So what happened in the Malibu finals?

[Boody]

What is the deal with the Malibu finals against Beachesne and Asher? All I got were tweets but I want to know the skinny. Last thing we need is another Malibu open controversy.

[Dirt]

How do you get a bad boat time with zero off? Sounds odd. I have never seen one. Sounds a lot like when Jason Paredes won Moomba and they gave Andy a re-ride for rollers or when Mcnerney and I tied for 26th place at Regionals in Montana and they wouldn't let us run it off.

[ScarletArrow]

So if JB ran 39, wouldn't he have attempted and gotten something at 41? It would seem like only .5 since Will takes the title with a 1?

[jdarwin]

Call came - details will soon come out but Chad wanted me to say "it wasn't MY boat - I was pulling Jamie".

 

[skidawg]

Bad boat speed, at night, most night events are 35 mph, they don't usually keep times at 35 do they? makes no sense, anyone know who won jump

[jdarwin]

35.5 mph - the times are recorded but you have to go back to tournament mode to retrieve.  One thing to remember, ZO WILL time even if it is not engaged at desired speed.

[disland]

They should just pull them at 36 so they dont have these problems. the jumpers sure dont go slower

[jdarwin]

Dave - if the driver doesn't fully engage the system, it doesn't matter the speed - it will be slow. 

[slow]

Malibu tournaments have been good to Jamie

[slow]

Malibu tournaments have been good to Jamie

[MrJones]

Just trying to put this together.

It was head to head with Jamie out first?

Jamie thinks he has won, celebrating, ski off, etc?

Willy gets a re-ride...Jamie sez "What the ----?"

Jamie refuses to go back out, Willy wins?

 

That is at least the scene as my brain can fill in the gaps from the minimal tweets out about it. It really stinks that we can't get to watch all the best pro events in our sport. I had the beer and popcorn all set to go for a great Saturday night! First no video, then no audio. Very frustrating.

[Boody]

JB goes out first in head to head, runs 39. Willy gets 4, but reride and runs 39. JB is then first for 41 but refuses to ski so Willy gets 1 at 41 for the win.

 

Sounds like they were in recreational mode, skiing at 35 or 35.5, but the driver pulled Willy at 36? Sounds like a human error, but who knows. I was hoping someone can clear this up.

[jdarwin]

Willy's time was slow - boat didn't engage - sounds like driver error. 

[UWSkier]

Talked to both guys about it afterwards.  They wouldn't really pin it specifically on a human error or anything.  Jamie felt like it was pretty lame that they had brought him in and introduced him as the champ, then 10 mins later after he'd already had a celebratory beverage told him he'd need to go back out.  There was something wrong with Will's pull though.  I didn't notice that the boat was going slower than normal, but he had enough time to read War and Peace coming into 4 ball.  Certainly didn't look like a hurried pass so something was definitely amiss.  He said his time to ball 1 was .14 seconds lower than Jamie's.

 

Too bad, cause it kindof put a damper on what was a phenomenal event.  As for Will winning like that, in my mind, he won it when he ran 41 off against T-gas.  He and Jamie weren't going to run 41 in their final pairing because it would've been a strong tailwind.  Would've been fun to see them try though.  Jamie had the craziest 1 ball turn at 41 with a tail-wind in qualifying I'd ever seen.  His fin was about 3 inches out of the water yet he still managed to land and hustle over to two.  He told me "yeah, I felt my ski catch air and was like 'wtf?  I'm in the air.  Wait, what?'"  He also mentioned that he tweaked his back on that turn.  Maybe that had something to do with his final decision also?

[ToddL]

http://www.theproskitour.com/images/stories/momen.jpg

from the proskitour web site.

[Drago]

So, Will got a re-ride for a slow time and they were skiing slow anyway? That pic looks like daytime to me??

Anyone have a timing chart for 35.5?

[clemsondave]

Good point, how would they know the segments for 35.5? It is in WSTIMS?

[Drago]

To get a re-ride for a slow time, they would have to be down into the fast tolerance of 33.5 mph [if they were skiing at 35.5].

[Steven]

So Jamie get hosed again?

[Boody]

Just talked to a skier who was there, sounds like the slow time was legit, something was obviously wrong with the speed.  What exactly happened is still not known to me.  JB should have stuck with it and skied.  Both are phenominal skiers but I saw JB protest something at Diablo a couple years ago, don't remember what but it he was pretty pissed.  He is an example for others whether he wants to be or not. 

[ScarletArrow]

If they are running in rec mode on ZO, then are they intentionally trying to get slow tolerance times?  How else to explain why they're not running in tournament mode with near exact times every time?  Wasn't this an issue with PP afew years back where drivers were intentionally trying get slow times for skiers?

[Chad_Scott]

The decision was made to slow the boat down in the night finals and agreed upon by the skiers. The four skiers in the finals chose the speed which was 35.5. During the finals' JB and Will both ran 38 off, then JB ran 39 off. I was sitting at the end and was watching Willy as he came back at 39. From where I was sitting and having watched him ski during the weekend it was obvious that he was getting really deep at the buoys at his 39 off pass. I did not really know at that point what had happened. As I was bringing JB back towards the crowd, Willy was waving his ski in the air trying to get our attention (I thought he was just making sure I saw him in the water and did not run over him) He told the boat that the speed was not right and  it felt really slow. As we compared boat times, the were consistently about .13 slower throughout the course. I dont remember all of the numbers but for example. I had a 1.71 time at one ball with JB, Willys time was a 1.84 and it was consistently slow throughout the entire run. I dont know what happened in the boat but it was obviously a disadvantage to ski that much slower than JB. The judges granted Willy a re ride and JB elected not to ski. So Willy won the event. It was unfortunate but shit happens. I was at nationals yesterday and saw two rerides granted during one of the womens events due to a speed control issue, I am amazed that it is not a headline on the forums today. The most important thing that happened this weekend is that there was a huge crowd who despite the reride witnessed a great event that featured the best waterskiers in the world. This was the best event I have ever been to or been a part of and the large crowd that was in attendance enjoyed the event which featured slalom, jump, freestyle jump, barefooting and show skiing at a venue in the middle of the city of Milwaukee. Hats off to Dana Reed and those responsible for bring this event to this venue, It is a great start and just what the sport of waterskiing needed. There are bad things, bad calls and controversial decisions that occur in every sport its part of competition and things happen but the show must go on. Professional Football, baseball and basketball players etc keep playing even when a call doesn't go their way. Waterskiing finally had an audience and the show must go on. Best watersking event I have ever been to and look forward to next year. Great skiing by JB and Willy, they both ran 39 off twice in the prelims in less that ideal conditions.

[Than_Bogan]

Chad, this is GREAT news indeed.  What was the "source" of all these spectators?  Better advertising?  Location?  Free beer?/vanillaforum/js/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-laughing.gif

I think it's important to figure out exactly what went right so that it can be repeated!

[DW]

Chad, good report.  Not attending, but wishing I did based on feedback, I will throw in some ideas based on other sports events.  In auto racing, on the Nascar side, the policy is that the crowd will leave the stadium knowing who won.  If there was some sort of transgression, and that includes a rules violation, the team / driver will be handed a penalty and fine subsequent to the event.  In this case, once the victory celebration started, the winner would stand.  In other forms, F1 and Indy Car as examples, if a transgression is found, the results will be amended based on the severity of the penalty.  In these sports, there is now a tendency to invoke drive through (the pit) penalties if a transgression happens during the event.  These usually end up changing the results of the race while they are happening.  My only point here is to bring up a couple of scenario's on how event procedure is handled.  In this type of an event, the competitor was not the trangressor, the boat speed was, so it becomes more difficult to administer the "correction" since the competitor is the focal point not the boat.  The goal certainly is to crown the best skier that day/night.

As I read through the events of the Malibu Open, it is pretty clear to me that one should keep skiing until the end and then complain about the procedure if one is concerned about losing an event on a technicality.  On the flip side, JB certainly abides by his set of standards and holds true to them and one has to respect his values, no matter what we think.  Hopefully, the organizers and competitors can all learn, improve the process to eliminate the confusion and create more spectator friendly events in the future.  BTW, the pro darkness jump event last month was also quite a success as there were many fans in attendance that appeared to enjoy the event.  Fan friendly venues seem to be the common theme.

[Old MS Accout]

Reading UWskier post, if he had already had a beer, you cannot make him go ski. JB should have been the winner at that point.

 

[Dirt]

It makes a lot more sense after reading Chad's post. Hopefully there will be more pro tournaments in the future. It is a shame there are so many great skiers and so few chances to watch them ski.

[Chef23]

From reading Chad's post it sounds like Will was trying to raise his issue while he was still in the water. Did JB rush to shore and slam a beer?

[Than_Bogan]

lmao -- but possible

[Old MS Accout]

If he did, I dont think that would be the reason for it.

[Chef23]

I didn't think his reason was so he didn't have to go ski. I just thought the "JB had already had a beer and couldn't ski" response was pretty funny.

[eyepeeler]

All of the scores for the Malibu Open are out.  Was there something hard about that lake?  A lot of the scores looked a little low. 

[Boody]

Yea, it was a bit rolly. 

Here is the link to the webcast.

http://www.theproskitour.com/videos

[Roger]

One just has to ask why the commentators keep saying the skiers (in the case the Women's semi-final) reach speeds of 70mph through the wakes. I remember when they measured Deana and Andy at 35 and 38 off respectively and Deana reached 47mph and Andy reached 57mph. Hard to believe anyone is going much faster...

[Than_Bogan]

Yeah, nobody's goin' 70, except maybe somebody screaming super-late into a ball at 36mph / 41' (and who isn't going any further).

I did a bunch of math and physics some years ago, and my numbers were extremely similar to the measured ones you quote, so I have pretty high confidence in both.

I hate when announcers try to impress people with total B.S.  This reminds me a few years ago at the winter Olympics they kept talking about how in downhill you have forces acting on your body of 5000 lbs.  (They also compared that to a Grand Piano, and I just now thought to do a web check on that and it seems most Grand Pianos weigh well less than 1000 lbs -- guess they didn't get ANY of their facts right!)

In downhill, deceleration against the snow [EDITED -- removed incorrect use of "edging" which would rule out compression forces from changes in steepness] is the only source of force acting on your center of mass, so that can be converted directly to g's by diving by your body weight.  So even if the skier weighed 200 lbs, that's 25 g's -- enough to rip your internal organs off and 100% certain to kill you...

(I strongly suspect this completely bogus number came from an accelerometer attached to a ski and was thus measuring vibration -- forces that technically do exist [VERY breifly] but are absorbed by compression and don't act on the skier's C.O.M.  By the same argument, a driver in a car would experience massive forces when hitting a pothole, which of course is complete nonsense.)

Thankfully, at the most recent winter Olympics, they did not repeat this nonsense -- somebody must have gotten a clue in between.

In water ski slalom there is an actual external force acting on you, so this "g's" argument doesn't apply and there is no particular bound on how much force could be acting on you.  (I've computed it in the neighborhood of 500 lbs for 36/-41, but some measurements would be needed to corroborate that.)

[LeonL]

I know that night skiing is more difficult, but after something like this happens I would think that in the future sticking to the standard speed would be prudent.  BTW, does anyone know any details about the refides at Nationals that Chad spoke of and what was the cause?

[slow]

Ex Junior Olympian and 20 year ski coach here. The compression I'vefelt in World Cup level downhill is far greater than anythng I've felt water skiing. The strongest compression is felt on severely banked turns and compression jumps where you body is forced directly into the mountain. Really nothing to do with slowing due to edging. Actually with the modern reverse camber two footed turn, you generate speed from the energy you drive into the skis. Somewhat like a trampoline. The more you push into them, the more energy and speed you get out of them.

[UWSkier]

Regarding the scores, moreso than it being rolly from waves bouncing back, which was an issue due to flooding we've had here recently, the water was just plain rough from a 20 MPH wind blowing straight down-lake.  That 41off Will ran was with a huge headwind.

 Scores in the qualifying rounds from Friday when there was less wind were quite a bit higher than final scores.

 Regarding Will trying to get the attention of the boat, that's true.  After he had dropped at 4 ball, they brought Jamie back around shore and introduced him as the winner while Will sat in the water holding his ski in the air and motioning aggressively for the boat to return to him.  I don't think they could see him very well though as it was fairly dark even with the lights and to the boat I'm sure it just looked like he was holding his ski up to avoid being hit.  He was definitely in the water for a while and I could see he was frustrated (this happened directly in front of where I was sitting).

 Jamie had been on the dock for several minutes before they decided to give Will a re-ride.  I didn't see him crack open a brew as the dock was 80 yards or so down shore from me, but that's what he said happened at the party later that evening when talking to him about it.  I think his biggest beef was that they told him he was the winner before they were sure about it, brought him in with all the hoopla and fan-fare, then after several minutes changed the story.

[Than_Bogan]

Getting a bit off topic here, but oh well:

slow: "The compression I've felt in World Cup level downhill is far greater than anythng I've felt water skiing."

That's very possible.  I don't dispute that at all.  I have no means to compute or measure the actual forces in downhill, but I can bound them and 5000 lbs ain't the answer.  Also note that the peak force in water slalom exists quite briefly, whereas it could last much longer in downhill, potentially requiring the snow skier to use much more leg effort even if the peak value was similar (which it may not be).

slow: "The strongest compression is felt on severely banked turns and compression jumps where you body is forced directly into the mountain. Really nothing to do with slowing due to edging."

I believe you are misunderstanding or I have mis-stated something.  Severely banked turns or other reasons that you are "forced into the mountain" are *exactly* the source of force that I am talking about.  My guess is that you've misinterpreted the word "deceleration" to be synonymous with "slowing."  I'm talking about vector deceleration -- the rate of change of [vector] velocity that causes you to turn.  This could equally well be called "acceleration" (and just point the vector in the opposite direction), and may not result in a change in speed (meaning the magnitude of velocity, ignoring direction).

[Horton]

U guys want me to split this into a astrology physics thread? ;-)

[Than_Bogan]

I don't think astrology usually goes with physics.  Astronomy perhaps?/vanillaforum/js/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-wink.gif

I do need some work at staying on topic, though, don't I??

[Horton]

Astronomy Astrology? 

That is what you get when I post from my EVO 

[DW]

BTW, 25 g's is not 100% certain death.  Paul Tracy, Elkart Lake 43g's at the meter, certainly more than 25 to himself.  Johnny O'Connell. Texas, 49 g's.  Looks like Elliot Sadler's wreck higher than either of those.  On the other hand, Dale Sr. in that ball park.  Duration has a lot to do with amount of damage.  The body's weak link is not always your internal organs but the neck bones in a fore/aft force input, so direction of load input is also very critical.  I totally agree, the talking heads certainly stretch the facts well beyond logical comprehension and accuracy, which is truly sad.  An announcer is basically targeting a 8-10 year old intellectual level.

[slow]

I'm not disagreeing with you. 5000lbs of force is a joke.

My comment was in regards to the only force is deceleration due to edging. Edging being the key word. The maximum force I felt was riding a flat ski, and the only place my body could go was straight into the hill.

I actually enjoy your analysis. Best Regards.

[thager]

Sustained 25 g would probably be fatal. Instantaneous 25g may be survivable. Depends on if internal organs stay intact. Ejection seats in fighters give instantaneous G in the neighborhood of 20-22g. Of course if you're not aligned properly it can still injure you badly.

[HO 410]

5000 lbs or 70 mph is a clear oversell, but that's okay. Color commentary is very difficult. They were trying to create an emotional connection to the diffuclty and physical challenges of the sport, concrete numbers don't always work the best for this. Live, learn, do better the next time. These guys don't have much practice refining the art of filling the air during an entire round of tournament skiing. On TV, it's a staggering ammount of space to fill.

[Than_Bogan]

Excellent points, all!  Very interesting.  I was not aware of those cases where brief exposure to huge g's was proven survivable, and I'm glad to be.  However, this is quite believable when the duration is short, because in this scenario a good percentage of the force goes into deformation, rather than acting on the C.O.M..  The physics of deformation is insanely complicated, so most folks (and especially amateur physics geeks like me) try to use rigid body analysis when possible.  But over a sufficiently short time frame, deformation is where all the action is.

Slow, I never thought you were disagreeing.  Just wanted to do my best to be specific.  Glad you found it interesting.  With regard to the compression jumps, I should have noted that acceleration is in 3d, and you're absolutely right that my use of the word "edging" was incorrectly limiting.  I've edited my original post and so noted.

HO410 -- that is a really good point about having air that you've gotta fill.  And unlike at a football game where a massive staff of people is feeding you stuff to talk about, I strongly suspect water ski announcers are out there all by themselves with a mic!

Horton -- I actually used a different wrong term in my first response!  Yay edit button!

WOOT!  I figured out how to capitalized my forum name!

[Thomas Wayne]

Dale Sr., who refused to wear a HANS device (and lobbied strongly against NASCAR making them a requirement), would almost certainly survived if he had been wearing one.  I guess one could say he learned his lesson... assuming reincarnation exists AND he comes back as a race car driver.

As for announcer "overkill", if a skier is estimated to achieve wake-crossing speeds on the order of 57 mph (at -38' or so) then it seems the announcer would be within reason to say that the top slalom skiers often accelerate "from zero to 55 mph in about one second" - since the skier is traveling outward toward an apogee (at which time his outbound speed/direction reaches zero), and about one second later (at the wake) he's going ~55 mph the other direction (sort of).

So, without spewing total bullsh*t, the announcer could reasonably claim the skiers "go from zero to 55 in about one second" (and in about 40 feet), which is quicker than any car the spectators will ever own.

TW 

[Horton]

Thanimal,

At this point my typos are my calling card.

Thomas,

In the old days when jumpers sunk in front of the boat and then got into the high 60s - low 70 at the ramp. That was radical. I miss jumping. I was young once. Darn. So what happened to Jamie?

[Chef23]

I talked to someone that was right there and said that when Jamie got back on shore he thought he had one and tossed his bib to the crowd and accepted and drank a beer that someone handed to him. This happened while Will was in the water trying to get the boat back to him to protest. After drinking the beer Jamie didn't want to go back out on the water.

[UWSkier]

That's what I love about my city.  Do something cool and out of nowhere, someone presents you with a cold beer.  :)