www.ski-it-again.com/php/skiitagain.php?endless=summer&topic=Search&category=Speed_Ctrl&postid=50270

@75Tique there is some good drone footage (directly overhead) at 10.75m in this video:

I don't think it should be done- BUT the way to do it would be similar to an 8-buoy course setup (with an extra set of gates) - so rather than having turn balls on each side at each boat guide a skier that is skiing the mirrored course would just enter the course at a different point.

Wow- I was in 1st by like 500pts early this AM and I though all of the scores were in...I guess I was wrong.

It is also worth mentioning that the when going upriver (and the boat is traveling faster across water surface) you will have a smaller wake (assuming higher speed=smaller wake- which seems to be true in most cases) and conversely skiing in 2mph downstream you would have a 32mph wake for a 34mph pass... It sounds as if going upstream gives you all of the benefits of increased speed (ski control, smaller wake etc...) without reducing the time between buoys and downstream gives you the bad things about skiing at slower speed (riding deep, larger wake etc...) without the one huge benefit of skiing slowly: more time between buoys.

@rico yes, I can get 40mph+ as well in sport mode but I am using the drone primarily in an autonomous follow mode where it rarely gets above 34mph (I could have been more specific about that above). With a dedicated drone operator I can see where the sport mode's higher top speed would be useful.

I have used my Mavic Pro a couple of times- but only with letting the drone "follow" automatically- (I am the drone operator, but either skiing or driving boat) the big limitations for me have been: 1.) Drone has trouble keeping up with boat. Advertised top speed is 36mph- actual is around 33mph. Downwind passes at 32mph work ok, but drone fades into any slight wind. 2.) Battery life: at about 30 mins maximum- and wanting to start process of landing (in boat- shore would be easier) with at least 20% battery as reserve it makes for a pretty quick ski set. But again, this is with only 2 people - so I launch drone, get wet, ski a couple of passes (spinning on ends to save time), climb out, catch drone. 3.) Tracking: optical tracking is useless because it will not really stay locked onto the changing shape of the skier/spray- and even with a good lock the drone would try to fly the skiers path instead of just following boat ....you could lock onto boat, but then you might not even see the skier because the camera is centered on the boat. My solution for this is a 3rd party control app that allows the drone to follow the controller (in boat) using GPS (from phone attached to controller)- you can then set a subject offset to pan the camera to the skier area behind the boat (instead of keeping boat in center of frame). This works very well, and you can set it and forget it- boat driver only needs to monitor drone battery level. here is a little sample video- at the end I had the subject offset set incorrectly as you can see that the skier is just out of the frame: If you have a dedicated drone operator that is not skiing or driving the boat then you obviously would have more options.