gator1

@Than_Bogan‌ I'm thinking about cutting one slot in the strong side. My turn on that side is plenty sharp already, though. But if it gets easier to modulate, then that might be muy bueno also.

@MattP‌ Thanks. Appreciate it. I don't think flex explains the effect. If so, why has the weak side only changed? If I had weakened the fin to an appreciable degree it should be displacing equally in both directions. I can FEA it, and it will show very little change in displacement vs load. But, nobody knows what the hell the load actually is. So, the way to answer the question @Horton‌ raises is to bondo the steps back in, thus recreating the surface without adding any strength. But, right now, at the end of the season, I don't care enough to do that. And if it is flex, don't care. I'm pbing. And if it is flex, why didn't people do this years ago? And, you'd want to google modulus of elasticity, @SkiJay‌ Ya, no, not so much. this is water, not air. Reynolds number is drastically different. At high speeds that slot is full of air, not water. They aint no eddies of water. Defintely agree there are eddies of air if were on a race care working aerodynamics. My buddy skis rff. He was witness to the laughing and PBing on the first try. And he wants a RFF version bad. So we may end up with two mirror images we can swap. But we don't need a double blind study. This is no subtle effect. It is "holy shit, did I just turn like that?!" So, I'm back to my question: Has anybody seen steps like this tried on weak sides of fins?

I have been trying to figure out how to get a strong side/weak side differential in turn ease. I want the weak side turn to be as tight, and I want to exit it in as good of a pulling position as the strong side. So, I cut three "sea plane steps" in the left surface of my fin, running from surface of the ski down to the bottom edge of the fin. These steps are the same as the steps in the bottom of my Prophecy, except now they're on the side of my fin. My theory was that if I sized the steps appropriately the water flow would not notice they were there at high speed, but at low speeds the flow would collapse into the air channel and create what felt like a smaller fin during the washout stage of my turn around 2/4/. So, after pulling out the fluid mechanics books and doing lots of painful calculations, the steps are .025" deep, and the taper up to the surface of the fin is .725. I wanted the flow to collapse into the cavity below 18 mph, and go from laminar to turbulent from 18 up to about 30 mph. I slapped it in the ski last night and took a ride. I thought I'd probably not notice anything, or at most a slight effect. WOW! I equaled my year's PB, walking down the line. And that was with all kinds of crushes and rodeos as I got used to the ski JUST F--KING CARVING a deep smooth tight progressive turn that is easily modulated by driving the washout. Holy Crap, this is cool. The guys could hear me laughing from the boat. It doesn't seem to affect anything except the weak side turn and hook up. Which was theoretically the goal, but the last time a design experiment went as planned was... Well, I guess never. On my stuff anyway. And, since my weak side turn is also my rotate into those g--damn gates, they got wonderfully better. Typically, if I don't get a good 38 gate in my first two tries I regress to the point of needing a training handle to do a deepwater start. With this mod they were easy, wide and repeatable. I can push the tail from the center of the ski during the turnin. So, maybe in my next rides I'll regress to the mean, and find a way to defeat this. And, I'll be trying some different depths and placements and shapes of the steps. But the central theory of making a "softer" fin on one side seems to work. If anybody has messed around with this I'd sure like to know what you've learned. Pics on the way as soon as the stupid email is up here. Oh, its now officially called: Gator Tail.

@DefectiveDave‌ So....buddy. First of all, I feel your pain, I've been there and more. Hell, I'm still doing toe raises to get my calf muscle back three years and two operations later. But. WTF!!??? You paid $400 or so for a binding which is supposed to release to protect you as you ski. You took a very common fall as you were skiing. The binding was installed and adjusted properly. It didn't release and protect you. Instead, IT HURT YOU. A lot. How the HELL can you not blame the binding!? It DID NOT F--KING WORK. This is like an abused wife saying "It's not his fault he hit me. The coffee was not hot enough when I served it to him" If you'd have hurt yourself wearing your ski jumping out of an airplane, ok, not the binding's fault. Or, if it said on the box: "warning, this binding is a recycled cross country ski binding design which will probably not protect you if you hit the buoy or skip the tail, and it won't protect you if you get into a one foot out compressive twister" But, Haysus H. Christo on a stick, I, for the life of me, can not figure out why you guys are not so pissed off you aren't gimping down to the manufacturer's headquarters and beating them senseless with your crutches. What the hell is it with this victim mentality? I just don't get the thought process.

The Velcro setup you see in the videos is @OB's, which he sent me a couple of weeks ago for the upgrade. Unfortunately, he hurt himself again in his standard setup while I was working on the upgrade, so I feel pretty crappy about that. Same fall that got him last time. Seems like not as bad as the first time so hopefully he'll be back on the water in a few weeks. I'm not going to type "IMO" through this whole post, so take it as read that is what I mean. So far, this mod is the only way you can save yourself in a perfect crushing OTF. Well, this mod or being 21 with tendons like grapheme. The PS mod bolts on with 6 screws, adds almost no weight, and does not affect ski flex or binding feel. The perfect crushing OTF is almost always a result of running over the buoy, launching the ski into the air, continuing to rotate in towards the wake, then landing with the ski pointing in to the wake while the body is still traveling downcourse. Or, a subset of this fall is skipping the tail by overdriving it during the turn. In that case, you are pushing your back leg very hard, then when the tail skips your rear leg snaps straight, but the nose of the ski is still carving. Lots of load on the front leg, straight back leg causes the front ankle to overflex, front heel can't lift due to the load. Don't subject yourself to either of those falls and you probably won't need the mod. Also, two feet in with the mod is the only way to remain safe in all theoretical types of falls. By this I mean it is possible to describe at least one realistic type of fall that will defeat every unmodded binding design and cause an injury. If you are in an unmodded design you are just a gambler playing the odds. Probably you'll never have a perfect crushing OTF. But if you do, you are very likely to rip your Achilles or crush your talus bone. Or both. Probably you'll never have a one foot out compressive twisting fall. But if you do, you'll likely experience a torsion fracture. The OB4 has the best chance for the broadest coverage of everything out there, in theory it should cover you in a one footed twister. But it won't save you in a crushing OTF. This is about the end of the line for me and the mod. I'm working on a fin, and on a Velcro-less plate, but I'm done modding. I'll keep the patent up just because too much of my stuff turns into money for somebody else when I get bored. I have talked to Dave Goode about the mod, I doubt that will go anywhere. To all you gamblers out there, I wish you the very best of luck. Let go and take ANY kind of crash rather than hitting the buoy. Never let yourself get past 80 degree bend of the front knee. If you can't fight the crush, roll out over the nose. Don't skip the tail. You're not going to get more than one more ball anyway. Ripping your Achilles is a life changing event, one which affects every sport you participate in. Many victims never get back to 100%, and if you do it'll take at least a year. And the older you are the longer it takes. Both of the most dangerous falls are usually the result of desperation, frustration, or stubbornness. Don't risk either of them unless there is A LOT riding on getting one more ball.

guys, thanks for the input. There is another thread in the last month or so about a big, strong teenager who had @scotchipman‌ fall and injury, but on EXOs. He actually BENT the bar that runs under the boots, by his rear foot lifting, releasing the rear foot, but the front foot was planted so hard the bar bent rather than let his front heel come off the ski. So, that's my proof of concept. There are lots of ways to do what you suggest @Wayne‌, and its a good idea. I'm trying to retrofit, though, rather than full redesign. @scotchipman‌ I'll make you the rear portion of the @ob's system if you want to test it that way. It'll definitely be better than what you have.

The point is that in your type of fall it would not matter if the plate had NO dualoc. Your weight is centered over your front heel, and is being driven down violently by momentum. Your foot is planted by force, not by dualoc.

Need the lever to pry the plate loose. String is at about 35 degrees to plate, so without lever it is mainly pulling plate frontwards, not up. If most your weight is on your front foot, as it was in your fall, the string will move the lever, the lever will pop the tail of the plate off, the string and your back foot will lift the rear of the plate, BUT THE FRONT FOOT WILL STAY PLANTED. Because the plate will just bend between your feet. So I need to selectively stiffen the plate during a release. I hope to post videos Monday. Or if you want them now just PM me. I can't get the damn things to load so I'm gonna get my IT guy at work to help.

Yep. But getting more civilized. Stay tuned for video of v3.0. I don't get the issue with the string, but that's normal for me: blind to aesthetics. What bugs you about it?

I don't know what the thread is about. I do know I was/am trying to decide if I should be trying for maximum roll angle in the work zone.

Well, so much for @Horton‌ 's discussion of Jeff's Wileys "....They are tight and stiff. I promise the roll angle of his ski matches the roll angle of his foot."

@SkiJay‌ I'm like our old buddy Rumsfield: I know what I know, but I don't know what I don't know. So file this under stuff I don't know, but am interpolating from @mike_mapple‌ answer: I think the Torque design intent includes the tip-bite, but goes beyond that point in the pass and helps in modulating the ski roll in the work zone as well. WAY back at the start of this thread when THE @Than_Bogan‌ sucked me into this my theory was that too much roll presents too little surface area of the ski to provide lift, so it sinks into the water and just makes more drag. Put a knife up on edge perpendicular to the water and there is no lift; you get massive load from the boat but you head towards the bottom of the lake. So, you have to roll the knife off edge to get some lift out of it and now you are sliding towards the boat. Now take the same knife, twist the front of it so it gives some lift while the rear of it is perpendicular to the water. The front keeps you from diving into the water, while the rear keeps the ski moving tangent to the load from the rope. I think that is the Torque. I left this up before I hit "post", had a killer sunset session out at the lake, followed by a nice arrogant bastard ale (best beer in the world except for double bastard ale). So, now, I'm convinced you can file this under "stuff I am pretty sure I know".

@SkiJay‌ @Than_Bogan‌ I sent the following email off to Mike Mapple, and got an immediate reply. Me: "blah blah.....in the middle of the debate you announced your new ski, which seemed to be designed to limit the ability of the skier to roll the whole ski up on too much of an edge, by flattening out the nose as the tail digs in. In effect providing lift to the front of the ski and keeping it from auguring in as the back of the ski IS auguring in providing angle.... So that's my question. Is the design intent what it seems to be?" Mike replied: "Yes. The intent for the design of the Torque is to improve the pull and angle from the apex of the turn to off the second wake. Was it designed to make a better turn? No. BUT, if we approach the turn in better shape, earlier and more consistently, we will have better turns. All skis are very torsionally stiff due to their shape, so cross fibers or 0-90 does not do hardly anything in our opinion. We have flex in a ski to enable the ski to roll on edge and rotate into a turn (imagine how hard it would be to have a ski turn that was very stiff). The ski at the end of the turn is then rolled against the boat and allows the skier to create a load. However if the whole ski is rolled over how we want it creates an immense pressure through the front to the ski, which then forces the ski deeper and ultimately trying to go behind us.....thus something must give on the skier to compensate.....hips drop back to gather the ski, or arms separate to create time to bring the ski back forward. Many skiers have been working with counter rotation to get everything moving forward before in anticipation of the load that is about to be created. A good concept, but extra movements that can create inconsistency for one day to the next or site to site. The Torque series does allow for the pressure created at the front of the ski to release as the tip rotates flatter at a different rate than the rest of the ski, thus keeping everything moving forward" Me: "BTW I was pretty proud of myself that I saw the difference in the way the ski rides just by watching from shore while Jeff rode it" Mike: "Keen eye!" So there you go......now I really want one. Pretty amazing company that they reply to some unknown schmuck in about 1 hour.

That shot of Nate at the wakes, (or one just like it) has haunted me for 2 years. I can get in that position, but the aftermath is an OTF. Here's my latest theory: He has the ski almost perpendicular to the rope. When the ski hits the wake, and decelerates, he has to deal with the step function deceleration's affect on his COM. BUT.....since he is travelling perp to the rope, when the ski decelerates there is almost NO added step function of load from the rope. On the other hand, when I get up on the front foot, I am lucky to get the ski 45 degrees to the wake. When I hit the wake not only do I have to deal with the deceleration affect on my COM, I ALSO have to deal with an impulse load on the rope, because my ski is slowing down opposite direction of the rope's force vector (45 degrees to direction of ski, so I get hit with cos45 of the load spike). Bottom line, the more angle you have when you hit the wake, the less the rope will be trying to drag your ass up over the ski and OTF. So the more angle you have, the farther you can be up on the ski without going OTF, Chicken and egg. Figuratively and descriptively.

@Than_Bogan‌ I think the italicized para above answers your post on "too much roll angle". Maybe I wasn't talking through my hat. Loved the comments on foot weighting/ski attitude/ass dragging. And, "...centripetal force". Ahhhhh. Physics and logic. What a wonderful post.

@Horton‌: this is the question I was trying to get answered when we got into the straight back leg thing awhile back. And I got my Panda. Now you sound as frustrated as I was/am. I can move my weight over my foot and get the ski parallel to the water, but I'm terrified as I do it. And the terror is well justified by what happens at the wakes if I overcome prudence and stand on it through the wakes. But I agree with you 100%, there is a common thread amongst all the videos of the studs and studdettes, and that is they somehow have more of the ski working for them by being more in the water. I've spent this summer trying a bunch of theories, with no joy. And quite a bit of pain. My only guess now is its one of two things: a) they are just so much better than me I'll never get it. b) it is not weighting, it is a combination of weighting and timing of angle. Third set of the weekend last Sunday I had retired and was listing all my shit on ski-it-again. Calmed down and tried one more set with b). Seemed like maybe a glimmer of hope. But not enough to claim any insight. So, I hope you get an answer to this. It would be the answer for a lot of serious guys stuck at the 38s.

Well that was awesome. If he is a "skier" then I am something else. Holy cats, if I got that early and wide I'd probably get so confused I'd just have a breakdown. Thanks for posting that one.

@mwetskier‌ Hang on, let me check...............Yep, hasn't changed. In regards to my thoughts on ski technique, I don't care who you listen to. In fact, please do the opposite of whatever you may perceive I have suggested. To be clear, my reason for spending time on this site is to advance my knowledge of how to get better. Towards that end, from here on out you're on "ignore" to me. I put you there after the smear string, as you seem incapable of discussing technique without getting personal. My mistake for taking you off that status. It won't happen again.

@mwetskier‌ Its like the two guys getting chased by the bear. The guy who is gonna live doesn't have to be the fastest human on the planet. Same with you and me and physics. VERY clear I'm not a better skier than rossi, or many other people, maybe including you. However, I may be a better engineer. You've missed the point. Your club example illustrates this perfectly. Take your buddy's club. Tie a rope to the handle. Swing the club with the rope.

@Deke‌ Yep.

Nope. As I have written before, the skier's reach can serve to lengthen or shorten the effective length of the rope. But, the handle and rope have comparatively no mass. And, they can only impart a resultant force vector pointed at the boat, with no moment. Consequently, the handle does not serve as a pivot point. A golf swing has two main pivot points: Shoulder and wrist. The arm can provide a force vector other than one pointed at the shoulder. And the wrist muscles can provide a moment. Thus, the club does pivot around the wrist. Entirely different. The rope has no muscles, and the handle can't provide a moment.

@SkiJay‌ There are a couple of things I've learned from these videos: When people speak of the ski "grabbing angle" and "building angle to the wakes" I'm convinced they are just kidding themselves. It may be the ski holds the straight line we see with less effort. And, in the category of "something actually useful to getting better" I'm convinced these vids prove you will add no angle once the arms go straight and the load comes on. Which kind of validates the whole patience, finish the turn, complete your rotation, blah blah. Maybe the razor 14 or whatever Horton tested awhile back is different, but I think all other skis with the three part rocker prescribe this straight line due to their shape. And, at the risk of getting overly into the realm of rocket science, the handle swings an arc back and forth at the end of a string of constant length. However, that arc is not an natural, pendulum profile of gravity accelerating a mass. Instead, the skier is providing acceleration to the mass. The rocket science boys would say draw a control volume "an imaginary movng box" around the boat, skier and rope. If we assumed drag from the water was the stand in for gravity, put a guy on a saucer out at buoy width, and let him swing back and forth he'd present a decaying pendular motion in the control volume. Lots of drag, so the motion would decay pretty quickly. But, within the control volume pendulum physics would describe the motion exactly. But, the box is moving. So the decaying pendulum would have to be mapped onto the bottom of the lake as the control volume passes over the lake at 34 mph. It would not look like a pendulum, neither handle or saucer rider. But, there is more. The skier adds acceleration on the "downswing", and deceleration on the "upswing". So, within the control volume, we would not see a pendular path. It would pick up speed too quickly on the "downswing", and lose speed too quickly on the upswing. Then, we have to map the artificially boosted and retarded pendular motion onto the bottom of the lake. A real mess that requires a computer and sophisticated measuring devices to analyze. And so, after all this physics and human force adding and subracting, which really IS rocket science, the skier path mapped onto the lake bottom is TWO STRAIGHT F--CKING LINES. HOW CAN THIS BE? My mind is blown by this. Why does A=pi r squared? Why is the derivative of speed acceleration? Why does f=ma? Not kindof. exactly. WTF! We ski two straight lines. There must be a god. Or maybe the fact that I just finished four beer lawnmowing is having an affect.

Sunstream manufactures their floating lift under my patent. Basta and Sunstream were in a bidding war for the patent, and there is zero love between those guys. I'd be surprised if they share ANYThing, including remote technology. But, I've been surprised before.