Just uploaded a video from this past summer. A driver needs to have a rubber neck to stay on top of this one!! We had a "fill-in" announcer that night and even he didn't see this one coming!! Too much fun!! (sorry about the video quality,, I lost some resolution converting to mpeg) Kevin Here's the link: http://www.hydrodyners.com/videos/show.php?movie_id=13
Cool video, I am glad the system worked as advertised also. Bryan is going to put a link at the top of the forum that wil take you to the video section in the near future. Daniel
Being picky here, but it is only a 180 ATB, and one of the skiers only follows the boat around. Having said that, I have skied, and driven both types of ATB's. I believe the 180 version is actually harder, for both the driver and the skier.
Daniel, Yep, you're correct, it's really only a 180 deg turn. Keeping the second skier on the inside (the guy following the boat) from sinking is the hard part as he cuts to the inside of the initial turn and can lose speed fast. I think the guys are running 75' and 85' ropes but I'm thinking maybe we should shorten them up? But hey, as they say, "I'm just the boat driver". Kevin
In that i act i think we used a 65ft rope and a 75ft rope. Im pretty sure on this. We tryed a couple times to have the boat turn the opposite way after the longer rope guy had completed his 360 to try and get the shorter guy to do a 360 too, but the boat couldn't get up to speed so we wouldn't sink. Hopefully we will get it next year where both skiers can complete a 360. talk about the boat driver having to have his head on a swivel!
When I do the single around with my daughter, I think we use about a 50, or maybe even shorter rope. The skier gets around a lot faster and does not slow down as much. In my opinion, the rope should be as short as possible and still be safe. jim
I am currently redoing my old team's 360 atb handles and ropes. The #1 rope is 35ft, and they go back in 5 ft increments from there. They do a total of 5 guys now. Greg
35 is about as short as I would want to see. And 5 foot increments is tighter than necessary for only 5 skiers. Try bumping it up to 6' increments, and you might have some happier skiers. For learning multiples, definitely go longer than 5'. I like to go in the 8-10' difference range for teaching multiples to new atb'ers.