Waternut

I'm RFF and blew my left ACL snow skiing. I could tell you my whole saga but I'll try to keep it fairly short. Basically I blew my ACL in Dec 2019 and had ACL reconstruction Feb 2020. I was 39 and both my doctor and I believed that to continue doing all the aggressive activities that I do, I would need surgery. I can tell you that the surgery itself takes about an hour or so and you go home before lunch but the recovery is pretty terrible in both physical and mental aspects. I had no idea that it would be so tough on me mentally but I also had to deal with it during the peak of covid so I didn't get a lot of social interaction to help. I read that 4-6 months of physical therapy was typical. I actually enjoyed PT as it let me leave work early 2 days a week in exchange for an hour of getting my butt whooped into shape. By 3.5 months, they had me doing full sprints outside but quick turns were still a little painful. By the 4th month, they basically gave me the boot and said "you're as good as we can get you and the rest is on you". Unfortunately, I didn't ski the first summer after surgery and didn't snow ski the next winter either but I think I was more afraid to to tear it again vs not being physically ready. Covid didn't really help with those either though. I do have a little lingering pain from time to time due to the cartilage wearing down under my kneecap. However, I'm back to mtn biking, rock climbing, snow skiing in the trees and moguls, and waterskiing into 32off at 34mph. I run a Reflex front and toe plate rear and have for many years. My PB waterskiing pre-surgery was 1 at 38off at 34mph and I've been knocking on the door of 35off again but I think that's more to do with me doing less course skiing these in favor of other life events and not surgery related. I still have a little PTSD prior to going snow skiing but once I get on the slopes, that pretty much goes away. Is my knee perfect like pre-surgery....definitely not but I can still do all of the things I used to. Some things are harder like lowering myself down off a tall step and some things I don't do anymore like squat down on my heels but if you can get through the mental blocks, the physical issues aren't that bad. Regina Jaquess probably said it best in a quick interview after her ACL surgery... Minute 53:00 of this documentary

I made notes but after years of not looking at them it's hard to decipher exactly what was going on but it seems like the common problems I was looking to fix include the following: On-side turns: Hook turns, breaking at the waist, too much angle (can't hang on), and too much rear leg effort required Off-side turns: Can't turn, no angle, generally unstable, and unstable off the second wake

I definitely move forward to crank a high speed turn which is probably the biggest problem... As we all know, it's easier to fix the loose screws everywhere except between our ears so was looking into that first. haha

So I've been skiing the course now for about 12 years and have been on 8 different skis in that time from the old MPD, variety of Radars, and D3's. Radar skis seem to suit me the best but this isn't a brand question, it's a ski tuning problem. As I was struggling with my latest ski, I started to dive back into old setups to see what has worked in the past. What I found was rather staggering... Every ski I've ever been on, I start with the stock recommended settings and through many changes, they have all ended up with the boots all the way back or very close to it and a short/deep fin setup. When I say short/deep, I'm talking very close numbers where all of the settings fall within +/- 0.005" from each other. So I put the current ski within that range and like magic, it started to ski fantastic. The ski was doing so good that for the first time since ACL surgery 3 years ago, I started getting into 35off again. Here's where the problem starts... Once I get into that magic zone with the fin where the ski feels fast, stable, and effortless, I start to blow the tail on my offside when I get late. Granted it only happens when I'm late and aggressively trying to get back in the game but it's not a friendly fall. I've got skijay's book on the fin whispering but I'm not sure where to go from here. Seems like the obvious thing to do is to move the bindings forward a little to help unload the fin but that usually makes me break at the waist and/or overload my back leg which happens to be my bad knee and I'll begin to wince from pain by the second set. Any ideas? besides the obvious "suck less"...

Seems more like the Vapor is more up my alley. Is the pro build a noticeable difference to the lithium? I'm sure anything new is probably going to feel more alive than my current ski but just curious.

It's been quite a while since I've been involved with the waterski community but trying to get back into the swing of things. For years, I was buying a 1 year old high end ski and then selling my 2 year old ski. Then I got the 2014 Vapor and just stuck with it for several years because it just worked for me. Eventually, I bought a brand new 2017 vapor although it was for the 2019 season. Unfortunately, the 2020 and 2021 seasons, I was recovering from ACL surgery so the ski barely got used. So I have a 2017 ski but it's really only had about 2.5 seasons of use but I think it may be time for an upgrade. I generally start at 32mph 28off and can usually get to 32 off at 34mph but it's been quite a while since I've touched 35 or 38off. I actually tried to step down to 22off to get more passes but the wake bump is horrendous behind our boat and it seemed to hurt more than helped. With all of that out of the way, I'm kind of curious if the Vapors are still the way to go at 28 and 32 off and 34mph or if the new Senates might help me smooth out my skiing and help me with consistency. Also, is the pro build worth it at this level or are the Lithium's good enough?

Interesting point @Doug. We don't really have algae so much but coontail is our big problem and it will bog the boat down heavily if it gets on the prop or rudder. I'd say if anything we've been skiing better the last two weeks but I'm not sure it's water related as much as we're finally getting back into the swing of it after slowly progressing through the summer.

Well I went back to the course today and asked a few questions and confirmed our previous results. The boat still has solid times at -65rpms on 28-32mph. I think 34mph would've been a bit better at -55rpms but could just be the skier bullying the boat. The owner said he's been running 87 octane for many years. Said he tried 89 and 93 early on and never noticed any difference in boat characteristics or times and has run the cheap 87 ever since. Keep in mind this is a guy who will often ask about times if the boat is +/- 0.25 seconds. I won't be able to ski again at that lake for another 2 weeks but I think if it's still off at that point, I'll probably just manually reprogram all the speeds if someone else doesn't do it first.

I'll ask the owner if he changed fuels. I know the 2000 SN is supposed to run on 89 octane but I don't know if he runs that or not... At the same time, someone at the gas station could've put the wrong fuel in the wrong tank as well so we'll have to see if things change next week. I've built my fair share of performance engines and I agree that high compression engines do benefit from higher octanes assuming they need it to prevent knocking. I don't know that I've ever seen a reduction in power by having too much octane though. I've always considered that more rumor than fact. That said, I was super skeptical of a big enough change to notice but after a little math, I'm beginning to question myself. In a car, on the street, I stand behind my original notion that you won't notice a 2-3% power difference that you'd get by maximizing the octane rating to prevent knock. However, in a ski boat with a specific time, a 2-3% increase/reduction in power and A LOT of drag that boats have, 2-3% might actually be the 1/2 - 3/4 of a second or so that we're seeing.

Haha on the premium fuel comment. I don't know what the owner puts in honestly but he's the only one who buys gas for the boat. As for times when I was driving, I got +0.02-0.04 sec slow with a gentle headwind at -65 rpms on 32mph and 34mph. On the tailwind I went to -70 rpms and was getting +/- 0.01 sec pretty consistently. I ignore any pass where the skier doesn't make all 6 turns because that always ends up running a hair fast.

Bimini was up both times. It was two of us skiing with the same result.

So our club boat is a 2000 ski nautique and we have the older Perfect Pass running in rpm mode. It's not the GPS version but we are using the multi line display. Anyway, on to the problem. We've been running the same setup and configuration for 4-5 years but yesterday the boat was running fast. We ended up just doing a quick adjustment and taking 65 rpms off the speed (aka -65rpms). First thing I checked was crew weight but that was accurate. Skier weight was accurate. Tried turning the cruise and engine off/on a few times. We skied the rest of the day with the -65 rpms and everything was fine so it's not like it was a fluke timing error but very curious how it just seemed to mess up all of a sudden. This adjustment was based on course times and not speedometer readout. My only other thoughts are prop related but typically you only ever lose speed with the prop if a blade hits something or you get weeds on the prop/rudder. Before we go and re-baseline the cruise, anyone have an idea of how the cruise got off in the first place?

Gotta remember this boat is targeted more at Millennials, probably without kids, and I know a lot of them that have shown a lot of interest in the boat. What's holding them all back is the lack of knowledge and reviews on that boat though. It's a lot of money to drop on a concept that appears to work but no one I personally know has even seen one in person much less been on the lake in one. You can kind of assume similarities between various boat manufacturers of certain years...ie V drives in the early 2000's, direct drives in the mid 80's, etc. It's a bit harder to guess what a totally new boat design and concept will be like.

Even switching to a different liner in the same shell is like learning to ski again. It'll come back pretty quick (10-15 sets) so if you want to use that new shell, keep with it.

@miski I feel your pain. Thankfully I never seriously injured my ankle but it is very weak mostly from a year or two of using the black cuff Reflex boot with stiff release settings and lots of crashes. The countless times I've rolled my ankles doing other things hasn't helped much either. Watching videos of people pulling their foot out of the release makes me cringe so I did the test years ago and haven't done it since because it usually makes my ankle hurt doing it on dry land. I still run my top buckle fairly loose. I'd call it snug at best. Unfortunately, this also means that in a release, the force is transmitted through my ankle since the top buckle isn't doing much. That said, my release setting is off the scale on the light side. The bottom of the white indicating line is above the 4 on my release mechanism. I'm 6' tall and 190 lbs and in 4-5 years of skiing, I've only pre-released once when I tried going to an even lower release setting. Maybe 1 in 4 times I release, my back foot will still be in the RTP and I slip my foot in the RTP every time I get up so it's not in there super tight. As for the limiting strap, I run that pretty tight. I found the middle setting would allow my ankle to be the limiting factor and not the flexion strap. My flexion strap about 1.375 inches from the end.