BraceMaker

@2Valve I'm not quite 40 so maybe bridging the gap but I used mine Sunday.

@LOTW doing it vs. capable of doing it.... on the Great Lakes and around river systems boats aren't usually configured for black water discharge. Usually only boats that will be going offshore are plumbed to do so. But if you have to take the time to take your boat out into deep water periodically to discharge 3+ miles offshore? Or you just open that valve and dump it when you're feeling a bit lazy or the cost is more than you want to pay... Well some people just Dave Matthews band it from time to time.

Hit the gym or bribe someone to tell you that you look like you lost some weight and then take your set. Its like when someone complements your suit before a wedding.

Its probably a better system. Some countries I believe Germany is one you enlist and serve in the Army but in a capacity as an athlete so your service is compensated with a salary. I believe that covers quite a bit of their Olympic athletes that are of service age.

Do you ever just swim out in the deep water? We throw out one of those collapsing sea anchors so the boat doesn't drift quickly and pop on vests and swim around. Once that gets normalized he'll want to join you particularly on a hot day. And then you get your ski and vest and take your set. Do that a few times and he might want to pop on the skis while you're in the water.

Some of the European ones at least have some support from a national sporting body.

Quite the tale if it's true that she went from sunstroke to running 39 that's crazy had it one time and was like a concussion, confusion sick weak shakey. And then bull, Hazelwood, Asher. Felt for Matteo inside of that 3 ball.

https://youtu.be/erhuaVqoiTQ

@DW potentially. What I see is that the market of DD ski boats has shrunk to just the serious crowd. So protected but it is a much smaller group of buyers. So while 90% of the people who were going to buy a new ski boat in the next 2-3 years probably still will that's only like 5% of the people who were going to buy those same boats 20 years ago and its probably only about 1% of the people who were going to buy that type of boat 30 years ago.

The zip ties do suck. I had a tool I made which was a section of 1" PVC pipe about a 2' long that I used a bandsaw to rip about 1/4 off of so it would slip over the cables. Then I ground a bevel onto the end. You'd slip tjos over the cable where exposed and slide it up the cable till it stopped then you'd usually be able to see the tie and reach in and cut it. But you can also just rotate the bevel grab hold of the cable and jam it up against the zip tie till it breaks. The tool also helped because I would slip it over the end and you could see the white PVC in the bilge and grab it easy.

@A_B don't need to know about servos its just a question about how a system is put together for safety. And in general its pretty simple you get 2 inputs from the throttle and 2 inputs from the throttle body. The inputs are usually designed to be inverses so how closed is the throttle body vs how open is the throttle body. So if one is 20% and the other is 80% they sum to 100 and the computer knows the reading is accurate. It might ignore minor error such as 18% and 80% it could average and say 19% and not throw an error. And then it compares that to the throttle body values and if the throttle is open a corresponding amount the engine goes off down the lake. If it errors it faults out. If you've ever seen a steering cable snap the boat goes hard turn one or the other way - well if you had a system reading the helm and the rudder position and you could immediately kill the engine - so right now we have no failsafe for a failure of the cable system....

@A_B what if it pegs the rudder? Why would it need "full" control of the rudder? Planes have auto pilot, ships have autopilot, small yachts have autopilot, bass boats have auto pilot, we put the boat on ZO cruise control which has no mechanical safety what if ZO just chose to go full throttle on you as you were coming into the dock yet we use that. PP for instance was failsafe. If PP freaked out and tried to go full throttle it just took all the slack out of the cable and then your boat went whatever the throttle was set to. If you just took the cable where it attaches to the rudder arm and installed a servo right there that rotates the connection point on the rudder arm some small amount the driver would still drive but the course would be corrected coming into the gates the boat would find the center line. Going down the course the boat would attempt to maintain center and you could give the driver the equivalent of the PP "More throttle" which would just display that the driver needs to move the wheel left or right. Maybe the system can only engage if the driver moves the steering wheel is within 10 degrees either side of straight ahead and beyond that it disengages. So many easy ways to design around this in a way that would make skiing better, safer, less fatiguing and then we sell this to every open water ski enthusiast, the boat will go dead nuts straight when engaged + at constant speed unless the steering wheel deviates by more than 10 degrees from center. How many times has your buddy treated you like a tuber and you don't want to complain because its his boat.... "fun out of it if you enjoy being a good driver" sure I support that maybe if a skier wants their driver to give them a hand throttled pass with a stop watch timer they should be able to opt in for it must be in tolerance and no re-rides given for out of tolerance. Wonder how many skiers will opt in for the pass.

How is the steering support tube mounted on your boat. I've had this on other inboards where the tube mount ball had slop and wasn't greased. If it hangs the rudder doesn't move smoothly.

@nautique1228 you just saw the panda for the implication that you can ski and then hit the road. It's like why when you publish the running order early people dont show up early. Not on till 20th? Why be at the lake at 730.

@ghutch Watch people's silvretta based systems on your the dock and look for a gap between the boot shell and the release. Nothing pushes the release body forwards so the notch of the release pushing forwards, on snow skiing boots the release is way lower down on the heel of the boot by the sole of the boot and the boots are stiffer preventing this issue but in a waterski binding you can push the release back on the ledge and it will usually stay there. The upper cuff doesn't come anywhere near them on the ski versions. But when you have a waterski version watch people getting into the water as they sit down and move the ski around you'll see the cuff move back and push on the release. You'll start to see gaps where the U of the finger of the release gets pushed back off the heel ledge and you'll see people partially disengage when the yellow gap below disappears.

Sure use them but if what he stated is correct "and some judges-skiers observed drivers within tolerance but outside what they believed acceptable for their skiing or level of quality" maybe you need to mask it at a certain level. Like don't tell your skier that the driver is giving 9" passes if the skier is going to balk. And maybe if at the end the skier asks it was green. And calling into the tower its green. End of the pass skier drops the boat crew reports 6 green green - that's enough data for the event to continue. Let the driver see his numbers but by masking maybe that doesn't need to be called out on the radio the time and pass tolerance so the skier doesn't get back to the dock and gripe. That's all I mean by masking for the purpose of the event it was in spec or out of spec. For the purpose of the driver or back end troubleshooting its there. What do they call the doctor who almost fails medical school?

@Killer take your old plate with the microjust use a screw, washers, and a nut to clamp the plates together through the current mounting hole or wherever makes sense and line it up. Then use a vice with soft jaws or some clamps and secure it to your work bench. Now you can use the old plate as a guide to cut your slot in the new plate and not make it look like you are a rabid beaver pecking holes. I would put tape on both sides of the carbon plate first as well.

@RAWSki I think that argument is just a good one behind masking data when not needed. A mode to hide so insignificant figures. Go/No-Go why criticize things that are in spec. I still thing GPS steering is going to be a great thing for the sport on the whole. It should really be GPS augmented steering not GPS autosteer. Just have an inline actuator on the steering that corrects for positioning and a variable resistance setting on the helm. Then you could have modes between helm essentially locked and the actuator largely controlling the boat and the helm being essentially free and the actuator just mildly fine tuning boat path. Your high end class R events behind your top drivers leave it up to the driver and your pass being bulled by your 12 year old nephew sitting on a booster cushion lock out the helm and give him assist. Only instead of your skier selecting a setting you validate the driver through sure path and give them helm control based on their abilities.

The rates make a huge difference but. Just using the 20 or so houses next door to us nearly all of them already have 2 new boats in the last 3 years. People who for 10 years had the same boat have upgraded their docks and lifts and added an additional boat or jetskis. What used to be a sparse shoreline now looks like a marina with stuff everywhere. Many of these are second homes but even the ones that aren't the pandemic showed people how to work remote. So all the CFO/Attorney/CEO types went hmmm you mean I can do my job with less commuting and enjoy my lake house? Sold. Well they all bought their stuff already many waiting a good 12-18 months for it to be delivered and now its all there, but now their offices are open and they're asking their staff to return to the office and they're shifting back to being in the office and all that new stuff isn't being used much. So the demand is dropping, people now own stuff they have to pay off and they're not using it because they are back to working in their offices more. And while trickle down doesn't work from a profits/income perspective it certainly works in the boat market. If people aren't buying new boats then people aren't buying boats.

in 2008 the headline was mastercraft lays off hundreds.

More likely to watch slalom events streaming live but equally likely to watch runs later of all the events.

If there is a cup at the base loosen everything up, reset the pylon with Loctite 660 around it. Torque everything and let it cure. That stuff will hold a gear on a splined shaft on a motor it will hold your pylon.

"However, the reality is if they see a vest of some sort you’re probably not going to get stopped unless there’s other issues that caused the stop." Funny the locals made my skier take his vest off and show them the label this summer. It had visible buckles on the outside so it isn't obviously non-USCG vest. I'm now in the market for a few USCG type ski vests to have around because they stuck around most of the day and no one was going to Krista it.

Gaskets have dimensions. Set up a Porsche transmission sometime and the process involves carefully measuring all the gaskets as you take apart the case. You need to then find gaskets that maintain the dimensions so that the gear mesh is depthed the same on reassembly. The cases are all machined so flat that you put just a bare smear of a sealant and they don't leak. Very different than older stuff where the surfaces needed gaskets to take up the dimensional flaws and seal the surfaces.

An actual tent can be nice if you want a place to go in and change, store some stuff and have bug protection with added benefit if you're staying overnight or want a midday nap. Of course being available in whatever size/weight/difficulty to set up you want. A sportbrella is about the easiest if you don't need the enclosure/bug proofing pop it out screw it into the ground set the spikes and extend it and you have a pretty good sun and wind block. Can be stuck at different angles for time of day/wind or rain and packs easy.