How far in should the "Junior" or "Novice" green balls be placed?

[escmanaze]

So I know there is no "official" distance.  That is why I made this a poll question, so I can just have an understanding of what everybody else is doing.  

[LeonL]

Don't have an answer, only a question.  I think the answer is NO, but is there anything anywhere that even mentions rules or guidelines on judging mini course?

[BraceMaker]

https://www.usawaterski.org/adaptive-water-skiing---using-the-mid-buoy-slalom-course 

There is a standard provided for adaptive ski at 6.4m from centerline.  So lacking other specific guidance that would atleast give you a place to put it that makes sense to adaptive skiing - but as referenced its typically dropped on a cinder block so the tolerance is probably wide.  

The other common method is to drive the boat down the side of the boat guides which is roughly halfway between the turn ball on the near side and the other boat guide on the far side which would be ~6.4m as well.

[BobF]

We went with 10' to make it far enough to be well clear of the regular buoys, but challenging to our nearly-skiing-the-course skiers (27ish feet from center).  Running the boat between the boat lane and the turn buoys is still an option for juniors, putting the width at about 20 feet.  Lots of options, without disturbing the standard course.

[igkya]

Put them wherever you want them.  The goal is to have the skier(s) learn the timing (wake-crossing/pulls and turns) and improve.  As they get better, you could move the min-course closer to the actual turn balls.  Ours are about 6-7' from the turn balls.

[DvarianDan Johnson]

+1 for at least 10 ft  - keep in mind that for many courses they also serve to help keep the arms from sagging  - so again at least 10 ft 

[escmanaze]

1 hour ago, BraceMaker said:

https://www.usawaterski.org/adaptive-water-skiing---using-the-mid-buoy-slalom-course 

There is a standard provided for adaptive ski at 6.4m from centerline.  So lacking other specific guidance that would atleast give you a place to put it that makes sense to adaptive skiing - but as referenced its typically dropped on a cinder block so the tolerance is probably wide.  

The other common method is to drive the boat down the side of the boat guides which is roughly halfway between the turn ball on the near side and the other boat guide on the far side which would be ~6.4m as well.

 Initially I really liked the idea of putting it where the adaptive folks put it as that is at least something that is official and there is a reason for it to be that much.  

Then I looked at the actual numbers.  

Dang!!!

I don't think my daughter would even be out of the wake when getting those balls at long line and 18 mph.  Those are super close!!  

That is a few inches off from being exactly half the distance from the boat guide to the ball.  

Thanks for the recommendation.  It's good to know and it is the closest thing to "official" but I think it's just too close for my purposes.  

 

[Hallpass]

Dr. Jim Michaels seemed to have it optimized.

[Kelvin]

NCWSA has an official guideline. 7.5m from centerline plus/minus 1m. So 10-12 ft inside should be fine. 

[escmanaze]

16 hours ago, Kelvin said:

NCWSA has an official guideline. 7.5m from centerline plus/minus 1m. So 10-12 ft inside should be fine. 

I'm super interested.  Do you have a link to this?  

7.5 m from centerline would be exactly 4 m from the ball, which would be a little over 13 feet from the ball.  That wouldn't be too bad.  

1 minute ago, escmanaze said:

I'm super interested.  Do you have a link to this?  

7.5 m from centerline would be exactly 4 m from the ball, which would be a little over 13 feet from the ball.  That wouldn't be too bad.  

Oh look, maybe I found it.  Here is the link I have found so far.  

https://thencwsa.org/ncwsa-rule-update-slalom-mini-course/

 

 

Studying that link a little more.  It looks like he says 7.5 ±1.1m and he specifically says this is to accomodate existing green buoy courses.  This dimension would get him all the way down to the 6.4 m mentioned above for the adaptive courses, and it would also get him all the way up to just barely within those installed at 10 feet at 8.6m on the top end would be 9.5 feet from the main buoy.  

Importantly, though, he does also say that 8.5 m seems to be the optimal placement.  I kinda like that idea.  It is basically a touch under 10 feet away from the buoy.  Additionally, if 8.5m is deemed optimal, that is super easy to measure on the fly as well.  You basically just take your orange and yellow sections of rope.  Together they make up 3 meters.  You use those two sections to get that distance from the standard ball.  Voila!!  

3 meters it is!!  

[MitchellM]

17 minutes ago, escmanaze said:

I'm super interested.  Do you have a link to this?  

7.5 m from centerline would be exactly 4 m from the ball, which would be a little over 13 feet from the ball.  That wouldn't be too bad.  

Oh look, maybe I found it.  Here is the link I have found so far.  

https://thencwsa.org/ncwsa-rule-update-slalom-mini-course/

 

 

Great find and interesting document in that link.  They give a broad range at 7.5m +/- 1.1m while stating that 8.5m is likely "best".  Good information on scoring as well.

[MISkier]

@LeonL, the judging for the mini-course is at the NCWSA link provided by @escmanaze.  It's a collegiate rule/guideline/thing.  Basically, you get 1/2 buoy for each mini-course buoy.  But, there is a complication of mixing in full course buoys and mini-course buoys.  They have some examples at the link.  I only judged one of these quite a few years ago and it took a minute or two to get somewhat acclimated to it.

[escmanaze]

1 hour ago, MISkier said:

@LeonL, the judging for the mini-course is at the NCWSA link provided by @escmanaze.  It's a collegiate rule/guideline/thing.  Basically, you get 1/2 buoy for each mini-course buoy.  But, there is a complication of mixing in full course buoys and mini-course buoys.  They have some examples at the link.  I only judged one of these quite a few years ago and it took a minute or two to get somewhat acclimated to it.

The other problem I find with this judging technique is this:  

It seems to say that if you ski all 6 on the mini course, you get your score of 3, but then you don't get to move on to your next speed.  That seems kinda silly.  So are we telling everybody that skis the mini course that if they show up to a tournament, they are guaranteed to have only 1 pass and then they are done?  

If I'm reading that correctly, it seems kinda silly, and i would definitely not run a tournament like that.  I would say something like:  "if you get at least a mini buoy at all 6 on a pass, then you are allowed to turn around and take another pass at the next speed up.  Your turn isn't done until you miss both the normal ball and the mini ball somewhere.  That's how I would run it anyway.  

Even more realistically, if I was scoring it, I would just score it exactly like a normal set would be scored on the ZBS chart, and then cut the final result in half for the mini-course.  Seems a lot simpler and makes more sense.  

[IGski]

Insta-Slalom website shows 10' on their diagram.

[escmanaze]

Kind of a side note, but I find it worth mentioning from my soapbox here:  

 

Most importantly, from that link, I think is this portion:  

We hope to see mini courses at many tournaments this year, because we believe it will help grow our sport and encourage skiers to learn the slalom course.

 

For everybody looking to grow the sport and grow tournaments, understand that there are a LOT of folks out there who could be potential participants, but simply aren't good enough to ski a full pass at any reasonable speed.  They don't want to show up to a tournament and ask the dude to go 17.4 mph, and they wouldn't want to ski behind the garbage wake at that speed anyway.  But it is way more likely that they would show up to a tourney, participate in the lowest level, have the boat go about 26, let their score be the best of 6 passes, get some green balls, and end up with a score in the 20's somewhere if they make at least one of those passes at 26 mph.  

If we force people to wait until they can nail an opener at 26 or so mph on the full balls before they can really feel like real participants at a tourney, then we are eliminating a HUGE number of skiers from the potential pool of candidates who potentially might enjoy participating at a tourney.  

I really feel like the mini course concept should be heavily considered as a method for increasing the growth of the sport and specifically tournament skiing.  

[MitchellM]

10 minutes ago, escmanaze said:

Kind of a side note, but I find it worth mentioning from my soapbox here:  

 

Most importantly, from that link, I think is this portion:  

We hope to see mini courses at many tournaments this year, because we believe it will help grow our sport and encourage skiers to learn the slalom course.

 

For everybody looking to grow the sport and grow tournaments, understand that there are a LOT of folks out there who could be potential participants, but simply aren't good enough to ski a full pass at any reasonable speed.  They don't want to show up to a tournament and ask the dude to go 17.4 mph, and they wouldn't want to ski behind the garbage wake at that speed anyway.  But it is way more likely that they would show up to a tourney, participate in the lowest level, have the boat go about 26, let their score be the best of 6 passes, get some green balls, and end up with a score in the 20's somewhere if they make at least one of those passes at 26 mph.  

If we force people to wait until they can nail an opener at 26 or so mph on the full balls before they can really feel like real participants at a tourney, then we are eliminating a HUGE number of skiers from the potential pool of candidates who potentially might enjoy participating at a tourney.  

I really feel like the mini course concept should be heavily considered as a method for increasing the growth of the sport and specifically tournament skiing.  

Great post.  I currently can only get 1,2,3 and 6 on the course at 28mph.  No way I'd be interested in any sort of competition event.  My kids are also learning.  We could get through the mini course and increase our speeds.  At least we would get a few passes in and feel like part of the event.

Jodi Fisher did have some grass roots  tournaments which guaranteed a few passes for everyone.  These were a lot of fun and brought folks out.

[Rednucleus]

Many years ago I skied in the INT tournaments in novice class. Never made a full pass in eight weeks of tour stops (fun summer, lots of different lakes and lots of new friends) - but got most of the mini balls & gates and ended up 2nd place in novice end of year and got a nice Bare wet suit as my prize.  Still ski today with friends I made in INT

[ToddL]

There are older posts that debated the value of mini course buoys.   The basic sides are:
For:
1) They help build rhythm and challenge new skiers to get from side to side with urgency and intent
2) They allow for more meaningful novice/new skier participation at a competition than gates and zero all rounds

Against:
1) The sport is about skiing the standard course, for years competition was based upon skiing the normal course, keep practicing until one can ski the normal course
2) Some people find their presence distracting visually when skiing the normal course
3) They are in the way if a skier is practicing trick skiing on a lake with them vs tricking between normal turn buoys and boat guides

[ETskier]

There are no absolute rules in scoring for the mini course. The skier would be skiing as a class F.  Lots of suggestions,  but it's up to the LOC how they want to score, allow mulligans, continuations, etc. Go have some FUN.

[jjackkrash]

IIRC, the novice skiers at our local tournaments get 4 passes, period.  

[LeonL]

11 hours ago, ETskier said:

There are no absolute rules in scoring for the mini course. The skier would be skiing as a class F.  Lots of suggestions,  but it's up to the LOC how they want to score, allow mulligans, continuations, etc. Go have some FUN.

Key wording in lots of the above posts...scoring.  To be clear in this, reality dictates that the mini course requires that any score entered in the scorebook to be 0.  

[BraceMaker]

16 hours ago, MitchellM said:

Great post.  I currently can only get 1,2,3 and 6 on the course at 28mph.  No way I'd be interested in any sort of competition event. 

What can you get at 26?  if you can do 6 @15' 26 mph + 3 at 28mph that's a score of 51 points assuming you're men's 3 based on you having kids that completely justifies you being a tournament skier.  All of these people ski tournaments in your skill range just getting ball 4 and 5 on your 28mph pass and you're a level 4 skier.  

If you're a bit younger you are even more competitive (fewer people under 35 w/ kids and student loans can waterski)

 

Maybe the biggest failing is not telling people like yourself just how competitive you really could be and therefore uninvolved.

 

[RAWSki]

The mini course is great to get new course skiers started —-the farther out the better to allow for some challenge while still allowing the beginners to survive trick size wakes.  I have had a few “seasoned” skiers complain about them installed.  Just tell them it’s for the betterment of the sport and if the “green balls” distract them they are focusing on the wrong thing while skiing. 

[MitchellM]

49 minutes ago, BraceMaker said:

What can you get at 26?  if you can do 6 @15' 26 mph + 3 at 28mph that's a score of 51 points assuming you're men's 3 based on you having kids that completely justifies you being a tournament skier.  All of these people ski tournaments in your skill range just getting ball 4 and 5 on your 28mph pass and you're a level 4 skier.  

If you're a bit younger you are even more competitive (fewer people under 35 w/ kids and student loans can waterski)

 

Maybe the biggest failing is not telling people like yourself just how competitive you really could be and therefore uninvolved.

 

@BraceMaker I'm 59 and just learning.  Hardly a tournament skier.  My "kids" are in their 20's and also learning.

[BraceMaker]

Even better! Tournament skiing needs you and your kids to show up.

 

[gsm_peter]

We use approach 1,8 to 1,9 meters. About 6-7 feets.

Works well for us.We think that more narrow impact rythm.....

[nautique1228]

We put ours a 6’ inside of the turn buoys when we installed our new course. It was a debated topic, some people have said they are too far. I think it’s better to push them a little. 
 

When I was growing up we would just drive down the center of the right side of the course, like brace maker said. Ski around 1-3-5 to the right and the left boat guide on the left side. 

[BraceMaker]

32 minutes ago, nautique1228 said:

We put ours a 6’ inside of the turn buoys when we installed our new course. It was a debated topic, some people have said they are too far. I think it’s better to push them a little. 

There's psychology here for sure, if too wide you get to the point where some skiers don't get success pretty quickly.  Too narrow you could get really lazy skiers who don't go for it but then again even with narrow novice balls people can always go for the full balls too.

[Garn]

@escmanaze How they do it here, at least in the tournaments that my wife and girls entered, if they were skiing the junior course in the novice division, they could start at any speed they wanted.  If they made all six, they bumped the speed up two mph.  They kept doing this until they reached the maximum speed for that age group.  At that point, they had to ski the regular course.  But nobody made it to the regular course.

[escmanaze]

On 7/11/2024 at 8:56 AM, Garn said:

@escmanaze How they do it here, at least in the tournaments that my wife and girls entered, if they were skiing the junior course in the novice division, they could start at any speed they wanted.  If they made all six, they bumped the speed up two mph.  They kept doing this until they reached the maximum speed for that age group.  At that point, they had to ski the regular course.  But nobody made it to the regular course.

That seems to be a sensible way to do it.