Aguavidapirate

Thanks all - some good insights that look like things we haven't tried. Boat is a '98 Nautique, BTW.

I've searched the forum and found some similar threads, but nothing exact. So the situation is that the Perfect Pass either never drops the throttle back or floors the engine immediately on starting the engine. It's been a long saga for a system that originally worked and then stopped holding speed. We then tweaked it, started replacing parts, and eventually got into the above situation. We've been on calls with PP, had a mechanic look at it, and all to no avail so far. Our next option is to pull it all off and re-install from scratch in hopes that it's something we're missing with troubleshooting. Has anybody come across this situation? Basically it seems we're operating at the extremes - the revving on startup is because just the servo tightening at startup goes well beyond the idle point. Winding the servo string in reverse (which is obviously wrong, but a desperate guess) means it never engages because it's just operating in the slack. Is it possible something outside of the mechanisms that are part of the system is a miss? Any ideas of things to try? Thanks for any help!!!

Seems the hanging counter-weight is pretty popular ... but I'm just squeamish about a ~10lb weight hanging a few feet below the water line...

I've revised the design based on the feedback. I'm hoping to not be tweaking this all season, so am really appreciating learning what's bound to go wrong over time. If I understand the feedback correctly, the revised design should incorporate the main recommendations for this type of system. I also posted some off-the-shelf products for the system. For the off-the-shelf materials, it looks a 5"x11" deepwater float would be a little undersized to submerge a 10" ball, so it could be augmented with additional another small float and then trimmed down. From there, I'm thinking minor tuning of the system could be done at the small float that's used to keep the system afloat when a ball slalom ball is knocked off (i.e. swapping out slightly smaller or larger floats). The main thing I prefer about this system over the counterweight is that unless the counterweight is buried, there's something in the water for the prop to hit that's heavy. Not a worry for experienced drivers, but we have kids that will be driving the boat on our lake before long ...

Carpe Skiem Rooster Tail Sine Wave Trails

Thanks all - extremely helpful!! Our lake is varies 12-18 inches every 7-10 days during the season, so even needing to do minor tweaks is a pain. @skiep - I like your piston design - we were considering something similar, but where the pipe was buried. Your system could be installed in a filled lake though, so major advantage there. BTW - I recommend taking down your phone number - web crawlers will eventually find it and you'll start getting lots of robocalls :)

I've been searching through history of tried-and-true self-leveling buoy systems. Our lake varies a lot (~18" throughout the season), and nothing has worked great so far. The systems that seem most common are types of counter-weights inside a piston, sometimes requiring a dry lake to install (not an option for me, at least this year). So I came up with the following design, which could be installed anytime and seems quite simple. I can't find any problems with it in concept, but since I can't find where someone else has tried it, that usually means there's a fatal flaw... Self-Leveling buoys using counter buoys and pulley For a course buoy inflated to 10" in diameter, I calculated that we'd need the equivalent of a ball inflated to 8" diameter to provide the force required to submerge the marker by 50%. We could simply use a less-inflated ball or use a float that would be approximately the same volume, but an oblong foam buoy is preferred so inflation doesn't vary over time. The pulley would need to hold up in water over time, and would need kept clear of weeds so it doesn't bind, although I believe the buoys would self-correct pretty aggressively even without the pulley rotating freely. In general, it seems like a pretty simple and low-maintenance design. Has anybody tried this? Any reasons you can think of that might cause problems?

As someone who has adopted waterskiing as the go-to sport for my 40-60 age range (and beyond hopefully), the amount of goals around staying healthy in the above is a bit disconcerting - especially after experiencing my first rib injury (fortunately not major). That said, I'm likely never going to be skiing the speeds (i.e. rope lengths) that many of you are at!

Great question - ours is piled in the corner of our garage. Wish we still had the box it came in :(