Did ZO change everything?

[disland]

The hypothesis is ZO changed the most efficient way to ski, making skiers more successful not loading the line out of the turn and minimize accelerate/deceleration. As skiers adapted the ski designers changed skis to most effectively enable the new style of skiing. The N1, A3, Mapple 6.0 and D3 Quest are the result.

 

True or False?

[klindy]

I thought ZO was designed to get the jump segment timing to work? :)

[rodltg2]

It seems like alot of people are spending lots of money on new ZO equiped boats or converting older boats to ZO. Is there any concern that in the near future a different speed control will be mandated? Is it a possibility that PP or a new player may come up with a better system?

[thager]

Not for the near future. Someday maybe, but the pulls would have to be much better so ZO would still be an advantage.

[MattP]

@disland I would say ZO made the skier have to ski efficient as possible, maintaing and controlling speed. As a result we have these new skis that making this easier.

[Waternut]

@rodltg2 I know lots of other people know more about ZO than me but I thought the whole point of ZO was to improve accuracy and consistency that PP struggled with. PP could be bullied a bit and would cause issues with timing and consistency between the buoys. With ZO, these inconsistencies can be compensated almost immediately which would hurt someone who's used to bullying PP.

 

If the above is true, then ZO is just a faster, smarter version of PP. So the real question is... How can ZO be improved? Until we can answer this, I don't see any replacements in the future.

[BraceMaker]

Did you start hearing people talking about working with the boat, and efficiency of motion, direction etc. before or after zero off was on the scene?

 

@rodltg2 - I think what will keep other players out of the arena is the agreement between ZO and PP.

 

Combined I don't think a new competetor will come into the arena and blow it out of the water as a "waterski speed control"

 

I would be more curious if the engine or boat manufacturers would be prohibited from their own engine management speed control - afterall, speed control is part of cars from the factory. What keeps Indmar from doing their own internal software for speed control?

[bishop8950]

No. My new ski feels better PP and ZO.

[eleeski]

PP Classic was a huge leap over hand driving. Slalom tolerances were unofficially rewritten to +-.04. Good drivers consistently ran .03 slow. Performances improved dramatically. PP Classic paddlewheel trick speeds are as good a feel as ZO. I would not buy a new boat or spend$$ to upgrade from PP Classic in tricks only - the differences are too small for me to feel.

 

Stargazer seemed to have a tougher time reacting than the switch or the enlightened driver. While the endcourse times were right on, buoy to buoy times often diverged and the skier could feel surges from the boat as it made up time. Some people are capable of setting up Stargazer to avoid these issues - but it is a rare talent. To the credit of PP, they are still working to improve their product. It is likely that one of the PP products will equal ZO.

 

ZO's real change came in tightening the tolerances that were actually applied to the skier. The times we see now are +-.01 from ZO. In practice and tournament! Any driver gives a consistent and excellent pull (speed wise). ZO is sensitive enough that you have options as to when and how hard corrections happen. Improvements over ZO in speed control will be lost in skier selected speed control response.

 

The next gen ZO or PP (or whatever) will not feel or function enough better to obsolete the current ZO. Auto steer? Now that's a must have!

 

Eric

[liquid d]

Everything changed when zo hit. You cannot get super deep and bull your way through. That's why there was so much resistance/complaints/etc. PP allowed you to screw up a bouy and get back in to the pass with a crank at the next one. ZO does not-really. Yes, you can recover, but not the same way. When you got super deep with PP, and you were able to hang on to it, it threw you wide and up on the bouy. You could catch up so much easier. ZO doesn't let you get super deep without hammering you and bringing you out of that deep cut.

It has made the top end get smoother. It took several years for the masses to "recover" /adjust. I think we are at the point where it's moot. Most have adjusted, and the young have known nothing but zo.

 

ps: but in the off season...take a set with PP...It's almost like cheating...so fun!

pss. I disagree with Eric about a huge leap over hand driving...me thinks you never got to ski behind Rocky , Tommy, Lyman, Gordo, and even than jump driver les was good at hand drivin!

[eleeski]

@liquid_d Out west we had Dale StJohn, Phil Adams and Janice Garrett. They were worth a full pass over your practice drivers. The speed controls had speed variations that mimicked THOSE drivers. That's why speed controls don't just hammer you to an exact speed - the variations are historically precedented and they make for a good feel.

 

People got lazy and started running PP Classic without the switch. When ZO hit, most were running normal,zero and getting very little throttle response. A far cry from the best hand drivers and the quality ZO response. When you got in too deep with PP, the response was RPM limited and you could pull your way out - and the time would be a couple hundredths slower. ZO has an unlimited response to loads. Hmmm, maybe a ZO with a limited response and allowing a slightly slower time would be a game changer?

 

Eric

[Horton]

@rodltg2 there has been a lot of talk about a new system popping up. I have skied behind one R&D system that could be a ZO competitor. A year ago I thought to was coming out any day .... so maybe.

[6balls]

ZO has simply made us ski more like we should have before...efficiently due to the physics/angles/forces etc. If you can ski ZO, you can ski PP similarly. If you ski PP abusively and try to ski ZO, it will be tough on you.

 

[Waternut]

@horton What did the R&D system have that would make it a competitor for ZO or is that secret squirrel stuff?

[Horton]

@waternut. all I know is it skied well and it was not ZO.

[Ham_Wallace]

I ski behind PP, PP StarGazer, and ZO. It really doesn't make any difference to me. I am just happy to go to the lake. The biggest problem that I encounter is the driver. If I am skiing behind a driver that always skis with long set up's, They don't understand short set up situations. They just nail it and let it settle in. This makes for hairy gate situations. They always say:"this is how we do it where I ski".

[gsm_peter]

Assume a more exact speed i the gole. The only improvement i can come with would be to add am extra sensor on the rope force. The ZO can then even more accurate predict Boat speed deviations.

[BraceMaker]

Or stronger engines with bigger props and more gear reduction.

 

But we care aboit wakes and fuel econ too

[gsm_peter]

Yes stronger engines with bigger props and more gear reduction helps.

But I would assume there are still improvements that can be done with more sensors to the ZO.

 

Another improvement (At least for me as a beginner) would be to get help keeping a steady course. Maybe to have the driver seat in the center of the boat, to have sensors that slightly could impact the steering servo etc if I am off center of the course.

 

When running 15 off a few feet off track can be manageable.

Assume I drive a skill fulled skier and are not driving ok.... he could become a bit annoyed....

I might give him some turns at 44 off and some at 38 off using 41 off rope.

[Waternut]

I imagine steering assist will be in our future but I never felt like it was something that was that big of a deal until you get beyond 35 off. If you're skiing 35 off regularly, you probably know quite a few people that can keep a decent boat path.

[Razorskier1]

I like ZO. I think it makes skiing less hard on my body.

[thager]

@Razorskier1 True, once a person quits trying to ski it like PP. If not it punishes you!

[Wish]

Struggled with ZO for a season or two. 35 at home was a high percentage pass. 38 doable on occasion. ZO at a tournament was a scrambled 35 at best (missing at times) and only a few at 38. Having only access to PP systems for practice, ZO at tournaments continued to be a challenge despite the advice of many as to what setting to choose. Had a chance in MN to test all the settings. C1 was THE best feeling for me by far. This was a setting that was never suggested at tournaments and at times was told to stay away from it coming off practices with PP. I understood why. Still glad I tested them all. With C1 I tied my all time tournament best and then beat it a few tournaments later. Now I feel like...well, if I can scrap out that line length with PP, ZO should be a piece of cake.

[6balls]

@wish, same for me. Finally got some practice time on ZO to find settings that worked ok for me coming from PP. Turned out different than anyone at tourney's sugggested. I can ski C1,2 or 3. Settled on 3 for the most part.

[Deanoski]

C-3

[Ham_Wallace]

A-1 to C-3

[A_B]

PP probably was more like decent hand driving. ZO is more like a mechanical bull.

 

I doubt that there were many drivers, if at any, that could react to varying pulls by a skier in trouble or one who loaded one or two buoys just because, and come in with the mechanical consistency of ZO.

 

[Ed_Obermeier]

Seems like there is an awful lot of PP trashing in this thread. Does everyone honestly hate PP now?

 

I'd remind everyone here that 1) Probably 95% of "serious" skiers (didn't say "good", said "serious") don't ski tournaments at all, so all this talk about how much greater a speed control system ZO is than PP is basically of no consequence to the vast majority of serious course skiers. 2) The vast majority of THAT group are probably in older boats that don't have or aren't able to install ZO, so again it's pretty much a non-issue to the vast majority of course skiers because we don't have and don't get much exposure to it.

 

PP Classic and especially Stargazer are very much capable of producing times within .03 per segment and per full pass, and it's not that hard to get them that dialed in to get an even pull throughout the entire pass (no surging issues). I have a good ski bud who has DBW SG in his boat ahd the pull and times come in perfect consistantly, just like ZO. Yeah the pull is a bit different, and some would say it's more "skier friendly" than ZO. Seriously - have we gotten so anal about times that +/- 3/100ths of a second really makes that much of a difference? There are still a lot of us out here who still enjoy the PP pull and could care less if our end times are off by .03 seconds or less. Jeez...

 

I am not a ZO hater, that's not my point. Although I have very limited exposure to ZO and still don't have a clue what setting works best for me, the times I do get to ski behind a ZO boat I've learned how to ski it and I get about the same scores as I do behind my own SG equiped boat.

 

Agreed, if you ski tournaments seriously you need to practice with what you'll get at the tournament. For the other 95% of us, it really isn't an issue.

[A_B]

ZO made driving so easy, even a squirrel can do it..

[disland]

you guys are off topic. The question I was trying to ask was are the new skis a result of the change is style resulting from ZO?

[A_B]

What does Jeff Rodgers ski on? He seems like he is doing quite well using more "older style".

I think skiing is evolving, with or without ZO. Lapoint tried a wider ski in the front section years ago when he was still on the tour, trying to maintain more speed in the turns. Skis are lighter, but the shape, sans the "Whale Shark", have not undergone radical change to carry more speed, but I think skiers are adapting how they ski.

 

Just my 2c.

[slalomboy96]

I know that with zero off every pass is the same, bouy to bouy, gate to gate, that has taken away one more variable and left me with only the top 8 inches to worry about, I have had a new ski each of the last 3 years and each has been better than the last I recently tried the A3, X7 and 2013 strada and N1(been on all season) and they all gave me the same bouy count just did the work n different places on the course, which ever way you look at it ZO and the new range of ski's has upped the game...

[SkiJay]

@disland I think most would concede that ZO narrowed down what a skier can get away with, so to a degree, it affected technique. But good technique before ZO was still good technique after ZO. Pre-ZO skis weren't designed to help strong skiers haul down the boat's speed.

 

The evolution of ski design and technique are too intertwined with technical developments in hull designs, engines, coaching techniques, bindings and the like to definitively say that ski design was affected by ZO.

 

I'm going to throw out there that GoPro type cameras and YouTube have had as much effect on recent skiing style evolution as has ZO or skis. Never before have skiers had so much access to so much excellent footage of the sport's top athletes from so many different angles, and such cheap access to waterproof digital HD video of their own skiing. And this benefits everyone from amateurs through the elites.

[disland]

@skijay interesting point. Either way its all good. One other off topic point. ZO has been great for jump. A lot less re rides

[Waternut]

Awesome post @Ed Obermeier. I'm typically a few balls behind a ZO boat than I am on a PP boat but that could just be home course/home boat vs new course/new boat for me. I certainly wouldn't turn down a pull from any cruise system and have never complained when my driver tells me he hand drove and it was a little fast or a little slow by 1mph which is probably 0.5 seconds off.

 

A properly setup ski still beats a ski that's not meant for you. As advanced composite practices become more mainstream, performance increases. Maybe ZO forced personal skier habits which forced a need for more advanced ski manufacturing but I think the "need" would've come shortly afterwards anyway purely out of the desire to produce the next best thing.

[gregy]

What setting do most of the pros use? Do they vary? I've tried b and a variants. Haven't tried c. But I'm not a shortline skier. Seems to me ZO has forced a more efficient skiing styles. One person I talked to is really big guy who used to muscle the boat s a consistent 38 off skier before, he's lost several passes with ZO. I'd argue that the most efficient method is the best. I think its been said above but its more of an evolution.

[6balls]

@gregy your buddy must change or be left behind. I was a skier like that in the hand drive and PP days. A skier can't muscle a 400 hp boat that adds throttle to counter the skier pull.

[ForrestGump]

@gregy Pros and Big Dawgs are all over the place. Some A, some B, some C.

[gregy]

@shaneh I was thinking it would be more consistent, more of timing vs line length. My best scores have been on b2 but I feel smoother on A settings. I'm installing pp zbox on my malibu, hope its close cause thats what most of skiing will be on this summer.