Who won the Catalina ski race this year?

I've heard that there may be a bit of dissent brewing with the call on race day.

This is what I shot and the last photo I have before they hit the line, I drew a line from the far side of the buoy and then measured the distance from the ski tips to "my finish line" parallel with their ski lines.

I've heard that other photo exist that may show some interesting things.

Although Waynes boat #11 crossed the line first it is the first skier to cross is the winner. I think this should eliminate all questions..

It was a bad ass race with a spectacular finish. These guys skied their asses off.

[video=youtube;uDvQfe3KQRY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDvQfe3KQRY[/video]

Clearly, there was not a single doubt in my mind that Todd had won. Perhaps Avilla's attorneys are involved and are adjusting the finish line.....

Perhaps Avilla's attorneys are involved and are adjusting the finish line.....[/QUOTE]
Omg....nice

At this point I believe my photo shows todd in the lead, however I did not get real crazy establishing my finish line points, just did a quicky (but its close)

My images were all shot in Raw.

Dylan, 632 and 750 represent feet? Looks much closer than that...

CampbellCarl said:

Clearly, there was not a single doubt in my mind that Todd had won. Perhaps Avilla's attorneys are involved and are adjusting the finish line.....

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Ah bullshit, you looked at my cameras screen right after it happened, just like me. LOL

There are other photos out there from different vantage points, we get enough of them together and I am sure this can all be solved right here on good ol' RDP

CampbellCarl said:

Dylan, 632 and 750 represent feet? Looks much closer than that...

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Im thinking pixels or some shit,I dunno maybe some of that fancy metric shit. All done in photoshop using the measure tool and line tool.

whiteworks said:

All done in photoshop using the measure tool and line tool.

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Line tool?

I slowed down the video even more, the vantage point makes it hard to tell, I'll slow it down some more.

EVEN SLOWER version LOL.

Damn, it's hard to tell from that angle

I'm on Team Todd here, but think they should have tossed Chumlee over the side in the last corner for a bit more speed. That is way to close to be definitive. It varies with camera angle, so the only real call is from inline with the finish.

whiteworks said:

At this point I believe my photo shows todd in the lead, however I did not get real crazy establishing my finish line points, just did a quicky (but its close)

My images were all shot in Raw.

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That's good, and I have known Todd the majority of his life, but that's not at the finish line. I do believe that Todd won, but almost all of the photos I have seen were shot somewhat out of line with the two finish buoys. I think maybe Vanessa Eyles may have been closest to having them in line of the ones I have seen,, what do you think here? They are virtually toe to toe in the one shot, perhaps 4 or so feet before the line, but to me it looks really too close to call. I sent the race officials stating that they had a mistake about the times they posted for the two skiers, that there is no way they were .75 seconds apart, as that would have put them more than 100 feet apart if they were anywhere close to the 99.3 mph that Randy Davis said his GPS was reading across the line,, much more like .007 seconds different, but that no one could operate a stopwatch that quickly, and perhaps they should have a Go Pro mounted on one finish buoy aimed at the other.

I'm not a mathalete, but I am willing to bet some smarty pants fucker on here can trianglate these angles and measurements, from a few different vantage points and figure this shit out.

Heres a couple more

<--------No mathalete

whiteworks said:

I'm not mathalete, but I am willing to bet some smarty pants fucker on here can trianglate these angles and measurements, from a few different vantage points and figure this shit out.

Heres a couple more

<--------No mathalete

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True, but the distance clearly changed as they approached and crossed the line.

If I didn't know Mike Avila better, I would say he may have eased off the throttle just a fuzz early, since his boat is supposed to maybe be faster than Randy's. Look at the way Wayne is sitting back on his ski.

On top of that, the footage I have seen shows the distance between the two skiers increasing as they passed the line.

obnoxious001 said:

True, but the distance clearly changed as they approached and crossed the line.

If I didn't know Mike Avila better, I would say he may have eased off the throttle just a fuzz early, since his boat is supposed to maybe be faster than Randy's. Look at the way Wayne is sitting back on his ski.

On top of that, the footage I have seen shows the distance between the two skiers increasing as they passed the line.

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Rumor mill told me Wayne got it by about a foot and there are some photos, made me think about analyzing mine a bit more, I'm up in the air with the current data we have here. I have watched the video frame by frame and cannot see it from that angle, thats why I drew the second redline from the red buoy, maybe between that and the video Mr. Mathaletic will step up and make it happen, we also supposedly have a speed, this should be some easy shit for a rocket scientist to figure out LOL

You're pretty good with photoshop Guy, but I wanted those lines blue.....

TBI said:

You're pretty good with photoshop Guy, but I wanted those lines blue.....

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[video=youtube;PJzNUydlQ4I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJzNUydlQ4I[/video]

whiteworks said:

[video=youtube;PJzNUydlQ4I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJzNUydlQ4I[/video]

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Mudder Fucker

whiteworks said:

I'm not a mathalete, but I am willing to bet some smarty pants fucker on here can trianglate these angles and measurements, from a few different vantage points and figure this shit out.

Heres a couple more

<--------No mathalete

Click to expand...

to get technical, I think your estimated path of travel is a schmige off. Move the bottom skier's line to the center of the white wash like the top skier. It makes it a wee closer.:thumbsup We do this shit accurate on RDP

Deckin Around said:

to get technical, I think your estimated path of travel is a schmige off. Move the bottom skier's line to the center of the white wash like the top skier. It makes it a wee closer.:thumbsup We do this shit accurate on RDP

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Im not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I know that sum bitch is going directly where that ski rope is taking him at 100mph LOL

Jurys still out, need more data

Here you go Josh:thumbsup

Here is a shot right as Todd hits the imaginary line between between the red buoy and the finish line buoy on the far side. I am guestamating that is about 16' from the actual finish line, at this point he has the race, who knows LOL

Is the race scored from the Queen Mary or a boat in the water closer to the finish bouy? That is where it counts, what ever the angle was that the scoring judges saw. What a great race for both those teams. It is a shame that some can not accept the official finish. Yes there could be human error....I don't think there was, but I am only looking at pics and videos. Both teams need to be proud of a great race.

whiteworks said:

Here is a shot right as Todd hits the imaginary line between between the red buoy and the finish line buoy on the far side. I am guestamating that is about 16' from the actual finish line, at this point he has the race, who knows LOL

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That is still a biased photo due to camera angle, the other finish buoy is in the right corner of the frame?

By the way,, I still would say Todd won, but it's really almost too close to measure,, a foot or less from all of the different photos I have seen.

red ant said:

Is the race scored from the Queen Mary or a boat in the water closer to the finish bouy? That is where it counts, what ever the angle was that the scoring judges saw. What a great race for both those teams. It is a shame that some can not accept the official finish. Yes there could be human error....I don't think there was, but I am only looking at pics and videos. Both teams need to be proud of a great race.

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There are 4 judges that were sitting on the fantail of the queen mary inline with the buoys. my vantage points was about 100' forward of the line, I'm not sure what I saw and had to refer to my photos.

I do agree, even if they judged it wrong, it is, what it is now.:thumbsup

obnoxious001 said:

That is still a biased photo due to camera angle, the other finish buoy is in the right corner of the frame?

By the way,, I still would say Todd won, but it's really almost too close to measure,, a foot or less from all of the different photos I have seen.

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Here is a better screen shot with all three buoys, I will post the flip side vantage point right below this

from the other side

Once again, look at the center photo in the bottom row here. I believe that indicates how close the finish truly was.

I figure Todss ski is about 8' long and from the red buoy finish line it appears to be about 2 ski lengths, what do you guys think? 16' from the actual line, 100mph, 18" lead?

obnoxious001 said:

Once again, look at the center photo in the bottom row here. I believe that indicates how close the finish truly was.

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That looks like a postage stamp, do you have a bigger version, I cannot even see wayne.

You would think the race sponsors would have a better way to photo finish the winner??

whiteworks said:

There are 4 judges that were sitting on the fantail of the queen mary inline with the buoys. my vantage points was about 100' forward of the line, I'm not sure what I saw and had to refer to my photos.

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Looks like I was standing just to the left of you...

Im glad this came up, my question is why did they call the winner so quickly after a "photo finish"?? And what is the official rule for crossing the line? Front of ski, body??

The good news is this is only the first annual Catalina ski race. Therefor next year I'm sure someone will think of putting up a quality camera (video or still) of the exact buoy finish line angle to make all results final and verifiable. Wait what?

Has there ever been a closer finish? Probably never will again.

This time I took some frames from the video and drew in a finish line from buoy to buoy, I still can't see it LOL

I guessing it was one of these two skier's.

Wasn't Hammer there? Just ask him who won it, I'm sure he was paying attention :thumbsup

TBI said:

Wasn't Hammer there? Just ask him who won it, I'm sure he was paying attention :thumbsup

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He said it was Haig by a toenail!

Mondorally said:

He said it was Haig by a toenail!

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:thumbsup

One more image to stimulate the thought of digital images being good evidence, spent all of about 1 minute on this LOL

whiteworks said:

One more image to stimulate the thought of digital images being good evidence, spent all of about 1 minute on this LOL

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To the victor go the spoils.....

TBI said:

To the victor go the spoils.....



View attachment 355382

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My final thoughts on this subject is that the four judges that witnessed the race live and made the decision that they saw Todd cross the line first should be the final answer, PERIOD. I have looked at the images in this thread, slowed down, blown up, turned sideways and you cannot tell shit. However Todd did cross the imaginary line between the red anchor buoy and the finish line buoy on the far side first in the video for what ever thats worth

Being an eye witness to this photo finish has now left me doubting what I believed then and now........

CampbellCarl said:

Being an eye witness to this photo finish has now left me doubting what I believed then and now........

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Before or after?

TBI said:

Before or after?

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Yes

CampbellCarl said:

Yes

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PM Cent

TBI said:

Before or after?

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Wish I knew.