Update for everyone. We spent a week in TN and had some time to play with the disc on a tow rope behind the boat. It is a freaking RIOT of a good time and ANYONE can ride the thing.
I tried surfing on it standing up. That worked OK. Around 10mph with no ballast. It's too "slow" to really surf, but if you shorten a normal ski rope to about 15-18ft from eye to handle it puts you right on the edge of the wake. You can stand on it here all day and leaning will induce some small amount of steering in it. Handle position laterally controls spin pretty easy. Was really quite fun.
Neighbors 11yr old daughter rode it sitting down. Had about 25-30ft of rope from handle to eyelet. Ran about 12-14mph. Just off plane. Ended up doing "serpentine" movements and "swinging" her across the wake. She just sat there and held on with both hands as we swung her around. Said it was lots of fun.
My 8yr old boy rode it as well. This time we had the rope back at the 15-18ft length, around 11-12mph and the ski handle "latched" into the little fitting on the front. All he had to do was sit there, slightly behind center, and everything else just kinda worked. He liked it better than the tube he said. He's usually VERY gun-shy on watersports, so getting him behind the boat on ANYTHING is a win for us.
Overall we are using it almost every single outing. Had the 15mo baby sitting and playing on it for awhile this past week. The 8yr old love to tie it off to about 15-20ft of rope and jump off the boat onto the disc and "surf" until the rope catches. Lather/Rinse/Repeat for hours in that use case. We used it as a coffee table of sorts during date night. Worked well to hold our drinks while we "floated around" and chatted. There has been discussion of using it as a "stage" of sorts for Adult weekend, but I suspect there will be too many drinks for anyone to reliably stand up on the thing for any kind of "performance"......I'll keep everyone posted on how that works out if it comes to pass.
I've gotten better at folding it up once deflated. I can easily fold it in 4ths, and then take that now long section, and fold that into 3rds and put the provided strap around it. Fits nicely into the rear starboard storage on our AR190. Takes a bit of a workout to inflate, but it's not terrible. My arms are starting to get some decent tone to them after 6-7 uses
For the $150 I spent on it, it's well worth it. Notice
@J-RAD is currently running a sale on them. Site says $199. It's worth it for us at that price.
