In This Issue
Water Skis That Spare Your Knees
Researchers combine science and cottage life to build a better slalom water ski
BY ANDREW VOWLES
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| Prof. John Runciman, Engineering, works on getting his slalom water ski into tiptop shape. His rejuvenated interest in water skiing after a 20-year hiatus has led to research designed to create a ski that will make the sport less physically taxing. Photos by Martin Schwalbe |
Water skiing is a youngster's pursuit, right? Think again. If you hung up your skis long ago to save your knees, elbows and other “biological bearings” from the wrenching and pounding they took on the water, you might take heart from a novel project to be conducted in Ontario's cottage country this summer by Prof. John Runciman, Engineering.
In research that combines cottage life with his workaday biomechanics studies, Runciman will take a team of volunteer researchers-cum-water skiing buffs to a colleague's lakefront retreat to test ergonomic designs for a company's slalom water ski. He hopes the project will yield data for new ski designs leading to a healthful but less physically taxing workout for novices and retired skiers alike.
Slotting himself into the latter group, Runciman, 44, says: “These new skis would open doors for these people to ski comfortably again.”
Before last summer, the U of G engineer hadn't gotten up behind a motorboat for about two decades. Glancing across his Thornbrough Building office at a photo taken last year — the action shot catches Runciman slicing through the water — he says it all came back: both the exhilaration and the exhaustion. He was on the water for about 30 minutes that day. “My arms ached for days afterward.”
It had started after his brother- in-law turned up last year with an old pair of skis for Runciman's children. Feeling that tug all the way from the 1970s, Runciman went looking for replacement bindings for the worn-out pair.
Everyone wanted to sell him brand-new equipment instead, but he was set on rejuvenating that original pair. He finally tracked down the bindings on eBay. “This is where the problem started.”
Besides those bindings, he found the same slalom water ski — a single board rather than a pair — that had been de rigueur during his own youth. Made by California-based Maherajah Water Skis, that particular brand had taken a number of competitive skiers to world championships when Runciman was growing up.
Intrigued, he called up the company and reached Bob Maher, still running the firm more than 50 years after its founding. Maher also tried to talk him into getting new equipment. At optimum speed, he said, Runciman would be too heavy for that slalom ski.
Last fall, after recovering from his return to the sport, the U of G engineer called Maher back. Their conversation led to a new project: using engineering tools and techniques to study a new ergonomic slalom water ski.
The idea was new for both sides.
Maher — whom Runciman calls the “father of slalom skis” — began building skis as a teenager with his older brother at their summer cabin. Their designs relied not on science but on intuition and experience.
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| After a two-decade break from water skiing, Prof. John Runciman hit the waves last summer and is now testing designs for a new ergonomic slalom water ski. |
Testing a water ski was also a novel project for Runciman, a biological engineer. His earlier biomechanics projects have included evaluating skull halo designs, designing spine and shoulder implants, and advising on cartilage grafting for joint repairs. That work has helped in studying and refining implements and techniques used by his frequent collaborators in the Ontario Veterinary College and the Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences.
On one level, he sees this new project as just another aspect of studying the built-in mechanical marvels that allow us and other living things to bend and flex. Runciman says those biological bearings made of bone and cartilage, including a few demonstration limbs that adorn his office, easily outperform any analogue dreamed up in a machine shop. At the same time, he's interested in finding ways to translate biomechanics know-how to improve conventional mechanical engineering design.
Having spent part of the winter designing and modifying instruments to collect ski data, he is now looking forward to testing designs for slalom skis this summer. That'll happen on Six Mile Lake near Georgian Bay, where Prof. Bob Dony, Engineering, owns a cottage. There's a benefit for Dony, too, because he'll record video of skiers in action to collect data for his own image analysis research.
Runciman has lined up about a dozen former skiers — almost all of them U of G faculty and students — to take part. “I've had no trouble getting volunteers,” he says.
If he helps to build a better water ski, he figures he may help get some of those retirees back exercising on the water. And maybe he'll help introduce the sport to new prospects, including two wannabe water skiers: his daughters, nine-year-old Anne and six-year-old Kate.