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Slalom Winch


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Ive extensively debated how to do boatoess course but in my opinion it needs a rail. Ideally it would be sort of like building an inverted roller coaster track with the supports opposite turn balls and a dog leg at the end. It would pull multiple skiers at a time where youd have your line coupled to a cart at the end and then the cable would grab your carrier and whisk you to the other end where there would be different places to drop. Skier would probably swap their own ropes onto inverted pylon on their own cart.

 

Ive wondered if you could elimnate the track but even if the cable could be under crazy high tension the deflection over the course would be huge.

 

The cart would counter your pull and if so desired have mounted diaplacement plates to create wakes for other sports, the mass of the cart would give momentum.

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I wish there was a way to set it up in a similar way to how wakeboarders/wakerskaters have done. Would be awesome to be able to set up in spots where you can't get boats into.

 

@BraceMaker what you've described makes the most sense to me. That's pretty much the only way I could imagine setting it up.

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Way back, I am taliking 15-20 years in the Water Ski Mag, there was a artists impression and some blurb on a system not dis-similar to what @Bracemaker is suggesting, basically it was a rollercoaster style track underwater with a hydraulically driven pylon with a crows nest on top for the operator (safety) when the pylon reached the end it would rotate and automatically shorten the line if need be, at the water level of the pylon there was a structure to simulate the boat wake, if this was actually possible it may make the olympics viable as every skier would get the same tow.

I do not really know what sort of cost would be invloved but interesting to think that it could also be operated lakeside and eliminate the crows nest on top of the pylon.

When you look at the cost of cable tow systems, I wonder if this could be achieved at a similar cost.

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I too have been thinking of a cable based system for slalomers. I think it would have to be a rail based contraption like @BraceMaker describes - it seems the only way to simulate a fixed mounting point for the rope as the pilon of a boat. I don't see how you could have multiple carts, though, since the water would be messed up for a couple of minutes after the first skier. I'm not a structural engineer or a rollercoaster designer, but I imagine the building costs would be quite high and the maintenance costs would also be substantial.
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@pregom inverted cart means no water contact. At both ends the concept is like a highspeed chair lift. Cart goes out into a dog leg where at a certain point each cart decouples and stops where the skier can float ask for line length or speed change or what have you. When ready to go that siding would then have to have sort of a soft start where it would pick up your cart and pull you up then as you came onto the mainline that would snag you and be at mainline speed.

 

I debated hydraulic but in reality a looped cable is better because then a flywheel can be accelerated at both ends to provided the source of power. And before people complain about pull I had my idea there anyway which was to have the pylon on a mechanism on the cart that basically gained and lost position Ie pushed forwards is acceleration pulled back is coast.

 

Anyhown probably take a few moments to change speed on mainline but not bad

 

Other ideas I had was a long sort of splined shaft where each cart had a gearbox which engaged a rack on the rail and therefore input speed would be constant on all carriers but different carriers could be run different speeds.

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@Drago Several things. Boat plus driver plus spotter and a lake 2300 ft long and 200 wide = lots of resources, lots of water, lots of shoreline and lots of space. The maximum through put of said water is low and in all areas the equation excludes the existence of said lake in proximity to things like... cities jobs schools, neighbors... if you could figure out how to do this you could have sort of a two parallel course set up staggered to share single towers between the balls, the whoe thing could be right at 1000 feet assuming you had the pick up going around a loop into the gate.

 

You could bring up skier density to the point that you could pull tournaments of 100s of people in a few yours with all of the action visible.

 

You could locate this much closer to ciries and infrastructure as it would be half the length.

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Oh, I see, @BraceMaker - ingenious! My cart and rail would be all submerged, with only the pilon sticking out of the water. Your dog leg could allow to choose a different rope length, choosing a different speed would require changing the main line speed, wouldn’t it?
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@Bracemaker a couple of issues with your system the main one being that the pull will be coming from above a bit like a cable system, because I started out on a cable system it screwed me up position wise for years, cable watersking is ok if only one person is on it at a time, maybe two if the other person obey's etiquette and stay in a straight line down the back straight and does not weave about while the other person is in the course, two issues though the line is soft and can be pulled around, you can just lay on it, and the other is that the pull comes from above.

Maintenance is high and the system does not like 34 - 36 mph.

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I would just like to add, or though the cable system was not ideal, it was very sociable, cheap skiing and a good way of getying people into the sport, most of the cable systems went over to join wakeboard parks, because of the finacial reward, also thats why I believe wakeboarding became so popular easy entry into the sport, not many cable systems cater for water skiers anymore.
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@Stevie Boy true for wakeboard style systems.

 

To work this needs to basically have carts on tracks like roller coaster cars onto the bottom of which is a fixed inverted pylon the end of which attaches your rope the proper height above water. By being above and not below water you dont need to pull it through the water or create turbulence.

 

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Depends. To have a cart deep enough such that the skier is not at risk of hitting the rail period means probably 4 feet down. And then you have to contend with gunk and debris.

 

I was looking at it from who could you approach to build it. Roller coaster engineering firm or ski hill lift firm.

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