Is this rule being judged correctly?

[disland]

The intent of the tight line is to ensure the safety of the skier. This means that if the skier can only

cross the line of the buoys with a slack line then he will not get the full point so there is no reason to

try that.

 

If the skier can ski away then was there in fact slack? What is the definition of slack? 1" bow in the line? 2" bow in the line? 3", 4" rope in the water? how can this be realistically judged?

[Bruce_Butterfield]

This is another example where the solution is worse than the previous rule it was suppose to fix.

[Than_Bogan]

I agree with Bruce that this rule hasn't worked out, for many reasons. However, I think I now understand it fairly well. Firstly, I believe "tight line" means that the rope is under tension, and that's as close as a physical phenomenon can get to being a pure yes-or-no. Either force is being transmitted all the way down the rope, or it's not.

 

Secondly, that tensioned line has to be achieved before crossing into the full buoy zone. (I have no clue what happens if you cross into that zone, then back out, then achieve tension, and then cross back in. If somebody can ever do that, I'm givin' 'em credit, that's for sure!)

 

This rule is called incorrectly more than it's called correctly, and I would vote to scrap it in a heart-beat.

[skierjp]

If you’ve ever been in the boat while Jeff Rodgers is skiing you would know why this is a rule. It still does not make sense because any skier in that kind of predicament is still going to hold on and hope for the best. I saw the rule used in Nationals at Okeeheelee in the girls 3 division. It caused a big controversy.

[skierjp]

Maybe the rule should be changed to where if you chose to eat the slack and take the hit but end up shooting the handle into the boat they take x amount of bouys off your score.

[BraceMaker]

@FWinter just shared his comments in the last DFC on this rule - might have more opinions.

@skierjp instead of taking bouys for hitting the boat - take the bouys if you don't keep the handle. Seems to address both the desire for safety in that A: there is a penalty to discourage trying to take a slack hit and B: eliminates arbitrary definitions of slack in the rope.

 

Only penalizing for physically hitting the boat means that you can get pretty darned near doing so with no penalty 99% of the time. But if you know you'll lose say half a pass for popping the handle after a slack hit you can decide if you need that ball bad enough.

 

Which calling slack on a girls 3 skier who maybe isn't even using an 8mm rope - they might have the line in the water at the turn

 

[skierjp]

?

[Than_Bogan]

Yeah if we're going to use "slack" in this context then we have to be very careful that it's not synonymous with curved. A rope perpendicular to gravity is always curved -- it's just a question of how much. "Slack" should be used to mean that the rope is not transmitting force from end-to-end and some further lengthening is required ("taking up the slack") before it will do so.

 

But better yet, get rid of the concept of getting extra points for getting back to the center. Maybe someday I'll get around to writing up all of the reasons I think that "radical" proposal would be better for the sport. But since it has zero chance of being adopted, I'm probably too lazy to bother.

[Kelvin]

Here is a slow motion video of Joel Howley's 41off at Moomba in the Finals. It was scored as 1.5 instead of 2. Jonathon Travers was announcing and said the 1.5 score was due to the slack line rule. When I watched this in real time, and you can clearly see it here in slow motion, he takes the hit at the line of the spray of the boat, which is clearly outside the wake/boat guide line. Based on the slack line rule, it appears to me that he has a tight line as he crosses the wake/boat guide line. Now, to be honest from this camera angle, you can't really see the next boat guide very well, but it appears that he gets back to the wake before the 3 ball boat guides. Thoughts?

 

 

Joel Howley Moomba Finals Slow Mo LINK

[Chef23]

Based on the video at super slow motion speeds it looks like Joel did have a tight line by the time he got back to the wakes and was through the gates. At 36 mph it in real time it may have looked different.

[BraceMaker]

Yeowza...

 

Of course as a spotter that's a lot of slack. If that was behind my boat I'd have been backing off the throttle for that much slack real risky having enough rope behind you to hang yourself on.

 

Revised the held on. Gets the score.

[lpskier]

From the video only, I would score that as 2 assuming he crossed the line of boatguides between the two and three ball boatguides. You can suck up as much slack as you like as long as you are outside the guides when you do, though it’s usually easier with an S turn. This move is frequently seen in all levels of tournament skiing.

 

It’s where you take the hit after crossing the line of boatguides where the rule applies. And FYI, the rule is a “tight line.” The “slack” line reference is in the rationale. While I agree that “slack” may be ambiguous, “tight” is fairly self explanatory.

 

Finally, it’s a pretty easy rule to call if you a) know and understand the rule, and b) are paying attention. It’s often a lot easier than calling a 1/4 v 1/2.

[liquid d]

Just put helmets on the boat crew, and suck it up Alice!

[JackQ]

I understand the logic for the “new” rule but the cure is worse than the disease.

 

Before the rule change, you could ski past the boat gate line (this is demarcation, not the boat wake or middle of boat guides) with slack, hold the handle up so the judges can see it and just let the boat pull out of your hands. Easier on the body and no danger to boat crew.

 

However there were some incidents with open skier that were so late they came close or actually skied into the platform narrowly avoiding serious injury. I believe that reverting to the old rule and fashioning a criteria where the skier score would be invalidated if they endangered themselves or boat crew by recklessly attempting to get the 1/2 buoy would be a better solution. Another judgment call but would be extremely rare circumstance.

[Cam]

 

[JackQ]

Cam, great shot of a skier that should be DQed. Obviously put themselves and boat crew at risk. Hitting the boat would not be good, but getting tangled up in rope could be catastrophic. No need to ask how I know, but the ER visit and recovery was not good, and I was lucky.

[ScottScott]

From the video it certainly looked like the line tightened just at the edge of the white wash, which is well outside the boat guide buoy line then you can barely make out the left boat guide buoy as he crossed through them, so he should have gotten a full 2 buoys. I think the video also reinforces the importance of this rule. There were points that he was well past the rope, and if he had turned in it could have been ugly as @JackQ suggested.

 

Keep the rule. The call was missed.

[ral]

Judges can review in slow motion from the boat camera. Usually very easy to call.

[Edbrazil]

Incredibly stupid rule. Getting back into the wake and letting go of slack should be a score of 3/4. Used to be a full point.