bbirlew

The wooden kayak building world has a version of this where you participate in a week long class and end up with a boat. However, it is the kayak designers who host the classes and you build one of their designs with their tools/materials/instruction. I'd love somthing like this for waterskiing, but couldn't commit the time at this stage in my life. Hopefully by the time I'm at that stage someone will make it available. I'm imagining custom graphics too! I've already got spare cedar/fiberglass/carbon sitting around from my last kayak build that is earmarked for a surf or wakesurf board, but my free time is limited now with a little one and another on the way. The only way I see that project getting off the ground is convincing my wife that I'm building it for my daughter!!! (Or maybe some cedar beginner waterskis!)

Prototype for the Goode power grip?!

@skispray‌ or @eleeski‌, I checked out those vids last night and they were great. My first question though is about the direction of rotation. For the bflipb and rev it seems the skier rotates the opposite direction I would expect, and finishes the spin portion of the flip with the rope 'outside' his body. Is this how it is always done? To me (left foot forward) it seems so much more natural for example to approach the wake toe side (left to right) and spin to my 'normal' half wrap. Basically your shoulders stay square to the boat the whole time. Why don't they do it this way instead? (This would be a ts roll to revert on a wakeboard). Thx again for your help.

@skispray‌ Thx I'll definitely check the vids out soon. And thx for the recommendations of what to try first. That will help a lot.

@klindy‌ , HS = heel side approach, Ts = toe side. In wakeboarding you can approach the wake in one of four different positions: heel side or toe side in regular or switch (revert). @eleeski, My background is 3 event back in the 90s, but as I moved away from home the only people I could find to ride with only wanted to wakeboard. Tricks took a back seat for 20+ years, but I just picked up a gravitron to upgrade from my mid 90s obrien rubber edge, and I'm looking forward to learning some new tricks this summer. Any tips for learning them? Would it help to put the rope on the tower, or a little ballast? Or just go with the standard? My 94 nautique throws a pretty good trick wake. For a wflip front to back, (left foot forward - say my regular ts approach) which way do I rotate? Thx. Brad

I'm looking for some info/articles/videos for learning more advanced inverts on my trick. I've been doing wflipb and reverse for 25 years now, but probably haven't learned a single trick since then! I can do most of the beginner inverts on a wakeboard, including: HS back roll / reverse HS Roll to revert / reverse Ts back roll Ts roll to revert Tantrum Scarecrow (ts front roll to revert) So if any tricks may carry over, that would be helpful. Looking forward to learning some new tricks this comming summer. Thx in advance. Brad

iPhone only. I always leave the forum page as an open tab in safari and always stay signed in. Using the 'back' button on the browser to leave a thread seems to sign me out and/or not update the list of read threads, but using the 'home' button at the top of the page works all the time (and will actually sign me back in after using the back button has kicked me out!) Works for me!

I progressed to mid 35off @ 36 in about 4 years as a teen. Didn't have the opportunity to ski much through university and got into wakeboarding through my 20s. Now with a job and family in my late 30s I'm lucky (and happy) to get 3 or 4 sets in the course all summer (with a free ski set once or twice a week). I'll still get into 35, but now it is at 34mph! My goal is to finally run 35 one day, but progress is slow at this rate!!

@mwetskier‌, yes, km/h. Like I mentioned in the post above there will be a user setting for how you want it displayed, but for now that is what comes from the sensor.

Here is the latest details view I've coded up. Before you start using the program you can enter as many skiers as you like and save ski setup info, etc. You then select a skier when importing data and it will attach your current ski and setup to the pass. Then when you select a historical pass for analysis or comparison, it will pull up that data with it. The speeds are currently in Km/h unless noted, but it will be a configuration variable eventually... Let me know what other types of info would be useful and I'll see what I can do... Brad

@Horton‌, What were you on before this?

@GAJ0004‌ On closer look, no. From the pic it looked like yours was blue/purple like my ski buddies, not blue/red. You're right, I've never seen another one with that combo either! Looks good.

@GAJ0004‌, My ski partner has your boats twin. My '94 is purple with black. (Though I've mucked mine up with a tower!) Looks good!

Great observations @skijay. Ya, figuring out what all the data means is going to take some time and someone with more skiing knowledge than me! As a programmer I'm trying to find the best way to present it to make it meaningful. One of the keys was certainly to transpose it onto an x/y coordinate space so that you can compare your data on your course with others skiing at different locations. Any hints on how to make it more useful are always appreciated (certain points to highlight or different views of the data).

So let's see the trace data!!

@jimski, Well done! My boat has been off the water for a month and a half and just went into covered storage until April here in parksville. Tried to remove the battery and it was frozen solid to the bottom of the battery box! Good to see some islanders still at it! Brad

@dchristman, @escmanaze, Here is a sneak peek of something I've been working on for a while. It has a ways to go, but some of the data so far is kind of cool. It's a little android app to run on a phone or tablet. Basically I map a course similar to zero-off, and then parse out the pass data and rotate it all to plot it on an x/y plot. It saves all the info into a database so you can compare sets from different people skiing different courses. The first plot is comparing @Hortons first and third passes, and the second one is showing his speed overlaid on his position plot. The app allows you to configure different skiers, skis, etc, then you can manually enter your boat speed/rope length/zero-off setting when you upload the data from the sensor. You can use it as a ski log to pull up the details of your fin settings, zero off setting, notes, etc for each pass. You will also be able to do queries of the database to find out how many passes you skied, how many 38's you ran, or how many balls you rounded for the year, etc. The button that says "pause" lets you re-play the pass with the circle showing the skier and boat position (well... The boat is just the ideal boat position, calculated based on the speed you are skiing, the rope length and the time you go through the gates...) You can also select any point and zoom/pan/etc to get more detail. Eventually, I'd like to add: - graphic to show the roll angle side to side and front to back of the ski - sync up with video so you can pick a spot and pull up that video frame - highlight interesting points on the plot (min/max speed for example) - incorporate strain gauge data - automagically calculate the boat speed from the ski data for one less thing to enter manually - add a scale to the speed data to make it more clear @dchristman, similar to your idea on varying the line width based on speed, I did try changing the color of the plot to show speed (fast = red, slow = blue for example), but it just wasn't clear enough on the plot to see what was going on... I'd love to hear you guys thoughts and get some feedback. (I also need a name for it!) Hoping to have something available for spring, but it's just a spare time project so its slow going... Cheers, Brad

Certainly explains some of the boaters I've seen out there on the water!

Very cool. Was the data split up into passes automatically or manually?

Really appreciate all the info and tips guys! Thx. Lots of great tricking info on this forum. I'm seeing a new slogan for @horton: BallOfSpray - where the trick skiers come to play!

I've been tricking since I was about 12 yrs old (now 38). I've been on the same ski for the last ~20yrs (a rubber edged obrien), and unfortunately my run hasn't changed in 20 years either!! I'd like to start and invest some time on improving this next summer. A few questions: 1) is it time to buy a new ski, or would I not notice a difference? 2) I've put on a few lbs and now weigh in at 185. (5'10") Is the 42" still the right size? My runs are: B,bb,r,wbb,r,wf,wo,r,wflipb,r To,tb,tf,twb,twf,ts,r,lb,lf,wlb,wlf,b,f,r,r 3) what would the next logical tricks be to work on? I've tried rev tb a LOT with no success, but that is probably the next building block for my toe pass I guess? How about for hands? Any advice would be more than welcome. Thx.

I skied the morning of my wedding! My groomsmen joined me for a set! No better way to start the day.

No, but I saw a marketing video a while back that implied that. I'd love to see the user manual though. They had a developer site up for a while but it was mostly empty and has been down for a month now. Developer.xensr.com I believe.

Hmmm... Ya. I think we are so spoiled these days with our phones using the Agps (assisted gps - basically uses cell towers and known wifi locations to very quickly get a rough position and assist in finding the satellites - at least from my limited understanding, I think that is how it works!). I remember some of the old receivers taking like 10min to get a lock... Perhaps that is a bit of what you are fighting with this device?

@horton, what went down?