gator1

@skijay. Yep. I was particularly struck by that gate vid of AM some months ago. I always imagined a arc from edge change to turn. Not so. Looks straight as a die to me. Has some very interesting implications geometrically, especially when rope doesn't reach bouy.

Doesn't look like a pendulum to me. Doesn't look like a sinusoidal curve either. Looks like a straight line starting and ending with a semi-circle. Like the guy is skiing point to point. Just like those gate videos of AM. Could it be both pendulum and sine wave are wrong descriptors of the path? Let's discuss.

Well, nice to know I was not just too inept to find the answer. No tune I tried made cold better. Just more different. Best description of 50 degree water was from my bro visiting from his 85 degree snake hatchery in Illinois: "this water is crunchy, and brittle, and it's going to hurt me." I agree with @skijay. It's not faster, but it's definitely worse.

@goodeskier I have the same deal over here on the east side, 52 degree water all summer due to aquifer feed in the river, and 75 out at the pond. Even worse, we ski the river over lunch, so its a mad dash to get the passes in, resulting in no time for drysuits. I've tried screwing around with cold vs warm settings, and gave up, mainly because my form varies more than the settings and I'm running pp on the river and ZO on the pond. I really don't see enough difference to make it worth the pain, and I've got too many variables to make the experiments valid. I'm curious if you have less variables and are really seeing a difference?

Buy yourself a bull nosed Allen wrench to fit the bolt heads in the boots. Cuts the PITA factor quite a bit.

@OB‌ I have been concerned about the lack of sensitivity and political correctness that you have shown in previous posts, and am happy to hear you have grown emotionally, and now are interested in moving to a non-judgemental format for your event. May I also suggest that we all eliminate perjorative terms like "22 off" and "longline" from our vocabulary as hurtful and unkind. Lets award the medals based upon how the participant feels after their turn, and if we must discuss rope lengths lets use terms like "rope length disadvantaged", and "rope length neutral". @skijay: Skier distance traveled about the same. Check. Higher loads due to higher acceleration rates and speeds. Check. Higer acceleration and speeds needed due to shorter arc in work zone. Check. We be on same page again.

@scuppers: "one engineering test is worth a thousand engineering opinions" - Ed Zillman, legendary Honeywell engineering guru. We're not up to a thousand opinions yet.....but as soon as I get the data I'll post it.

I read all of Nelson's work Scot posted. Nice analysis, but, as noted by Nelson, limited by the number of data points per ball. A lot of speeding up and slowing down happens in between his three sample points. I'm going to make a big protractor, lay it on the motor box, and video the rope's position as Tim runs 22 up to 38. ZO beep will give me guide ball locations, and I'm going to assume the boat's speed is close enough to 34 mph that it doesn't matter, or at least consistent in its speed variations. Frame rate of the video will give me a time reference. I can then replay the video a frame at a time and get position of the rope vs time, and from that with a little trig I can get velocity and acceleration of the handle in relation to the boat's position in the course. I don't really think distance traveled is important. I believe that there is not much difference in distance between a short line pass and a long line. The different paths Nelson lays out are very close in actual ski distance traveled. I think acceleration rates, max and min velocity, and duration of velocity are drastically different as the line gets shorter, and are required as the rope gets shorter for the reasons I listed above. I know this approach doesn't take into account what happens as Tim disconnects from the rope at the ball, and then gets back on it. If I'm wrong, and I don't see acceleration rates and the rest as a big change as the rope gets shorter, then maybe its all at the ball. But, I don't think so.

Aw hell. Knew I should have stayed out of this. Even put in a political comment in hopes horton would take my post down. Will you guys accept hard data based on the three guys I ski with, or do I need a bigger sample? And I'm only measuring gate to gate.

Ahhh, sorry @Gloersen‌ didn't mean to pile on. Didn't see Chipman's post on the second page while reading on the cell phone.

@Gloersen‌ I isually agree with your posts. But I think distance skier travels is less at short line as we ski more point to point. Max speed is certainly higher at short line. But to manage it we have to run slower longer to burn it off.

Shorter rope: more speed for less time and less speed for more time.

It is all about the angles, and some physics, and fluid dynamics. Rope gets shorter, have to get farther up on boat to get to ball. Due to lift/drag (L/D), as we all experienced in a steady state you can't pull up past about 50 degrees on the boat. Just like ice boat can go 65mph and sailboat displacement hull lucky to get 15mph, both sailing across same wind at same angle. Ski has crappy L/D. So to get past 50 degrees up to 90 degrees we have to count more on momentum created by building speed before we get to 50 d. Shorter rope, more speed needed. Unfortunately, water is a fluid and it's drag increase with the square of speed. So, this becomes a self eating water melon. Faster we try to go, the more drag we make. Next, in between the 50d angle, on both sides of the center the arc gets shorter as the line gets shorter, meaning the distance in which we have time to accelerate is less, and therefore the time to accelerate is less. So we're trying to add more speed in less time and we have to use more force to overcome more drag. It's like trying to run a business in the Obama economy. Everything is against you. Then, we have to burn that extra speed off at just the right point in the course, so that we don't coast past the ball when we try to turn, and yet we get to 90 d at the same time as the boat hits the guide balls. Tail riding or smearing or nose riding are all ways to try to brake and burn off extra speed. Next, the turn is more towards the boat so any extra speed gets converted to slack. So again, imprecise speed management get more problematic. The gods turn under the rope so quickly that they convert extra speed into a quicker tight rope. The rest of us just make slack. IMO this is millers secret weapon. He pulls long and gets to the ball too fast, but then turns it so quick that he is back on the rope before the speed burns off. Implications? Go fast faster. Optimize L/d with ski angle of attack. Preserve momentum to ball line. Get slower faster. Turn quicker and through more degrees of rotation without scrubbing speed. Embrace the geek. Sorry @Than_Bogan‌, this thread just kept going.

See. Told you it was angles. I bet I was right, and ther is other stuff too.

I think it's got something to do with angles and stuff.

Is it April 1 again?

@phillips‌ : I made extra mods in this run, let me know if you want one.

PM me an email address and I'll send you a sketch

@dchristman‌: Wanna play?

@Sethro‌ I WAS a very good skier. Last summer at the Moonlight Bay reunion I barely beat Gordon. Been so long since I got into 39 I forgot what color it is.

Hey @eleeski: I always liked you frangible polymeric link multi-point release system. Light, doesn't mess with ski flex, simple, cheap. As I work on building new versions of the gatormod for Velcro plates I keep getting seduced into eliminating the Velcro with a design that replaces the frangible polymeric portion of your concept. I think I've got it. And since its not frangible you can get the plate back on the ski in the water. And easily adjust it for skier weight and ability. I don't have time to work on it in addition to the mod. It appears you live a life of leisure in sunny CA. (perhaps that is just an illusion). Wanna collaborate?

@phillips‌ im pretty encouraged about the PS version. Just from a market share standpoint lots more people getting hurt in PS. Gatormod v3.0 PS is pretty spiffy, but v2.0 is as far as I've got pics posted.

@thager‌: Must. Not. Mention. Straight. Back. Leg. :)

@jipster43‌ JL says he's taking a hiatus from tourney's this year, and BH is off building another car wash, and TF blew all his money on the Big Dawg entry for BroHO, don't think you know Hap, but he blew his AT last fall (dumba$$ wouldn't listen), so I'm not sure how much if any of Team Spokane is headed your way. We got our course in yesterday, and those of us not on injured reserve got in some sweet turns. Head on over if you are still iced out!

@Phillips: I switched to Stealths post op after ripping my Achilles and other stuff that took two surgeries to fix. Although I was scared, and therefore adjusted the settings at the absolute low end of tolerance for my weight, I had a couple of falls that released but left me with my repaired foot hurting bad enough that I couldn't ski for a couple of weeks. That was enough for me to add the mod. But, to be fair, I started back skiing before I should have. The tongue helps for sure, but if you ever do put your foot in a Stealth, you'll see that even with the tongue strapped on tight you can overflex your front ankle a long way. The tongue can only add force as the shin, 8 inches up from your ankle bone, moves forward. There is not a lot movement at that point on your shin as you go from "ah that hurts a little bit" flex to "holy shit, that's about to rip something". The back pin needs to hang on in an aborted PEELING OTF, with the back foot pulling up nicely on the pin, but it needs to let go in a CRUSHING OTF, with the back foot not pulling up at all. So, in MY OPINION, although the tongue adds a lot, its not enough insurance that I'm going to risk another 2 years on the sideline. But, my dumba$$ brother, who also ripped his foot up in another binding, is running the Stealths without the mod. 3 years and counting, he's doing fine. Just depends on how much margin you want. I want to be able to survive the 1 in every 10 year fall where I stuff the tip at my hardest pass, on a cold day, at my money pass, skiing hog wild and pissed off. And I want to keep surviving that fall 10 years from now, when my body is even weaker and more brittle than it is now. But, I tried the systems out there that at least in theory purported to protect my ankle in a crushing OTF, and if I had to ski without a mod it'd be in the Stealths. But that tongue would be cranked so tight @Horton might have a legitimate bitch.