BraceMaker

@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.

@Downunder skis of course wear out. The carbon fiber is glued together with epoxy resin and that resin holds the bits together depending on materials, heat, UV exposure etc. they all have a certain properly of how many cycles they last under a certain load but assuming the load applied and the conditions they are subjected to stay within a certain zone of typical use then I think you can make an assumption that most all skis will very gradually wear out and become softer with cycles but what will really wear a ski out would be outside of bounds amount of heat, physical damage, or excessive spikes in forces. In regards to cores since all the cores start out as flat sheets of material I would encourage you to think of the core as a component of a sandwich like if it were an I-Beam the top and bottom sheets are connected by the core and that separates the material and makes the ski a composite structure where they act as one being bonded into a ski. Don't think of the core as a ski shaped piece of material like if you could take the cores out and were able to ski on them they'd both just be floppy flat foam planks. Its the property of the materials when glued up to the outer skin and laminate that makes it a shape and gives it the properties but how that core reacts is as part of the sandwich. Consider the few "hollow" skis which have no core they still have a shape and properties.

Spikes in rainfall events like this last winter have relatively little to do with replenishment of aquifers and cost of water. I'd bet they run a well nearly 24/7 to keep that lake full which is electrical cost. Electric is up, and they might also be taxed based on the water evaporation of the surface area in their area if they're pulling water from an aquifer even if its a well fed lake.

Sell the shirt.

The mussels have tiny tiny offspring they're like 100 microns. So "small hole" is relative. But hey are filter feeders and so they need water to move to bring them nutrients. You can fill PVC on shore from a hose and cap it or flood them in the lake and install a threaded cap. Even if the water inside had millions of offspring for zebra mussels they won't have the water flow to feed them. The outside of the pipe and ropes is a different matter.

Mine has a nice drawing though.

I would add to your thought process that you want to/need to bulletproof your start. Clearly some drivers are incompetent so I cannot help you if someone drowns you by pulling you at 1/8 throttle till you pop off or if someone hammers you on a slack rope and rips you out of your boots. But if you've practiced your starts and have a technique to deal with it both of those work. Go back to the butterknife and have your driver pull you crazy bad have them give you too firm and too soft starts. Figure out how to get up with both of them. Because sometimes you're going to be at an even and you'll have not pulled out hard enough and you'll drop too close to the gate and it will be a tail wind start and the wind will be blowing the boat towards the gates and if the only way you can deep water start is to ask for the driver to put it in gear well you're just getting closer and closer to the course and you're going to pull out late and had a tail wind and you're going to wave goodbye to 2 ball as you ski past the boat guides. And somewhere else there will be a head wind and the driver will put it in gear and you won't get the tension you want on the line and you'll fail a start. And at another event you'll say "ready?" and the driver will go because he thought you meant hit it. So you really should be able to deepwater start in all of those situations Heck throw on the butterknife and learn to get up one handed since its so easy.

Back foot in butthole Done properly and you can make a very early move to extend your hips "driving" your butt towards the handle. That's where the pocket comes from you move up over the ski.

Look down go down. I'm not sure about you but I instruct this way and it works. The number 1 thing is that your back heel is in your butt. We want the ski to be as angled towards flat in the water as possible. This means we're sitting there in the water arms straight back straight hips flexed knees flexed but our rear foot the heel is as up under our butt as possible. The front hip is flexed the front knee is flexed but that's less important we need the back knee and back hip flexed right up under our butt. This puts the ski relatively flat in the water and a lot of ski in the water. If you put your front leg where you normally do and play with the back you'll see that the ski goes vertical | as you straighten your back leg. So we are in our ball with our ski and back foot under our butt. And we have our back straight and arms straight knees sort of between them and we're comfy. So now we're looking down the rope at the boat. Look up at the spotter and drivers heads. Slack comes out. When you say hit it grip firmly on the handle and keep your eyes up there. As you start to move almost immediately there is enough support to start pushing on the ski. This isn't a look down and drag its a I'm holding on this and I am going to stand up on this ski. Do this by just pushing evenly on both feet. Almost just pushing your butt to your hands smootly. Too many people do this "tuck look down " thing and then you're reliant on the driver. If you follow the steps above and your driver goes early you can get up one handed.

Ya I think connelly will still special order the HC300 but that's more of a show ski flip ski type scenario than a distance jumper game. Maybe they stopped. But I would think this would push towards a prominence of D3 amongst the three event crowds. If you're training at a school that has a bunch of jumpers either there are a group of people buying D3 stuff for years and years and years and you have the ability to demo and use the equipment or not. Where as in the adult "slalom only" crowd I see a ton of Radar, HO, and Goode and fewer D3s

I would generally recommend to ignore the number of blades and just go off recommended for the boat, I just say this from the number of people who have bought 4 blade props expecting an upgrade when really the best prop recommendation for their use would be a modern 3 blade CNC. So if the best prop for your boat is 4 blades have at it. But if it isn't don't seek one out.

@aussiemc The way it should work is like Archery with contingency money https://eastonarchery.com/contingency/. The brands put up money but it is on the competitors to use their product, go to events, register properly, and submit for payment. Means that as an amateur competitor you go to the event go to the brand's booth and register, you do the event wearing that brand's stuff using their gear and then you podium and afterwards submit for payment. Archery obviously has more money globally its extremely popular but also with hunters etc. There is just a much larger market. But what it does well is it gives the amateur the ability to know if they could money on a given weekend.