After watching the pro's last year at Bell Acqua, I realized its time for the pro's to change the rope lengths. Back in the day, there could be 3 passes a skier may or may not make it through. Now, its pretty much guaranteed everyone is getting into 39.5, so you have one exciting pass to watch before 41 off, then Nate wins. I enjoy watching how easy they make 32, 35, 38, look, but to me the tournaments are not as exciting as they used to be. I think the ultimate pro men tournament rope lengths should be 33, 36, 39, 40, 42, 43. I'd love to watch them run 39, then have to come right back at 40 off.
Or, how about changing all tournament ropes to 16, 20, 24, 28, 31, 34, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43? I think those lengths would make amateur and pro tournaments funner to watch! Pro men start at 34, pro women start at 31. Anyone else interested in getting rid of the current standard?
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But I agree, at a world class tournament,* results are compressing and watching every guy run -32 and to some extent -35 is definitely not adding to spectator excitement.
*Is it just me, or is this year an off-year? Seems like most world-caliber tournaments this summer, we're only seeing one or two guys get in to -41, and lots going down at -39. Last year in Calgary, 15-ish guys got into -41.
Loop Color
Meters
Meters Off
Feet
Feet Off
Neutral
23.00
0.00
75
0
Red
18.25
4.75
60
15
Orange
16.00
7.00
53
22
Yellow
14.25
8.75
47
28
Green
13.00
10.00
43
32
Blue
12.00
11.00
40
35
Violet
11.25
11.75
37
38
Neutral
10.75
12.25
35.5
39.5
Pink
10.25
12.75
34
41
Black
9.75
13.25
37
43
Given this progression of smaller increments, there has been some thought given to adding take offs between 39/41 and between 41/43. Recently, the idea of a 42 off seemed to gain some anecdotal traction.
However, I suspect one reason for not having that small of a take off section is the process of fidding the rope and the subsequently difficulty of making a section that short with a loop on each end. Rope sections that are .5M are already less than 20 inches. Thus, a .25 section would be less than 10 inches including the loops and knots and fidding work. So, I suspect that is why once the rope gets to -39.5 / 10.75M, all increments after than are .5M long.
f) Tow lines to be used for the Slalom event shall have loops spliced into the line at distances from the handle of 16m, 14.25m, 13m, 12m, 11.25m and 10.75m to permit quick change of line length.
Additional loops should be added if there is a reasonable expectation that they will be used. The lengths are as follows:
o 10.25m
o 9.75m
o 9.50m
Due to the physical difficulty of adding splices for a 25cm shortening, a different rope may be used for the 9.5m shortening if necessary.
And surely someone can figure out a .25m length by looking at the rope design a little differently.
If a skier can run -41, but can't run -43, then we can't just assume that he can also run a full -42 pass. If a -42 rope length was added, the current WR's a partial -43 are not really valid any more until some of those skiers can master the new -42. I suspect that skiers who are only getting 2-2.5 at -43 may not get a full 6 at a -42 line all that often if at all.
Thumbs up to a 10m line, though. The jump from 10.25 ("41") to 9.75 ("43") is just too gigantic. It's more interesting to watch when there is more differentiation at the end. If the very best can get some 3 and 4's at 10m and the damn-near-that-good can "only" get 1-2 at 10m, I think that'll be more entertaining.
And 9.75 is still there to go next. There's some pain around bringing the current records forward with this change, but I feel it's doable since this would be an insertion rather than a total rejiggering.
Some ropes have a loop for the pylon on one end of the section and at the other end, the "loop" is just big enough to fit over next section's pylon loop.
Look at this InTow rope as an example:
I imagine that this type of section configuration might allow for a .25M section to be feasible.
Another idea is to have the final main line (currently the 43 off section) include a adjustment section. By this I mean, the main line could be 9M long, then come with a .75M extension and a .50M extension to the main line. The default extension is the .75M one. When the skier runs 10.25 (41 off), the rope handler swaps out the .75M extension for the .50M extension. Thus the pylon still has the 10.75 loop on it, but the main line is .25 M shorter due to swapping the extensions out for a total rope length of 10.00 (or 42 off). When the skier runs that length, the rope handler switches back from the .50M extension to the .75M extension and moves the pylon loop to the 9.75 loop (43 off). With this idea, all current ropes are still usable once the 10.25M mainline is swapped for the 9M mainline with the two extensions. Then, if a skier ever runs 9.75M (43 off), the rope handler can swap out the extensions again to the .50M one creating a 9.50M or (44 off) line.
Rule 10.04 c
Splices shall be 15 cm. (minimum) long secured with tucks before and/or after the splice, or
knotted to prevent slipping.
This isn't a big issue for the current line lengths seeing as there is only one length that messes everything up and we have yet to see it used in a tournament. For now the option of having a dedicated rope for 9.25M is the logical one since no one is needing it.
http://www.usawaterski.org/pages/divisions/3event/2015AWSARuleBook.pdf#page=97
Excel file behind the pic is attached below.