gator1

@eleeski‌ how do you rejuvenate bottom texture? Wet fine sandpaper? I've noticed some shiny spots on my rails and have started obsessing about laminar flow.

He's in the sleep deprivation stage of new fatherhood.

"Before the ballers, these pearls" C'mon guys, horton worked his butt off riding a $2600 ski and PB ing on it. Let's be serious here.

My car thermometer said 84, with about a 5 to 20 mph headwind towards the starting dock. JR who showed up last night and declined a practice set "nah, it's just water", ran 2@41 tail to win first round of qual. I was living on borrowed time so had to leave mid second set. First one of these I've ever been to. Very cool! BROHO very idyllic site too. Had fun talking to Risto, Dave Goode and Klp about gatormod. All very gracious guys. One of KLPs visitors showed up at his site last spring with gatormod so that was cool to know. Hadn't intended to talk to those guys, but my buddy crashed early and they're all just hanging out. If you get a chance go watch a big dawg.

@ntx‌ I've been donating gatormods to ballers who have jacked ankles. Let me know if you want one to help your boy get his mojo back. @MattP‌ A while ago you asked me for proof a reflex won't work in a crushing OTF. @Rpc29‌ is the answer. Since in a crushing OTF OB4 releases in the same manner (sensing heel lift and only releasing when that lift is higher then a set point), OB4 has the same issue. OB4 is a little better than reflex since a forward shear caused by a less than perfect crushing OTF will help decrease the heel lift required to release. So it will take a more perfect crushing fall to hurt you. The above is my opinion, based on simple mechanics. Since the boys at OB4 went silent when I asked them to explain how their binding works in a crushing OTF fall, I'm assuming my opinion is correct.

Tried not to read this thread because: Politicians, Illinois, Chicago, stupid laws. Quadrangle of evil, why harsh my mello on a sat morning a half hour before I get to ski. Damnit. My home state. Highest number of convicted and imprisoned politicians in the Union. You guys are missing the point. Why is it the skier's job to protect himself? Do pedestrians have to wave a flag if they step into the street? Do bikers have to wave a flag if they ride their bike? NO. It is a common sense, logical rule of thumb, and rule of LAW, that applies to most forms of movement: The powered and manuverable vehicle watches out for, and avoids, the unpowered unmanuverable entity. I have to give way in my heli to airplane. Powerboat has to give way to sailboat. WHY THE F___K do I have to wave a flag to protect myself from a drunk/innattentive boat driver? You fix this by placing the burden of proof on the guy in the powerboat who ran over the guy in the water. And set the penalties accordingly. Instead, this is a continuation of the mindset that skiers are trespassing on the water, and drunk pieces of shit who shouldn't be allowed out of their yards have the right away.

@DanE‌ Virtual true is possible. Computers do things so fast it is virtually true. Plus, we do get anticipation, since as the pull comes on the first 1/10 sec or so is load on the rope, rudder, and fins, but very little load on the engine. 1/10 of a second is an eternity to a modern control system. With a load cell in the rope you can anticipate the impending engine load before the skier gets into the work zone. @skosney‌ Ya, it was a pretty badass piece of tech in those days. No reason to dig it out though, ZO could run virtual true if we told them to.

@skosney Yessir, that is what I am contending. We can always debate "virtually" but we're both on the same page. However, we're not on the same page, or even in the same book of music, as concerns what happens if the boat does run close to perfect speed. I contend that on average you'll lose almost two passes. And I watched it happen to BLP and co. And that's why they made me turn it off. And it was a nice smooth power control. And it took two passes away from me and others. But, maybe ZO has partially weaned us. So, I'd bet quite a bit on at least one pass worse. The speed control system I used up in Madison was mine, which I built from around 81 thru 85. It was (is, still in the bud box somewhere in the basement) a true PID controller, based on vacuum actuation from an automotive system with extra accumulator, over sized vacuum plumbing and doubled up servo valves, and overclocked to 20x of the auto systems of the day. Feedback on speed came from dual pitot tubes driving Honeywell solid state pressure sensors averaged before reporting to the processor. The pitot tubes were 90 degrees to flow, and used stagnation pressure against a backstop to avoid clogging, plus no water flow into the opening due to pressure sensor right down there on the pitot. Not that I remember the details or anything.

@skosney‌ At the Madison WI tour stop I had my solid state speedo on the boat, which was part of the feedback loop for my cruise control. After they made me turn off my cruise, I still had a o-scope hooked up to my speedo. With Jack Walker driving, and BLP skiing, the boat speed dropped about 1.5 mph when Bob got in trouble and had to catch up. I could watch Jack catch that back up through the rest of the past. If he had enough segment or pass left to do it. It rhythmically varied about +/- 0.8 mph when everything was going smooth, regardless of the skier. My cruise got that down to about +/- 0.2. And when somebody surprised it, would drop about .75. Regardless of the numbers, a good constant speed pull at the limit of boat HP will take close to a couple of passes off everybody's average. Didn't mean to harsh anybody's mello with the words "ego stroking". And the limit of boat's HP and throttle response, coupled with a load sensor and high update rate processor, is so good these days that, if we did decide to go constant speed, it would be pretty damn close to constant speed. For everybody.

I can't draw any data based conclusion on wear and tear of constant speed vs. ego stroking speed control. I THINK constant speed is safer, since less extreme angles means lots of good stuff. Not the least of which should be less people sticking stuff through the handles. It didn't feel like a no stretch rope when I skied it. If you're curious, have somebody hand drive you and gas it to maintain speed as close as they can.

"WE" won't do what we should have done years ago. And that is because our egos can't take it. What we should do is run the boat 36 or 34 mph constant speed. The boats are strong enough, and the DBW cruise is fast enough to do it. ALL of the voodoo shit in ZO is there to wean us from hand drives that let the boat vary up and down by up to 1.5 mph. In effect, we program the computer to "let the boat speed vary some where the skier needs it to vary, and let it vary different amounts depending on the skiers preference, while in average running a tight time". That requires a lot more voodoo than "run 36 to the hp limits of the boat" If we ran the boat constant speed, everybody's average would drop about 2 passes. Including the pros. And we'd have to asterisk all the records. And guess what: Boat path would matter a LOT less.

@ShaneH‌ Ya, but how many need/want path control? Do you know the CC200 sales numbers? Wakeboard, trickers don't care about path. I don't, but I'd guess under a 100 a year????? I'd make one for 2500 units a year.

LIke @BraceMaker‌ says path control via laser is next. The technology is there today. It will take some tech guy getting frustrated enough to build one just to prove he can, the economics will never work out. In '84 I built a pre-satelite ZO. @Jody_Seal‌ may remember testing it will Bill Snook at CC. Used a patented no lag solid state pickup to report instantaneous speed for closed loop feedback, regardless of skier weight, headwind and all that bs. Airguide bought the patent from me on the speedo portion. Satellites have lag time. That's why jumping is so hard for anything using GPS. And that's why path control will be via a $30 laser, not a $300,000,000 satellite. I was also a jumper, and I fricking LOVED my system for jump. Turn the gain up, overclock the processor and MAMMA! Had to put a vacuum accumulator and oversized plumbing in the actuatator system so we could go WOT in under a tenth. slalom Skiers hated it. It ran 36 mph, none of this +/- 1.5 mph bullshit the hand drivers were using to get a good time. Imagine ZO set to Xinfinity. 36mph or as close as HP of the boat could hold. Since everybody hated it, and the market was SO SMALL I quit, but the patent application for cruise control was on record. Fast forward to '94. Snook calls me and says PP is trying to blackmail him since Olympic committee says we can be in Olympics if we take driver out of equation. Says if I can find documentation of my prior art he can shut PP down. I say cool, what's in it for me. Snook says new boat if I can find my documentation. I left work early that day. Found the pictures and documentation four layers down in the workbench file pile. Faxed it to Bill, and three weeks later Pacific Nautiques shows up in my driveway with a Nautique. NO f--cking lawyers, no contract. Just me and Bill on the phone. Since then, I run Nautiques, and you should too. But, I digress. It'll be the same deal on path control. Quixotic mission by some arrogant/frustrated tech head. But when we get it, practice PBs will count.

ONce again, Pacific Nautiques proves their awesomeness: "Cut the pink wire on the sending unit. Ground it. If the needle on the meter pegs "full" its the sending unit. If it doesn't move, its the meter"

I haven't seen an OB4 up close. If the plate mounts to the ski with a pair of holes and the rest are slotted, then they've tried to minimize its compressive effect on your ski's flex. However, using Velcro will add some of the compressive strength of the plate to that of the top skin of your ski. Using thinner Velcro will reduce the distance from the center, and minimize the stiffness add. Whether that is an appreciable change would require more thinking.

@thager‌ Thanks! I'm going to talk to Pacific Nautique and get their opinion, but may take you up on your ballerworthy offer, depending on what they have to say.

Reads zero always. What's the consensus with all you CC mavens out there? Sending unit? Gage? How do I get to the sending unit? Thanks!

Reflex won't release in compressive twist. OB4 won't release in crushing otf. You really want to flail around with one foot in and one foot out? Not me Don't stick your foot in a binding that can not handle every significant type of crash. Or, accept that the crash the binding you choose won't handle will be the crash that can hurt you. Then, hope you don't have that kind of crash. Play the odds! It's like Vegas.

@Than_Bogan‌ some good old boys dug a course about 50 miles south of me. Great fun. Google St. John sprint boats.

5'11" 185, 67" is plenty. Strada's and don't tighten the bungee's, or Stealths with gatormod.

14 and 12. Before PP, the 12 yr old was a brutal throttle man. Always a good time, but always a on the hot side. Neither of my boys has wrecked (or even dented) a car, which is a statistical anomaly. So, I'm wondering if tournament boats, 4 wheelers, go carts and jet skis (calm down, we sold them long ago) are a good amelioration of 16 yr old testosterone levels? Any of you guys seen a trend with your early boat drivers linked to safe car driving?

Well, maybe @efw's buddy likes red. Maybe it colored his judgement. Shaded his viewpoint, so to speak. Perhaps some of the red got reflected on his glasses.

@dchristman‌ Yes, you are a sick man. We just had another blown tendon out here in the PNW, W4 nationals skier classic COTF. So maybe you're not that sick to be thinking about it. Seems like we're on the one a week pace like last year. I think, in order of magnitude: 1) better skis. Old woodies wouldn't hold an edge enough to create COTF 2)Age. 50 is the new thirty, but your tendons don't agree 3)Bindings, more restrictive means less than perfect COTF will still get you I don't think its better handle/hand interface, because its almost all momentum But I have no data to back that up.

I've had f1, '12,'13'14 prophecy. f1 to 12= massive improvement. 12to13 (gray to orange)= big improvement. 13 to 14 (orange to red)= no difference. I'd still be on the 13 but I backed over it with the truck. Not arguing they recut the molds. I just can't tell a difference between orange and red, except the red is fugly on a ski.

Yes, the mod forces the release to let go earlier, perhaps keeping you from getting into the perfect OTF position. And then, if that didn't work, and you keep crushing, the mod pries your foot up off the ski. The cool part is that we are not injured by heel lift force. We are injured by dint of the position our ankle joint is forced into. The mod releases based on position, not on force. And, in fact, YOU CAN RUN YOUR RELEASE SETTING HIGHER and be safe. You don't have to walk the fine line between inadvertent release caused by a loose setting and injury caused by an overly tight setting. This is especially intriguing on a Velcro setup. This situation is interesting to contrast to a snow skier. You cannot set the release at the toe and heel of a snow ski boot loose enough to protect an ACL while retaining the ski as you hit ruts at high speed. In order to protect an ACL you need to measure forces at the knee, and release based upon THOSE forces, not the forces measured at the toe/heel of the boot. Can't do that yet. (I'm working on it though). With a mod on a water ski, we have the advantage of being able to sense the strain on the weak point in our system (ankle not knee) and release based upon that strain level, rather than the load on the heel of the boot, which is a piss poor proxy for the ankle load.