gator1

@6balls I be at Spokane WA. @04196, gotta back up the WAHbulance and tote me away buddy, last guy I knew who didn't put his boat away on this side of the mountains had it froze into Diamond lake. His "friends" put buoys out on the ice and took pictures skating around them behind the remnants of his boat.

BOS is a bad off season influence. This is the worst I have jonesed for the first set of the spring since I was in my 20's. Thank god I didn't start reading this until March. I'm signing off until we get the GD boat in the GD water and I've heard that glorious exhaust burble and then woke up the next day with that wonderful pain in my traps. Until then all you southern boys can just bite me.

@than_bogan, Thanks for the good wishes. The lawyers say the patent will be filed first week in May. So, allowing some lead for lawyer speak, probably end of May (I lead a crossing pheasant about 3 ft, patent lawyers about 3 weeks). Once its filed I'll post the pics then we'll see what you Phd types think of the poor efforts of a pitiful BS ME. Glad to hear you're straightened out on the trailing arm load now; should be a good year for you.

everything you guys said, plus the nonchalant little flip he gives the rope after six ball where a mere mortal would have run over it. Not this boy's first 41 off rodeo. I have a vid of a guy I ski with hammering some fall moguls with sketchy snow cover. Bunch of bushes showing through. Noticed at Mach Schnell in the zipper line that he flips his right pole over a bush so he can stay in the zipper. At that speed in moguls 95% of my processing capacity is utilized in prayer, while the remaining 5% is focused on staying mainly upright. How Nate can have the processing speed to give that little rope flip after getting late to six is and always will be beyond me.

Yah, @richarddoane, I've heard about you and your pink strada. Otherwise known as a gateway ski. You need to move to Portland where they have a parade for people who ride pink skis. And, sorry, you'll have to put the pressure on the three amigos for broho, my stretch of river will still be flooded with snowmelt on Memorial day. I'll be starting to try a few tentative pull ups about then, wondering where the wife put my spray leg and cussing the drysuit for shrinking yet again over the winter.

Go down to NAPA and buy a standard grease zerk. Don't forget to get the right size drill and tap, its not a standard bolt thread on the zerk. It's well worth the effort. You'll be amazed at how much better she'll steer.

Just found Ball of spray about a month ago. Not sure its healthy in off season. Craig Gates from Spokane WA. 54 yrs young. My uncle Bruce Kunde got me into skiing on the Rock River in Sterling Ill. when I was 14. He's still 3 eventing at 75, holds the jump record for a string of age groups. In '74 Dad bought us a used up '67 CC mustang. My brother and I swapped the 289 out for a 351 so we could get it to pull 36 mph. (real fun when we figured out it had to run backwards). Still got her down in the garage, take her out once a year for retro pull. I invented cruise control while I was in grad school. Mine used electronic speedo to feedback boat mph, so it held 36 mph if the engine was big enough. Took it to a tour stop in Madison, spent all night putting it on a MC. Pulled LaPointe in practice and knocked two passes off his performance. First generation ZO! Moved to Freeport Ill, skied with Bill and Mike Kosloske and Mike Yankaitis on Kos' lake west of Rockford. Make it to nationals few times jumping, was (am) a notorious choker in slalom. My last name is one of those cosmic ironies. Burned my sons out on water skiing. Dads, don't take them until they beg. Moved to Spokane in '94. Luckily, no jump ramp around. Ski on the Spokane river over lunch, July to Oct. In August, the river has warmed up to 52 degrees. Don't ski many tournaments, but now that I'm skiing some with Farley, Little and Hodge I'm being shamed into it. Tore my AT and dislocated peroneal two summers ago, now I'm on a mission to get us all a good binding. My 34 mph PB pre-tendon is 4 @ 41, post is 5@38. But now that I know to put 62.5% of the load on my trailing arm from 3.5 ft to 9.875 ft past the second wake I am optimistic about this coming year. Previously, I was only loading trailing arm to 58%, so.........

@bry, you are explaining it well. "falling through the ski", same as being crushed by G forces onto the nose of the ski. Quad and calf muscle are overpowered, knee goes forward while hips are dropping and moving forward, ankle goes to overflex, long lever arm of back half of single plate provides too much leverage for AT to overcome. POP. (or riiiiiiiiiiiiip) As @ob said "felt like toes touched the back of my calves". And you have succinctly outlined the situation: dual release weakness is one foot in/one out twisting fall, and single plate weakness is the crushing OTF. And, to add, we never know what the hell a soft rubber boot system will do, and discussing for weeks how tight to tie the laces on the liner-ed double fixed boots seems like throwing a witch in the river to see if she'll sink. Of the 7 guys I ski with, three have had front foot surgery. One is permanently crippled, and will have his ankle joint surgically fused. I am 18 months into it, and still can't run. This is bullshit. @waterskicorey, You're a tougher man than I. If I hadn't figured out Gatormod I'd have quit.

LLC is about the only way to go. But the best you can hope for is to increase the odds; no way to ensure group will stay friends.

@waterskicorey, are you still skiing?

Thanks to all for your data. A number of Ballers have asked for detail on how the Gatormod works. I'm getting close on the patent application, and hope to be able to get the disclosure and drawings on BOS in about a month. After that I plan to see if any of the plate OEMs are interested.

@Zman, thanks, I'll go search the thread. Glad you're back on the water! @9400, almost all the OTF ankle injuries I have been able to track down happen around the ball; either stuff the tip, or skip the tail, or hit the ball. And if we're counting on compliant rubber boots to let go, anything that disturbs the balance between retention and compliance, be that cold water, new tight boots, using soap to get the bindings on (sucks all the skin oil and plasticizer out of the rubber, leaving it "sticky"), and stiff boots just out of the basement in springtime can cause the rubber boots rip us up.

@than_Bogan: Don't go trying to outsmart the Poll! No wrong answer, only data. Was this somebody on a releasing plate binding (fogman, stealth, Goode, reflex, fluid motion, etc), or was he in double boots screwed to the ski? Thanks!

@tc, were the boots mounted to a releasing plate or screwed to the ski? @horton: in hardshells on a plate? @Marco, @OB, think I could have saved you both, know I could have saved myself @johnCox: Draft bindings were screwed directly to ski, right?

@OB, was yours an OTF or twisting fall?

Haysoos Kristo, @jayski, I can't imagine doing both at once. Did Hinz come back from that?

Yah, you guys are right, not clear enough. Double Hardshell mounted on same plate. ANY damage to front foot vs. rear foot while using said double hardshell boots. Thanks for helping me communicate. Along with never running 41 off its clear I'm also not going to be a polling operative for a major political campaign.

I'm working on an invention to protect the front foot Achilles when using a double boot plate binding and want to make sure I'm on the right track. So far, it looks like everybody (me included) rips the front Achilles.

Has anybody in the baller community injured their back foot Achilles in a double boot plate binding? Or know of anybody in the wider skiing community who has? My invention is based on protecting the front foot, want to make sure I'm operating with good data.

Bracemaker, if I understand what you are saying it makes sense, and I tried it. But once you get all the parts designed and machined, you'll find that you can still create a very high tensile load on the front foot achilles EVEN WITHOUT ANY DISCERNABLE heel lift ("popping up") of the front foot. This is because in a rapid decelleration OTF, the force is not only forwards on the front foot, it is also down. So the heel doesn't lift, the knee is just smashed down towards the toe, the ankle joint is overflexed and POP, ruptured achilles.

Nope, have to wait till the patent is granted. Learned my lesson on speed control.....all I got out of inventing that was a free nautique from Bill Snook at CC. Not Bill's fault, he's a good man. And it was a good boat!

BraceMaker, you are correct. Need both feet hooked to one plate to avoid torsion, but need to have the plate sense the load on the front ankle. Since it is possible, in an OTF with severe deceleration, to have a very high compressive load on the ankle joint and high tensile load on the front ankle AT, with almost no load on the rear ankle, the full plate systems may not release while the front AT gets ruptured. This is because the leverage the front ankle can exert on the rear attachment point of the plate is limited by its distance from the attachment point. After a two year disaster with ruptured AT and dislocated peroneal, I got stealths. Then, modded my stealths to sense high compressive and torque on the front ankle and instantaneously reduce the rear release setting until the load decreased. Seems to work. I didn't know about BOS site, and just started reading. Didn't know how many of us are trashing ankles. Almost sounds like an epidemic.

Tore my achilles off the bone, and dislocated the peroneal tendon sept 11, 2011. OTF. Didn't hit the bouy, just stuffed the tip. Doc didn't see the dislocation, repaired the AT. Had to use screws to hook tendon back to heel. 2 months into rehab, going really bad, discovered and self-diagnosed peroneal. Dec 15 2011, surgery on peroneal. March 12, 2012, out of boot, but basically had foot in boot with no weight bearing for 6 months. Calf was atrophied, could only get 40 lbs force on ball of foot. Took from March to November to get to one foot heel lift with 210 lbs barbell plus body weight. Started skiing in July, at that point could get heel lift with 40 lbs barbell plus body weight. Should have waited. No injury, but just risk and little fun until about mid-sept. Surprising how much you need that front foot calf muscle to ski. Agree with T8, standard Reflex with heel strap is best bet. But I'm using Stealth since can't stand a toe strap. Did some mods to the stealth, now think modded stealth is better than the Reflex. Still about 80% calf strength. I wouldn't wish membership in the AT club on most of my enemies. I graphed out strength vs. recovery time if any of the club is interested.

Tore my Achilles off my heel bone and dislocated my peroneal tendon, stuffed the nose at 38 off and went otf. Took two surgeries to put it all back together, screws and wire and grinders and all that crap. Got back on the water mid-summer last year, weak and scared. Tried the reflex front binding, toe strap rear, could not even get up in 12 tries. Finally got up, on 13th try. Couldn't ski. Despair and grief. Got to looking at the binding, realized high stiff ankle cuff had no allowance for bow legs and fact that one foot in front of the other creates a leg that is not perpendicular to the ski. Put 6 degrees of canting under the reflex plate. Ran 28 off first try. Kept getting better, had falls where the binding released as per design intent. Wonderful feeling to be flying through the air enencumbered as the ski sails off somewhere else. Believe the Reflex release is very well designed, and can be counted on to release consistently. Never tweaked the ankle, and the binding, ankle and I agreed in post-fall inventory that it should have let go every time it did. BUT. I couldn't get used to the toe strap rear. Sorry Andy, that's why you're a stud and I'm a wannabe. So, got a hold of some Stealths. Tried them sans cant. Sucked. Put 6 degrees of cant under front and rear boots. Jaimie B, I'm an engineer not artisan, had to make serious cants, couldn't stand gluing nickels and dimes to those gorgeous carbon boots. The Stealths are a thing of joy with the cants, but they take 6 sets or so to get truly joyful. I have released out of them per design many times. Not quite as good as the Reflex when a release is needed, there have been occasions where the post-fall inventory went something like this: ANKLE: "WTF dude, that was close, another couple of notches on the pain scale and I'm letting go of this POS tendon, wire and all", ME: "shut up, ankle you pansy, but binding, WTF, let go a little sooner will you", BINDING: "dude, I can't sense load differences between pansy foot and strong foot, what do you want, you're still in one piece and you're frigging old, go drive the boat for the athletes" Had some true worst case OTFs in the Stealths as the year went on and got stronger and less scared, released every time, so I'm a believer. Tweaked the ankle enough for a little next day swelling, but probably shouldn't have been skiing anyway. BUT. Engineer. So, working on a sensor to make the release more consistent.