Rider down warning ideas

I'm always nervous when my kids are out in the water waiting for me to come around to pick them up. I'm interested in any ideas to improve safety. One thought I had was to mount a 360 degree yellow strobe light on the top of my tower to activate in addition to my orange flag. What are your thoughts on if this would significantly improve safety?

Make a slow pass through the riding area when you first get there. Take an AR15 and shoot any jet ski or rental boat you see in the area with at least 30 rounds below the water line. Wait for them to sink and you should be good to go.

Hate to say it but.......>>>>> Power Turn your Ass off. get between danger and your downed rider. Then wait for an opportunity to politely educate the errant driver.
That is about all you got within the bounds of law.

My education sessions vary greatly depending upon whether or not my wife is on board.....

Just come to a stop inline with rider and come straight back...no powerturns.
High vis vests or whathaveyou.
Teach kids to wave arms.
Don't tow them in front of idiots which might mean go find a safer place to play.

Love the yellow strobe idea.

In fact, I came up with the same idea, (decided on yellow or orange daytime visible strobe) coupled to some other electronics stuff, on a patent that I never filed.
Someone needs to tie the strobe "on" signal, to the output from perfect pass or GPS saying "I'm going less than 9 MPH". Once you turn on your "rider in the water" function, the strobe needs to stay on until the boat is going faster than 9MPH. Anytime you are slower than that, your wakeboarder / waterskier / wakesurfer is guaranteed to be in the water waiting for you to circle...

Yeah, all that was going to be in the patent too... just don't have enough time in the day...

Power turn...... No !!!!! This only creates more problem's for you and you rider and the boat coming your way. I like to get my boat turned around as soon as possible and then fast idle back to my rider at a 45 deg angle this makes it clear what direction you are going and should " push " the oncoming boat around you , picture something like how a fire engine blocks traffic at an auto accident . I always try to pick up my rider on my drivers side this gives me a much better view of him it the water and helps protect them .The strobe idea isn't bad ... but most boaters are not familiar with it so could be a major distraction from your rider in the water. My rules when towing kids are , no ballast , find calm water and shorten the rope. In my opinion if you have to power turn to get you rider out of danger you also are doing something wrong , change you path turn around or get the guys attention behind you or maybe its just too busy to put the kids in the water ?

I was thinking something like this. http://www.whelen.com/pb/Automotive/...trobe_360D.pdf

Are there regulations against this that any of you are aware of?

If you come off throttle right away and then gently turn w/o power you're usually right in line with the rider so a boat coming behind will turn to the side. If you make a huge power turn then you're pushing off to side and may actually direct the boat coming -toward- your rider.

I turn quickly at idle and am watching closely, if need be once I'm turned I'll haul ass back toward rider.

Personally, the type of morons / Wallys that will run over your rider are not going to notice your flag or anything else anyway.

Instruct your kids to lift their surf board out of the water and to look and wave it in all directions. Agree on getting a bright vest, as well as board. I actually think it faster to get back to the rider without doing a power turn. Best thing is to stay away from the Wallys.

I knew that would get you guys fired up...

flare guns

With wakesurfing, there should be no power turns anyway with a sacked boat.
When I'm driving and my rider falls, I pull off the throttle in one quick, but smooth motion and when I am about 90% pulled off, I turn the wheel hard to the non surf side. The boat ends up sitting about 135 degrees from the direction it was heading. Doing it like that, my rollers go right past me, I might have to wait for one to go by before I am idling back to my rider.
This is the quickest, safest way I have found to get back to the rider. No more added wake from power turns, no waiting forever for all your waves to pass and putting you at risk for swamping the boat, and you don't end up to far from your rider.
It took a while to get down, but now I can get it about 95% of the time and only end up about 50 feet if that from my rider.
I suggest practicing this method, and you will be able to pick them up quicker, and safer, and of course get more riding time in instead of waiting.

The strobe does seem like a good idea as well, it doesn't need to be high tech, just a 30 second momentary switch or standard toggle would be good.

How about a safety orange board??? a rider waving a huge orange board is waaay better than someone on the boat waving a little orange flag.
My next board is going to have a safety orange fabric laminated into the nose

... but spray paint would work too

I'm no expert on the topic but methinks this may do the trick....

I think strobe=bad idea. Other boaters are going to be riding by looking and wondering WTF is going on with that boat! It directs their attention to the strobe on your boat...when in reality you want their attention on your rider in the water. While they are trying to figure out if you are wannabe law enforcement or something else with your strobing light.... Thud! Oh crap what was that....I think we just ran over something. Bad idea.

1. Teach your kids not to fall!! Threatening undertones etc. and a real show of exacerbation when they do fall goes a long way. I always make my boys feel inferior when a fall takes place... Something like this: "Well if you knew what you were doing you would have not fallen in the first place!!" " What the f*&% is wrong with you? You can't even throw a double invert ts/hs back to back!!! Get in the boat we are going home!" One of my all time favorites is to just keep going when they do fall and act like the boat dies about 100 yards from them. Then I start yelling that they will need to swim to the boat as it is dead and will not start. But keep in mind it all starts at the ramp when you start to launch the boat. You have to start the belittling early and press hard on those hurt my feeling buttons. Once you get the technique down they really man up and give me a really good boat session without many falls.

2. This one is a stretch but should they fall teach them to doff their vest and swim to the bottom with one long breath hold until you get back to find them and pick them up.