How do you feel about SurePath?

[Horton]

How do you feel about SurePath?

[JackQ]

It has improved the driving for many (including myself), keeps tournaments ligit ( all most all were) and removes the tenancy for some to question performances when the are good to exceptional. All for the cost of a used high-end slalom ski.

[jjackkrash]

I'd buy just for the homologation/surveying function. It's an incredible tool.

[brody]

Just another expense that the average person can’t afford

[RichardDoane]

from a scorer's perspective, it's not necessary for a C, and a hassle when holding L/R events. Adding expensive technical stuff begins to suck the fun out of having tournaments imo.

[Bruce_Butterfield]

It all depends on the context and its intended use:

1. For beginning and intermediate drivers it can be an extremely useful training aid
2. For experienced drivers, it won't tell them anything they don't already know apart from finding dead center when getting into an unfamiliar boat. i.e. any decent driver will already know if he's off a little and surepath will only confirm that.
3. The technology / user friendliness isn't there yet. At my lake, it frequently gets "lost" and goes to "Float" or "GPS" instead of "Fixed" where it needs to be. This appears to be random and we haven't been able to isolate any specific cause.
4. For L/R events it can replace end course video and maybe be a little easier on the TC, but what happens if it craps out? Still need end course video as a backup.

My biggest concern is that up and coming tournament drivers will "drive to the numbers" instead of "driving with the skier" and the pull will not be as good, so the art of being an exceptional driver will get lost. What I mean is that for 2 drivers with nearly identical surepath numbers or end course video, the "feel" of the pull can be dramatically different. The very best drivers spend hours driving shortline skiers and soliciting feedback from the skiers to improve their driving. I worry now that too many drivers will take the mindset that "my numbers were good, so the pull must be good". This is similar to the mindset for speed control that "hey, the time was good, so the pull must be good" and we all know that is far from true.

[Horton]

@Bruce_Butterfield at your lake do you have your own base station or are you using a public RTK base? If you have your own base it should be bulletproof as long as you have cell signal and restart the phones ever week or so.

[jcamp]

In a drivers' clinic a couple weeks ago Will Bush described a few new tools that are coming, including the ability for drivers to go home after a tournament and look at their own data. That is going to be very informative/helpful.

[Bruce_Butterfield]

@Horton yes we have our own base station.

[dave2ball]

I believe it’s good for taking your driving to your next level. As said earlier you don’t want to drive to numbers of sure path and you still want to be in rhythm with the skier. If a driver uses it as an aide to help him see where he is in the course and when or if they are picking up the skier either too early or late that will only make the driver better.

[BrennanKMN]

I haven't driven a SurePath equipped boat yet. I'd like to, and I agree that it is likely a fantastic training tool.

What concerns me is that it might become the next 'ZeroOff' where people are unwilling to train/ski/buy a boat/talk to people without it. I cannot think of many other sports where you can't compete with older gear. Sure you might be at a disadvantage, but it's your choice. Our sport is a little different as it is half community gear and half personal gear. I don't know how to deal with that in cases like this.

Those that live and breathe water skiing will do anything to maintain that edge, and that is fair. What sucks is the dedicated amateur skiers get screwed in the process. Those at the top win, those at the bottom don't care and those in the middle get stuck in a hard place.

I love seeing the advancement, but sometimes it hurts when that advancement basically requires a large investment maintain any kind of similarity. Or you have to wait it out until 3rd parties try and duplicate it, if they can. Our sport is so small and so niche there are rarely any 3rd parties.

According to the 2022 BOS survey 57% of readers spend less than $5,000 a year on skiing. A SurePath system is 50% of that budget alone, not even including the reoccurring costs for 2 SIM cards.

[RAWSki]

Once you understand the process of connecting SP to WSTIMS I find that it makes scoring easier --- even for C's and I believe it does help all level of drivers improve.

@Bruce_Butterfield "For L/R events it can replace end course video and maybe be a little easier on the TC, but what happens if it craps out? Still need end course video as a backup." ------Bruce didn't they say something similar about magnets and stop watches back when various speed controls were introduced?? ;-)

[rockdog]

@BrennanKMN very valid points.

[BraceMaker]

@BrennanKMN I would opinion that it's not the tech that is the problem but the tendency towards extortion. I would like to see speed controls and sure path come down in price which would be the natural progress of technology.

[DW]

I feel it depends on the definition of 'the sport'. If the sport is pro tournaments, it is probably good if it speeds up approving a boat path. If the sport is defined as water skiing which has a goal of increasing participants, it is not in the best interest of the sport due to cost / complexity and the continued spiral to an elitist / expensive activity. How many people bailed on the sport after being jettisoned in to 'real life' and waited 15-30 years to re-engage when funds permitted?Is it a cool gadget, absolutely, and a fun learning tool.

[lpskier]

@DW You are only required to have Sure Path at ELR tournaments. I’ll bet the vast majority of tournament skiers, drivers and other officials ski primarily or exclusively CFG tournaments, so it will hardly affect them, if at all.

What it does do it teach people where the middle is and it instills some degree of accountability.

[Taynton]

never seen one in person.

[EricW]

1 - Its great for the surveying function alone - seems like every year the ice moves a couple bouys and this is much easier then the total station.2 - For an experienced driver it helped in the beginning, you could get actual data on boat path - straight, in relation to picking up the skier / giving the skier a good pull. doesn't get used as much now..3 - For a not as experienced driver - its great to tell your spouse how they are driving without actually telling them how they are driving.4 - Reliability is so-so, most days it works great, but seems like it always needs: restarting, looses lock, or is just off (CL is off 5' on the box vs actual boat b/w the guides)5 - It can be a distraction sometimes drivers trying to get those 0's!

[Alberto Soares]

It is great for surveying, for driving unfortunately it does not work on our floating courses as any small breeze moves the course centerline a few centimeters making readings useless.

[Horton]

those of you complaining about reliability - do you have good cell signal? if you have your own base station with good internet and you have good cell signal with good internet in the boat you shouldn't have intermittent issues.

[Bruce_Butterfield]

@Horton I'm not complaining, just stating a fact. We "shouldn't" have issues, but we do. Cell tower is visible from lake and about 1/2 mile away with strong signal. And we have our own base station. Still have intermittent issues every time out.

[Horton]

@Bruce_Butterfield you need to talk to James @Jtim3032 . Should not be that hard.

[JackQ]

Some have stated that it make tournaments more of a hassle. I have found the opposite, we have used for all our tournaments C and R, with waterski connect, you don't have to radio in the times and saves the scores a step. We have been lucky using RTK (vice base station) the system has been very reliable.

@Bruce_Butterfield has a valid concern, drivers just going for the numbers. A bad pull can have good numbers. In the words of Lee Mershan, "Slalom is a dance and the driver needs to be the lead partner" if not the skier is chasing the boat or the boat trying to find the skier.

If you review your path on SurePath with the breadcrumbs, it is much more useful and instructive than the numbers.

[teammalibu]

It’s a great tool but as a TC I think it will be a long time before we can eliminate end course video! We were running around like crazy all day Saturday during our fall tourney changing antennas and cables pulling our hair out only to find out later that the SP server was down!It would have helped if they would have sent a mass email to let us know!

[paul]

Agree with @Alberto Soares - I have yet to find a way to make it work with floating “rc capable” courses. I’ve added side anchors and I still get drift in wind. Amazing teaching and surveying tool though. Just need a way for it to follow the course and not assume where it is

[rico]

I have used Surepath for about 2 years and it is an amazing tool.

- Easy to setup

- You can share one base station and save on cost

- Easy to carry around and transfer from boat to boat or take to tournaments

- Pushes drivers to get better and pay attention even in practice

- I have seen many people very surprised to see where the middle of the course was

- It does give skiers a better pull because drivers pay more attention. The numbers are one indication of the path. The replay of the path is a great training tool to learn how to be in sync with the skiers...

- It is not mandatory for C class tournament and if one wants to pull a national or international record, it makes sense to have it. 

- Makes it easier for driving committee to monitor the level of drivers at E,L,R tournaments

- Makes it easier for chief boat driver to monitor tournament

- Link to scoring is fantastic. Boat times are populating and drivers path data can be exported.

- I have not had issues with it. We use our own Surepath base station. We have to restart the base phone every few weeks. I found that people having issues don't have the best cell signal or internet, or have the rover antenna in the boat slightly covered by camera mount...

I would recommend to anyone serious about driving.

[RAWSki]

On 12/22/2022 at 11:13 AM, Bruce_Butterfield said:

@Horton I'm not complaining, just stating a fact. We "shouldn't" have issues, but we do. Cell tower is visible from lake and about 1/2 mile away with strong signal. And we have our own base station. Still have intermittent issues every time out.

We are running all wifi no cell and have occasional issues and slowly making it even better but if we use cheap sim cards for the rovers there are rarely issues.

Bruce have you tried a different cellular service?  

[Horton]

if you insist on not having sim card in the rover phone then you should consider SkiPath. I don't think they have their tournament approval spec but for day to day skiing it works great with radio frequency. mind you it takes a little setup.

 

[Bruce_Butterfield]

We use the cheap sim cards from Redpocket mobile in the base phone and rovers.  Something like $10/month for each one.  

[DW]

In addition to 'driver tools' to assist in keeping the boat path in tolerance in a slalom course, a no frills / low cost tool for the aspiring and/or ski partner driver would be a great addition.  In our circle of skiers, the boat path discussion started prior to even getting in the course,  ie: the driver being discussed does not hold a straight path.  The ability to either teach or correct a deviating path for a free ski set would be beneficial particularly if the 'teacher' (aka- significant other) is holding the handle during the set.  For many drivers the transition from pulling a free skier to running down the course is daunting.  On our lake, # of drivers to tap to free ski is double # willing to pull through our course.  I probably can safely assume most on this forum have played and at one time gone through the driver training experience / role.   

[paul]

Since this was lost on the changeover and might help someone…

I’ve used the system on 3 different floating courses. 2 were RC type and one was a SS mainline with triangles and aluminum pipes - so no “EZ-Slalom” type courses - although I did survey one EZ slalom with it.

On the main course, I put anchors 90 degrees to the mainline at the 55’s and tried to pull the whole course sideways to take out the movement. It works sort of. If you don’t do this the course will move side to side from the boat wash and it’s fairly useless even in calm water.

However, it really dependent on how deep the water is. The main course I have tried is 25-30’ of water. The best success I’ve had is a course in 6-10’ of water. On that course, with no side anchors, it worked pretty well as long as you didn’t spin. With side anchors it would work even better.

Another RC course I tried it on had one end in 60’ of water and the other end in 20’. It was noticeably worse on the deeper end even though the course was really tight.

In summary, it will work on a floating course in shallow water but you have to go through a few steps and I would only try it on a SS mainline with aluminum arms as an “EZ slalom” would be too light. It will not work in the wind nor in tournaments. When there is a light breeze I get the new drivers to focus on there results at the gates and one ball as those are the most accurate.

I have been thinking about adding more anchors but it will start to get complicated and difficult to work on.

I’ve found that in one set I can have a new driver drive the course down the middle instead of favouring one side so it’s a great tool. And of course the surveying, especially jump setup is awesome. I am using SkiPath and not SurePath as we don’t have cell service at our site.

[blakeyates]

@Gloersen, that's good stuff.  I'm considering S-P at my sight and we don't have tournaments here.

[hammerski]

It’s a great training tool.  I look forward to auto pilot where I can choose a Will Bush or Becky Lathrop ride! Then the ability to add some weave to work on the harder passes.  Actual, +10, +20 etc.  then tighten it up to actuals.  For now, ease of use has some quirks.  The phone battery went bad after a couple months, SP was great and sent me another phone!  But several of us tried, and we could never get the map transferred over.  We have one base station in the middle of three lakes.  Transferring maps tho, should be Apple easy.  We finally gave up and went back to old school with some expensive hardware just sitting in the boat. Bring on the autopilot!

Edited January 3, 2023 by hammerski

[Jtim3032]

@hammerski Sorry to hear you never managed to transfer your mapping files. I've sent you an email...

[Jtim3032]

@Bruce_Butterfield Bruce, drop me an email (james@ppcphoenix.com). I am sure we can find out why you are experiencing unreliability.

Just a note for other users, it is important when problem solving to understand that "connectivity", ie cell or WiFi connections, should be considered separately from GPS signal quality/strength.

As a rule of thumb, if the rover always achieves at least DGPS/Float but is not reliably achieving Fix, then the problem is quality/strength of GPS signal and not a connectivity issue. Another indicator is the "Age" value. If this consistently stays under about 5 seconds, then connectivity is fine. Things to look at are all antenna leads (kinking or compression, connectors) and siting of antennas (need clear view of the sky, especially the base antenna). Also camera mounts on top of the pylon can cause significant problems.

If however the rover falls back to "GPS" (as opposed to DGPS/Float/Fix), then the rover is NOT receiving error data from the base station and all the connectivity links (base and rover) should be looked at.

A step by step troubleshooting guide is here https://www.sure-path.com/troubleshooting.html

[Jtim3032]

On 12/22/2022 at 6:43 PM, paul said:

Agree with @Alberto Soares - I have yet to find a way to make it work with floating “rc capable” courses. I’ve added side anchors and I still get drift in wind. Amazing teaching and surveying tool though. Just need a way for it to follow the course and not assume where it is

Unfortunately following the position of the course dynamically involves putting at least 2 more receivers (the most expensive part of the system) out on the course itself, thus pretty much at least doubling the cost of the system. Furthermore, a lot of expensive tech lost when a boat/skier hits it 😕.

I hope to publish a few ideas on cross tethering methods over the next few weeks but I think the advent of GPS based BPMS has just highlighted that we have a lot to learn about how to better anchor floating courses going forward. Incidentally, wind induced problems can be seen on fixed anchor courses as well if the anchors are significantly deeper than about 10'. I know of at least one course in a 20+' depth lake where sub buoys are positioned 4' below the surface specifically to alleviate this problem. Also torpedo style boat guide buoys can be more prone to wind action if set too high in the water.

[paul]

On 1/7/2023 at 10:56 AM, Jtim3032 said:

Unfortunately following the position of the course dynamically involves putting at least 2 more receivers (the most expensive part of the system) out on the course itself, thus pretty much at least doubling the cost of the system. Furthermore, a lot of expensive tech lost when a boat/skier hits it 😕.

I hope to publish a few ideas on cross tethering methods over the next few weeks but I think the advent of GPS based BPMS has just highlighted that we have a lot to learn about how to better anchor floating courses going forward. Incidentally, wind induced problems can be seen on fixed anchor courses as well if the anchors are significantly deeper than about 10'. I know of at least one course in a 20+' depth lake where sub buoys are positioned 4' below the surface specifically to alleviate this problem. Also torpedo style boat guide buoys can be more prone to wind action if set too high in the water.

@Jtim3032Curious to hear your thoughts on cross tethering as I would love to get something working on our course

[BraceMaker]

@Jtim3032would there be an optical option for correction?

Its sort of the oddity of the sport that we expect the course to be dead nuts straight but if the course bows in actual use what's the best solution?

In machine automation often times if you cannot get the part to be where you want it the next best solution is to "look" at the part and go there.  Which makes me wonder if some sort of camera/reflector based system would work?

[Drago]

If the course bows, it doesn't really matter if you're 5-10cm off. The boat is either turning away from the skier on one side and into the skier on the other, or the buoy is 39' wide on one side and 36'4" on the other (or whatever). 
I guess you could look at the breadcrumbs to get an idea of when you're picking up the skier 

[jjackkrash]

If the course isn't straight for whatever reason I don't see this as a sure-path problem.  The course just isn't straight and needs to be fixed or the decision needs to made that it's close enough to ignore the problem.    

[Drago]

@jjackkrashThey were referring to a floating course, however, here's my Hot Take:

SurePath is way better for training than tournaments at this point.

At tournaments everyone is fiddling with it, it drops out often, the drivers are paying much more attention to the little phone than the skier, and we can't easily transfer the info to a personal device for review later.  Also, to the previous point,  if your course is off, even just a bit, you can get great end-course video with shabby SurePath data.

Apparently these are not factors in the super-high level tournaments, where everything is super accurate, so I'm hopeful it will trickle down and everything everywhere will get better.

[jjackkrash]

@Drago, all good points, but I will say the public lake course I ski on part time used to be out of tolerance but it's dead-bang on right now because I popped for surepath and have a few motivated club members who were willing to put it a few weekends of technical work.  We also went through the three private lakes I ski on, which started out pretty good, but are also now dead-bang on as well.   Unless you have a floating course there's no good excuse now for "course is off" if you really care about it being accurate.    

[Broussard]

23 hours ago, BraceMaker said:

Its sort of the oddity of the sport that we expect the course to be dead nuts straight but if the course bows in actual use what's the best solution?

Install a course with individual anchors.

[DW]

Turn buoy & boat path buoy tolerances appear to be .23m or 9.06" total side to side FWIW (doing the math tolerance for the course).  They don't need to be laterally in same direction within the tolerance window at any given buoy. 

I'll tip my hat to all the excellent drivers that make a run through the course so enjoyable and record attainable by very talented skiers.  We just have to be careful not to let technology overwhelm the ability to accomplish the driving task within human capability (ie:  too tight a tolerance leading to frequent out of tolerance paths).

[BraceMaker]

But if a lake is anchored individually and it's 20 feet deep a small change in wind means balls move.  

 

The skier and driver view the course optically sure path sees it as a line.

I get it if all courses had a 100 lb bouy solidly anchored that was highly buoyant and was 6 feet deep or more.  And all courses had one of those on all bouys then all courses would essentially have a static anchor 6 feet below as a reference point to wind drift.  Maybe it needs to have 100lbs mass and X lbs buoyancy to correct?

[ETskier]

What a great opportunity to have some really great club sponsored driving clinics. Most of the clinics are designed to test and upgrade tournament drivers.  I would like to believe a lot of outliers would attend to just be better drivers. Even if their home course is an Accufloat, SP will help them find the center and learn to be in sync with the skier. Then on their home course, and they can drive the curve and still give the skier a good ride.

[Jtim3032]

On 1/10/2023 at 2:46 PM, BraceMaker said:

@Jtim3032would there be an optical option for correction?

Its sort of the oddity of the sport that we expect the course to be dead nuts straight but if the course bows in actual use what's the best solution?

In machine automation often times if you cannot get the part to be where you want it the next best solution is to "look" at the part and go there.  Which makes me wonder if some sort of camera/reflector based system would work?

@BraceMaker Do you mean for correcting the overall position of the course after it has been mapped by GPS in the usual way? If so, then I suppose it might well be possible to monitor a reflector mounted on a buoy or two. That said, to get changes in bearing and distance you would need a Total Station (or two) which is expensive....but at least the amount of kit lost when hit by a boat/skier would be less 🙂

Regarding course straightness, if the cable(s) are basically straight lines then as you say, there is always the propensity for the course to bow. However, there are designs out there where a series of "spreaders" and "tethers" going between the longitudinal wires effectively introduce an element of triangulation into the structure in much the same way that such members increase strength in towers (eg high tension cable towers or crane towers). This effectively makes the course more rigid at least in the horizontal plane. I will try and post some diagrams over the weekend to illustrate.

If the course is fairly close to shore on both sides, then it is not hard to run cross course tope tethers to the shores and they don't need to be under much tension to work. They do this at Thorpe Park in the UK.

[Jtim3032]

16 hours ago, BraceMaker said:

But if a lake is anchored individually and it's 20 feet deep a small change in wind means balls move.  

 

The skier and driver view the course optically sure path sees it as a line.

I get it if all courses had a 100 lb bouy solidly anchored that was highly buoyant and was 6 feet deep or more.  And all courses had one of those on all bouys then all courses would essentially have a static anchor 6 feet below as a reference point to wind drift.  Maybe it needs to have 100lbs mass and X lbs buoyancy to correct?

@BraceMaker@paul bracemaker has it spot on here and this applies to both floating and fixed anchor courses. If we can achieve effective anchor points 4'-6' below the surface which are themselves stable, then a lot of problems go away at a stroke.

In the case of a floating course, sideways stability can be achieved by the sub point being anchored to two points on the lake bed via an upside down V arrangement. Diagrams to follow.... 

Edited January 12, 2023 by Jtim3032

[BraceMaker]

@Jtim3032

Right so the question becomes as a tool for the group of people who don't have private sites with permanant anchors or for whom they won't be able to laterally tether.  Is there a world where what we care about this that things look optically correct?  we define the boat path as lateral deviation but that I believe is always referenced on bouy position.

[Jtim3032]

3 hours ago, BraceMaker said:

@Jtim3032

Right so the question becomes as a tool for the group of people who don't have private sites with permanant anchors or for whom they won't be able to laterally tether.  Is there a world where what we care about this that things look optically correct?  we define the boat path as lateral deviation but that I believe is always referenced on bouy position.

@BraceMaker At sites that have a long term installation, there are always ways you can improve the lateral stability of the course. We may not have developed them yet but now people are seeing a need, I suspect people are going to put the time in to find ways of doing so. At sites where you can only install a temporary course, I would have thought that being "optically correct" is sufficient, ie Sure-Path is not going to give you much in terms of an investment return other than the knowledge that your course moves 🙂