wilecoyote

@crazy180, I'm right there with you. I started in the course late last summer and now I'm hooked too! Difference is my 50th B'day is in 3 weeks. One thing you will hate about the DB is deep water starts. I'm still thinking about going back to RTP just for that reason alone, even though I only miss about 1 in 10 starts now, and I'm sure several sets from now it won't matter, but it still sucks.

I'll add one more thing to Eric's analysis. The distribution of lift under the ski changes a lot with it's angle of attack. ie the higher the tip, the more the lift is distributed over the length of the wetted portion of the ski. When the tip is low, most of the overall lift will be concentrated forward on the ski. So from a theoretical POV, one would expect to feel virtually no impact from tail shape across the course, but some (very little) at the end of the turn where the tip tends to be higher. Chris

Where I ski (McClintocks in Ontario) the club member( 280.00 year) rate is 2.75 minute, so what would that work out to per set? We only pay for ski time, so bobbing around at the end of the course doesn't count. I'm too new to be able to work out how many minutes would be in a set, but 50 bucks does seem a bit steep. In my case, I just bought a boat, and as of yet I don't have a course, so it's only free skiing. If you ask to ski behind my boat, then I would expect that you offer up gas for the privilege, but if you're invited, then you are my guest, and I would expect nothing. When I was making the decision on whether to buy a boat or not, I called up my buddy and said, "if I buy a boat will you come out and ski and drive?" That was my only consideration, to have someone to ski with. Now if everyone on the lake was dropping by and asking to go for a set, then I'd have to change my MO I guess.

I'm on Animals, I've been leaving them as loose as they go, and had my front foot come out and back stay in on an OTF at the second wake. And I still sprained my ankle. (the one that came out) I'm with @Wish and @Razorskier1 I stopped making (or mostly stopped) bad decisions on the mountain bike a couple of years ago, now I have to learn the same thing on the ski.

I'm with @kfennell on this one. I've been hack skiing with RTP for 35 years, and when I got serious late this summer, took lessons and bought a smaller ski with DB, my instructor took me to the boom first, then the handle on the boom. I'm sure others who instruct can offer better technique suggestions than I can, but I was in the same boat (pun intended) as you, except that I manage to get up 9/10 times and my mass may not be quite the same. What I have discovered is as mentioned above about trying to stand up too early, but also more pressure on the back foot. I'm not sure why this works, because one would think a flatter ski would come out easier, but it doesn't. The feeling for me is kind of like having the ski climb up and over a 4 foot boulder, if that makes any sense. To the rest of you for whom this is easy, I've noticed most guys come up with both palms down on the handle and switch to a correct grip once they're up. I haven't had a chance to try this yet, but will that help with our sad deep water starts? Chris

Second wake for me. How do you change your vote? I clicked on edge change by mistake. I'm new so I've only had one bad crash, and it ended my season. Sprained ankle OTF at the second wake, offside.

Wow, I must have watched that clip 100 times! It really drives home your point about being able to engage the ski more. My initial reaction to your post before I saw the video was that more fin should have meant a more stable ski not less. Porpoising, is caused by too high a trim, so one would think more fin would calm that down. But, as you pointed out above I think you were able to drive the tip down too much, and it bounced. That's a serious discovery for all of us! Something else really interesting that I noticed was where you were pulling from on both clips. On the first pass, the centre of pull moves back much earlier than it does on the second pass. On the stable pass the rope stays in front of your foot until you've solidly established your lean and then it moves back as you gain more angle. On the unstable pass, the rope is already there from the beginning and you never get the angle. Very interesting indeed. Thanks for posting that.

http://www.ballofspray.com/forum#/discussion/6946/holes-in-your-fin/p1 Bottom line, it's not the drag, it's the lift and the drag. The fin is providing resistance to the tail sliding out and that pushes the tip down. Moving the fin back or making it bigger (adding depth) will both bring the tip down.

@thager, DH bindings=downhill bindings. I figured that a plate set up for a set would pretty much do the job, and older used downhill skis ar a dime a dozen.

@XR6Hurricane fair enough, not being a fisherman myself, that makes a lot of sense. I've been mulling over the DC motor on the shaft idea just because I thought it might be nice to maneuver around the skier and the dock under electric power, and I thought it would be good for fishing but I guess not.

Wow! I was afraid to ask about such things because I thought I'd be laughed out of the forum. I had no idea there was so much going on in the DIY route. So, tell me if this has been done to death before I do it. Plate system based on DH ski bindings? They're cheap and plentiful, and at first glance appear to be exactly what we need.

-18C this morning, as usual I rode my bike to work. First day of the year in the balaclava. I'm still warming up. Met a guy at a party from @Bulldogs neck of the woods, any one who's science oriented knows that at -40 the F and C scales meet. This happens now and then out there, and they refer to it as -40 FC. (FC stands for F**king Cold!)

This kind of dovetails into the electric boat thread. Why not have a DC motor directly driving the prop shaft? I would think this would be pretty easy to do, and then you have electric for manoeuvring and trolling, I've been thinking about this quite a bit.

@eddie_roberts_jr, I think if they can can lift both skis at the same time they're more suitable for jump. Here's something to consider. Perhaps your relationship to which foot is forward compared to which hand is dominant lends you to a particular way to approach the course. It would be interesting to compare the styles of the top skiers to see if this holds any weight.

I love the idea of a 12 ball course, then when I miss a ball, I'll just be real early for the next one!

@Than_Bogan, I had assumed that most RH folk skied LFF and visa versa. @Brady, apparently we're far from rare. According to the poll we're only slightly outnumbered by the RH LFF crowd. In my case, I'm still learning, so it may change, but my strong side around the ball is 1,3,5 but my strong side across the wakes are normal.

Same as Skoot1123. I had always thought that RFF was for left handed guys and I was an oddball. Seems for righthanders though that it's only about 10% more on the LFF front. I do surf and skate LFF though, don't know what that means.

Question, I'm RFF, but right handed. To all, how do you suppose this plays in to equation? How many others are in this group?

@Dacon62, I've been a fan of Top Gear for years, and I have to agree. I'm not a car guy at all, but I watch a car show. Can't remember which one, but it think it was Toyota that refused to submit any more cars for review after Top Gear gave one a really bad review. So they took one for a test drive from a local dealer and reviewed it (poorly) anyways. That certainly is a model for all mags to follow, but it takes some serious stones to do so.

@tfriess, thanks for the LOL! I haven't even managed a full pass at 15 yet and I'm going to buy a segmented rope in hopes it'll be shortened by the end of this season. Hope springs eternal!

@jfw432 I've never gotten a leakless bagging either. But I've been bagging onto a table and I think if I went the poly sleeve method other shapers use I could. Especially something as small as a slalom ski As for start up costs on the infusion process, I don't think you need to go the full on route for a slalom ski. You could certainly cobble something together good enough to give it a go. @Brace maker, I'm guessing you've done infusion?

@jfw432, I've never used prepreg myself, been doing wet layup and vacuum bagging for more than 20 years building windsurfers (personal use and friends, not professionally) but I've always wanted to use prepreg. I just looks so much easier, but I suppose material cost is much higher. I'm keen to build a few skis this year, and I'm thinking about vacuum infusion. Windsurfers are a bit too big to risk a new process but skis seem much more manageable. Ever tried it?

What @jfw432 said. In theory there would be a difference between skis laid with more or less overlap, but the difference would be very small. Also you'll notice that there was re-enforcement added to the front of the ski in the photo but they didn't show the worker doing it. Also, pure unidirectional is great if you have a complicated lay up schedule to get exactly the flex you're looking for, but it doesn't wrap around rails very well, and besides this is a mostly unidirectional weave any ways. @Horton, are you on crack? In what conceivable world would you make $4200 worth of skis just for TV and then throw them out? Radar has nothing to hide or be ashamed of, the clip shows how they're made, and thanks to Radar for showing us! What I found surprising was that they weren't using prepreg. Sorry the link didn't work guys, I kinda figured it wouldn't. Chris

Not sure if this link will work in the U.S but I just found it online. http://watch.discoverychannel.ca/how-its-made/season-17/how-its-made-17-episode-1/#clip766600 Good luck.

Just subscribed yesterday. I love print mags, and am willing to subscribe to keep 'em going. Windsurfing had at least 6 English language mags, now there are 2. Too bad about the light content though.