Rope spring back?

I know in the past waterski ropes used to spring back into the boat. With the non stretch wakeboard ropes we use today I have yet to see one land in the boat. Has anyone had something like a Yellow Jacket, Masterline, etc. land in the boat?

Someone recently had it happen to them and they are now suing the insurance company for damage to their face. This is the reason we MUST have boat insurance, but this is a dangerous sport. Grrrr...

Never seen it come close. Weird.

me neither.

What was it attached to?

I got a wake boarding rope from a sports liquidation company off of E-Bay.
First time out the handle hit the swim deck.
We now use the rope as a tie down.
(You get what you pay for)

Trying to get a first timer up on a wakeboard who weighed about 250 or so and he was plowing the whole time and was fighting the boat and the rope snapped and came in the boat which hit one of my buddies in the arm and it bruised the bone..

What kind of rope?

I had something simular to steve, big friend, fighting the boat, the rope broke where it conects to the handle. the entire rope came into the boat and coiled neatly on the floor, everyone in the boat was jumping out of the way, but then realised where is the handle? That is my only experince with the rope coming into the boat

I would say with a high end, non-stretch rope, you should never find this happening. If your using a ski rope, its a definite possibility.

Back in 98 when I first started riding we used a ski rope since we didnt know better. I personally took out a mirror. And then we put that anti recoil thing on the rope. It still didnt work and the handle flew back hit the driver in the head causing him to get 35 sticthes. Had to learn the hard way and finally learned to use a non-stretch rope and that ended all the problems

Had this happen all the time when skiing. Started wakeboarding and thought I would see what all the hype was about the non-stretch ropes. Shelled out for a yellow-jacket (which at the time I did not want to do). The thing I noticed was it completely eliminated recoil. And I too ride with 250lb men. There is no way this rope could shoot back into the boat. Best purchase for safety in the boat I have made.

The only thing I could think of is that it was maybe attached to a cheapy extended pylon that was not secured properly and allowed for too much flex, so the pylon potentially could recoil forward and pull the rope back in. Never seen it happen, but the physics theoretically could allow for it.

Apart from that, or maybe an off-brand rope that truly wasn't non-stretch, I'd wonder if there wasn't something fishy going on.

It was a straightline rope and it didnt really spring back it more seemed like it was thrown but it wasn't. Instead the handle just faced the boat and shot at the boat. Hasn't happened since so i don't know if it was just random or if something was wrong with the rope.

Last year I was trying to lay on my back and get back up while riding. There was too much tension and I guess that I wasn’t fast enough on the trick so I let go of the rope. I gave it a second try, really holding on to the rope with all I’ve got, but I couldn’t get back up so again I let go. The second time the rope launched forward and flew in to the boat.

One of my crew was taping video, the handle headed right for him and hit him in his uhmmm. You know where. He said that it hurt so bad that he almost threw up. We have nice video of the rope flying in to the boat directly at the camera followed by nice footage of the boat carpet. This year I’ve made some changes:
1) Not going to try the back trick thing again
2) Bought a non-stretch rope.


(Message edited by bigshow on May 27, 2005)