Surf Safety towing idea!

[Penken]

well i have been thinking about this before.
i ride surf just a tiny bit but i have feared sinking my ski and loosing it cause of the waves.
got to thinking about this when i heard someone sinking his ski and couldnt get it in and it got draged ot to sea and finaly got help from the coast guard. then again when tanman lost his ski in daytona.

this is my idea.
have a stainless loop or a towloop on your ski.

have a buoy with a rope and a carabiner on it. rescue goes out with this. hooks it to the ski. leaves it till it floats to a towable place.

okay your ski will be in the water for a while but you should get it back.

this is just an idea and i think it worth to throw it out there.

 

[deftons56]

Yeah I was thinking along the same lines but do 2 buoys like the guys on deadliest catch and then you would just have to hook the line between the two buoys.

 

[227]

Not following your idea, do you mean ride around with a bouy hooked to your ski? not very practicle, or do you mean have a rescue ski standing by with a rope and bouy in case you start to sink your ski? Again not very practical, who "gets" to be the guy who buys the rescue ski, and sits and keeps look out while the rest of your crew is out riding? Best option, keep the stock floataion foam in your ski -all the foam!

 

[OCD Solutions]

or design and sell a self inflating bouy that is attached to the ski. This idea has been covered many times and is quite feasible, the only real tricky part was the trigger.

 

[Penken]

well i was thinking about competions like surfslam.
the idea was to keep the ski afloat and visable.

when riding in with a crew. you could just leave it at the beach. rider goes down. one tries to help and tow one goes in gets buoy. goes back towing sucsessful buoy not needed, not beeing able to tow smack buoy on and get out of the break. wait for it to either drift in to shore or out outside the break. and tow it back in.

sorry if this was a stupid idea. just brainstorming. so stuff that happened to tanman dont have to happen again.

 

[blaster800]

What happend to having enough foam floatation onboard just to keep it afloat .. Is foam really that heavy ?

 

[tipafew]

I would think for events it wouldn't be a bad idea to have something like that in case there is a situation where you can't safely get hooked on and tow it. I like the thoughts of coming up with better and safer ways to have the rescue boats operating.

 

[btmboards]

If you were going to do somthing like that. The best way I see to doing it would be a self inflating device like mentioned in post 4. You would want it to inflate automaticly but instead have a trigger you pull to make it. That idea would actually be supper simple. Anywhere along the coast line you can by the life jackets or life belts that are real small and deflated but when you pull the cord a C02 cartridge inflated them. You can also order them or make them to the size or shape you want. Get one, put it under the nose peice, chin pad, front of tray or somthing and if you can't get it towed out or hooked up you just reach down pull the cord and WaLa you ski is floating again.

 

[Mr Bojangles]

I carry one of these when I dive, it rolls up and you can inflate it. So if you were to keep it on your vest with you with enough line, depending how deep the water is, and snap it on and get some air into it, it would be a great marker

 

[Droste14]

Hook up a trigger to the hood? hood and ski seperate far enough and pulls on a cord to inflate? then you could keep the bag inside the ski maybe?

 

[227]

sorry if this was a stupid idea. just brainstorming. so stuff that happened to tanman dont have to happen again.

Not a stupid idea, just not practical. The engineers at Yamaha figured that on board foam was the best way to deal with this problem. Have any of you seen that vid of McCluggage doing a big stab which knocks off his hood and sinks his ski? That thing was gone in 3 seconds! Not enough time to hook up a bouy. Besides, I haven't heard of ANYONE sinking and losing a ski who didn't remove some or all of the OEM foam

 

[Crab]

Tanners ski had the RRP footholds that remove a ton of foam, RRP pole which is heavy, lots and lots of reinforcement, and possibly no nose foam. It stayed afloat for quite a while, but in the end couldn't survive the pounding surf. If you take that much out what I reccomend is find old orange lifejackets and stuff the foam or kapok (old type) anywhere you can safely put it, can't have too much. (He also had a freshly installed one way)

 

[icecoled007]

Hook up a trigger to the hood? hood and ski seperate far enough and pulls on a cord to inflate? then you could keep the bag inside the ski maybe?

This seems like a good idea....

With those beefy brap straps do people really loose their hood that much?

 

[227]

With those beefy brap straps do people really loose their hood that much?

With straps you don't loose your hood but if your on a Yamaha they can shift sideways allowing water in the engine comp and utimately sinking the ski, UNLESS you have added a engine compartment hood seal lip. SXR's come stock with hood seal lips, thats were I got the idea. Check this thread, my hood doesn't budge!

http://www.x-h2o.com/threads/100984-Rn-hood-lip-ideas

 

[Droste14]

Yeah my idea wouldnt work if the hood didnt come off..

 

[Droste14]

But maybe have the inflator bolted down on the motor or something solid and put the pack infront of the flywheel cover? attatch the pull string to the hood and if the hood seperated far enough it would pull that inflator cord and inflate out? and it would be bolted to the ski (hopefully somewhere solid).

 

[Penken]

But maybe have the inflator bolted down on the motor or something solid and put the pack infront of the flywheel cover? attatch the pull string to the hood and if the hood seperated far enough it would pull that inflator cord and inflate out? and it would be bolted to the ski (hopefully somewhere solid).

how would you release the cord when you want to pop the hood?

dont the inflatable life jackets have pressure sensored triggers? dont inflate when water is splashed but when submerged?
this would be good

 

[Motorheads5]

I have an idea. When your buddy looses his ski then dont circle around it for 15 minutes and watch it sink.

 

[Droste14]

how would you release the cord when you want to pop the hood?

dont the inflatable life jackets have pressure sensored triggers? dont inflate when water is splashed but when submerged?
this would be good

Have the cord just long enough so that you could remove the hood carefully and be able to disconnect it when not in the water!

 

[Mr Bojangles]

they are presure sensitive, so if you did a sub, it could go off. Your best bet would be to stuff somthing next to the pump between the rideplate and hull, but its going to be too much trouble IMO