ABC/123

[Steven]

Stargazer ROCKS!

[A_B]

 

 

I spent a ton of time driving PP and when I when I drove my first ZO boat, I couldnt beleive how much forward and back I felt in the boat.  I never feel this is PP.  Me and the guy I ski with both go 240+, and I pull a lot harder than he does, so I can only imagine what the boat is doing for me.

 It just feels like a very heavy-handed hot sticker from days gone by.  Obviously, it is much easier to say "pull lighter" on the line than actually going out there and doing it.  I do know that i backed my gate way down and felt a much friendlier hookup off one ball.  This works @ 28 off, but when I ski 35 off or 38, (back in the day), my pull through the gates was up there pretty high on the effort chart.  No room for lighter work there.  At least the way that I ski.

 

 

[eyepeeler]

AB,  I feel just the opposite with ZO.  It feels to me like the boat is hitting on about four cyllinders.  I don't get to ski with ZO very often.   The  last three boats that I skied with ZO were Malibu, Nautique, and Malibu.  The first Malibu that I skied was a total dog.  Felt like it's engine was a six cyllinder out of a '68 Rambler.  The next ZO boat that I skied was a Nautique with 800 hours that had never had a tune-up and it felt like a dog.  The last Malibu ZO boat that I skied behind felt horrible and I found out later that the fuel pressure was low and the fuel pump was on it's way out.

My boat has PP and I can run 38 backwards on a 2x4 while birdwatching.  Needless to say,  I haven't had a good impression of ZO.    

[A_B]

My friend just bought a 2007 SN with ZO and now part of our rotation. I drive a '99 and two other '01 SN's all with gt40 and PP, so My brain is in tune with that, but the ZO is entirely different feel driving and skiing. not saying it is bad, but different enough to throw timing off when all I have skied behind for the last 10 years is PP.

 

I am just getting back to skiing after some time off so it hasn't been that big to adjust, I suck behind any boat right now. But, i still feel the acceleration of ZO. I have tried a few different settings and have been using C1.

[Ed_Obermeier]

Scoke wrote "Zo is great for the sport. It's allowed skiers to feel the rythim of the boat similar to what pros have been doing for years. It rewards quality skiers who run buoys with proper technique. It doesn't allow bullies to push the boat around more...   It has caused many people to step up their game and improve. It's also given the quitters a reason to quit and the whiners more to whine about and a excuse for poor performance."

Another perfect example of the perceived elitest attitude that excludes the masses from any serious desire to enter tournaments.  You can talk about "quality skiers who run buoys with proper technique" all you want to.  You're obviously talking about the vast minority who have had long standing access to private sites, get to ski 5 - 6 days a week, have the income to buy new boats every year or two, etc etc.  That ain't most of us dude.  The tournaments you're talking about are filled with the skiers who have ACCESS, MONEY, AND WATER TIME  to work on becoming "quality skiers who run buoys with proper technique" and who have access to practice behind ZO which most of us don't.  Apples and oranges.  Horton is right, it hasn't been good for the vast majority of the skiing population and has probably single handedly accounted for the general drop in tournament participation more than any other single factor.

Ed  

[bhs]

I ski behind a 2000 CC and a 93 MC with PP. Our times can run any where from 16.88 to 17.01. Every time I ski with ZO  I lose a full pass, I’m not smooth and it shows me how “heavy†I am on the rope. Maybe if I spent more time behind ZO I could improve my ZO skiing ability. In this economy I can’t afford the $27K for a used boat. Besides my 2000 CC is awesome and the only reason I would be selling it is because I am forced to upgrade to ZO.

What is puzzling to me is why there is so much choice within ZO but the powers that be limit the choice with using other systems. My experience with ZO is limited, but reading this board it seems like there is a big difference from A1 to C3. What would be the difference of allowing all three systems? You can have ZO A through C or PP and PP stargazer?  IF this was allowed would it increase tournament attendance? I wonder what system would be picked  most offten?

[Boody]

Remember when it first came out you could hear the engine rev up and down all the way down the course?  Notice you don't hear that anymore?   I don't think Zero off is that much different than stargazer, I cannot tell the difference.  I have access to both boats at my lake. 

There is more difference in how a particular lake skis than zero off - perfect pass, in my opinion. 

I just hope that those against zero off have at least tried the newer system.  Please, no offense for those that are just against it because that used to be me.  Play around with the numbers and see what you like.  For example, I tried A1 and couldn't ski worth a darn, C1 on the other hand feels great for me.  Lots of "options" now.

Mike

[rq0013]

Yeah I think each lake is very different. Water viscosity I think plays a huge role. I have found I like 80-85 degree water 10-15 ft deep. Any shallower or deeper and I can tell a difference.

[scoke]

 

 Just got back from JD's tournament. Wow what a weekend with 6 rnds of slalom.

 First day we were packed and had 38 skiers. Second day we had 30ish so it was a full crew. There was even a waiting list to get in for saturday. Pretty amazing considering this is amateur class C skiing and we had people spend their own time and money to fly in from Southern Canada, drive in from Houston, Dallas, Covington, Baton Rouge and all over Louisiana.

Many personal bests were set behind Zero Off on the Malibu's and Nautique: B1, B2, G3, M2, M3, M4 (not MS though) and a few others I am sure I am forgetting.

 It seems his next tournament in September will easily be full with people flying in from California, Washington State, Ohio, Southern Canada and a few other places on their own dime for a hobby. What a great sport!

 

[Than_Bogan]

So, steering this back toward my original question, today's totals on the Big Dawg poll

http://skibigdawg.wordpress.com/what-zero-off-setting-are-you-using/ (then hit the view results button)

remain pretty interesting -- and to me a bit surprising.  The surprise is how spread out the selections are -- there is nothing resembling a clear choice.  B3 and C3 can now officially be considered "unpopular" -- although a few folks are using those settings.  C1, C2, and B2 have a probably-statistically-significant lead, although I think B2 comes with a bit of an asterisk because many people consider that to be "the default" -- it may be getting all the people who haven't really worked at figuring out the best setting for themselves.

But the "lead group" isn't very far ahead -- all of A1, A2, A3, and B1 are also nicely represented.  Each is near the 11% that would be expected if every option were equally popular.

Personally, I believe I have settled on B1, although I may still give C1 a chance.  Last weekend, I ran -35 for the first time on ZO in a tournament (though it would be a stretch to blame ZO, as I had a significant injury right when it first appeared and am just getting over it), so that gives me a little confidence I've got the right setting -- or at least real close!

And on the second topic of this thread:  My general area featured 4 tournaments this last weekend, at least 3 of which can be considered excellent sites.  Even with that "competition" for skiers, the tournament I attended was completely full and ran from 8am to 8pm.  So the sport is not quite dead just yet!  BUT there are scary signs.  The number of pulls at 36 mph in this tournaments was ... drumroll please ... zero.  I was the youngest "adult" skier, at 39.  There were 3 kids, though, and I've been seeing a lot of "new" kids lately, including from my home lake.

I believe the character of the sport is changing from an "everyman" sport to a "country club" sport.  I can argue that's a bad thing, but then again it seems to work for golf.

[skidawg]

Not sure that runnin bouys has ever been an Everyman sport. Boat, course, lake access and high priced equipment sounds very country club to me! Always been pretty exclusive for the 20 somethin yrs I've been hooked on bouys

[Than_Bogan]

Well, since the 80's the increase in the price of lakefront property, boats, AND skis has greatly exceeded inflation, so at the least it's getting more country-club.  Also, man-made lakes that just plain ski better than public sites contribute to the "exclusive" feeling.  These days, even if you live on a lake, you may not even know what a slalom course is.

I probably chose the wrong word in "everyman."  But I remain convinced that the character of the sport has changed very significantly during my lifetime.

Darn -- I am completely failing to stay on the topic of my own thread!!!

[Chef23]

Thanimal at the tournament my son and I were at Boys 2 was the single biggest division and there were 50 slalom skiers (8 Boys 2 skiers). There were also healthy contingents of Boys 3 skiers and Mens 2. Not a lot of Mens 1 skiers. Not a lot of Girls division skiers. I think there were 2-3 Girls 3 skiers and a few Womens 1. I keep trying to talk my daughter into going to a couple of tournaments. She doesn't run many buoys but she could dominate Girls 2.

 

If I had to guess I would say out of 50 skiers there were at least 20 Mens/Womens 1 and younger.

[9400]

I skied my first tournament in 4 years around the 4th of July, the tournament was full and I was amazed at the number of new faces...particularly the boys and girls divisions.

[ForrestGump]

As MS was heard saying on Sunday at JD's............. "Could you people have just a few more kids so I can wait even longer to ski!!!" There are a lot more kids showing up lately.  JD's had 8-10 kids out of 35-38 skiers total. At our tournament about 6 weeks ago we also had 8 kids out of 32 skiers. 

[LeonL]

At the KY state championships there were 3 B1, 6 B2, 3 B3, 2 G1, 2 G2, and 3 G3 skiers, out of a total of 51.  So 19 out of 51 were juniors.  But no M1 or M2 and only 2 W1.  I guess I kinda mixed this thread with the one "waterski dying" started by thanimal, but someone else tempted me.

[Than_Bogan]

Thanks to this thread, I was able to really help someone today!

He was new to ZO even though he's been skiing forever (and is pretty good).  After a round at B2, he described to me what he wasn't liking, which was mainly that he was getting pulled into the buoy.  I suggested either C to get the pull earlier or 1 to get a little less adjustment overall.  He decided to go C1 for the second round and loved it!

Knowledge put to work!!

Thanks folks!

[Horton]

Bump for @Phil2360

[robscholl-OF]

I have skied all the new boats to include MC with the Six Litre and use A1 setting on all of them. I ski equally as well or bad, however you want to look at deep -35. I sold my 05 Malibu just so I could have a ZO boat. I not only like the skiing behind ZO, but it is so easy to drive, that alone is almost worth it.

 

Come off the island, throttle up and all is good. Maybe it has something to do with me being 5'9" 160lbs, but no matter I love ZO. My two cents, OF

[Dusty]

Maybe we could collect some stats on here? Like skier weight compared to how they like ZO and what setting works best. I have noted some of the discussion of settings appear at odds with literature from ZO. Is the 3 number actually stronger than the 1 setting? I recall someone saying it wasn't and maybe I misread the ZO owner's manual. I weigh 205-210, 6'3"; ZO seems on me after the wakes at A1; B2 behind the SN is OK (sometimes). C1 is unskiable on any boat for me. I have yet to find a good setting on some boats. Most of the settings feel like a brand new stretchy rope, with the knots still unseated- add a nice new stretchy rope with A1 and I can let the frequent flyer miles start adding up...

[Triplett]

From my experience with zero off I find it way more rewarding. I skied on perfect pass until zero off first came out on the nautique, and over the past few years I have messed around on stargazer here and there. I ski about the same on either but feel I can get away with literally anything on PP and quite a bit less on ZO. I use A3 and I ski 36 into super deep shortline and feel in the minority, which according to the poll I am. I always pay attention to the letters on the nationals dock for men's 1 and there is literally no correlation to a preferred setting.

 

I apologize if this is choppy but writhing from a phone sucks.

[Horton]

Short line begins at 38. That is when the rope does not reach...

[Horton]

Short line begins at 38. That is when the rope does not reach...

[MattP]

2 or is it 3@39 Open rating? Call that Super short line and I agree with @Horton short line is at 38.

[MattP]

2 or is it 3@39 Open rating? Call that Super short line and I agree with @Horton short line is at 38.