I am ashamed and then encouraged by this video

[Horton]

When I first saw this video I snickered at the conditions, the boat and the balls (or lack of). Why were guys at this level taking it so serious?

 

About 30 seconds in I felt like an elitist ass hole for laughing at these guys that clearly love water skiing and are just doing it old school.

 

About another 30 seconds later I realized that these guys probably love skiing more than I do. These guys are the grassroots of the sports and I owe everything to them. I am humbled by them & wish there were public sites around me like this. I would love to go ski with these guys.

 

[wtrskior]

@horton Knowing who some of those guys are, you just barely missed putting your foot in your mouth... There's at least 1 very senior TC and volunteer from Canada in that vid. Looks like a video equipment test on a temporary course. Not easy keeping an old barefoot boat straight through a wonky course on a public lake.

 

Thats a Fairly typical Ontario cottage ski lake though, not many man made sites in Canada :)

[Horton]

video equipment test?

now that makes more sense

[sunperch]

That kind of reminds me of how I started skiing and driving the course. We used to put a homemade portable course on public water every weekend (although we did work hard to keep the course straight and tight). I pulled my husband behind a Lund fishing boat with 100hp outboard, buried the throttle and had to keep my hand on the throttle to keep boat at max speed while trying to drive a straight line or risk getting yelled at at the end of the course. We would pull the local college kids, run through 2 tanks of gas a day. On good days, a tournament boat would show up and give us a pull. We would ski from sun up to sun down. Man, did we have fun!

[GOODESkier]

@Horton‌ come to BIG DAWG BRO HO in July 2015 ( @richarddoane‌ ) and come ski with us on the Columbia and the SWAMP ( @Deanoski‌ ) .......... Although, you will have to bring your own outboard.........

[6balls]

I still have a '91 Centurion Falcon Barefoot and a hand timer on my public lake with a course that has no 55's. If anyone wants the experience I can provide it.

 

When I was in M1 and M2 my Dad pulled me into 35 off many times at 36 mph (accurate hand times) and everyone thought it was a little goofy until tourney day...the only days I ever skied an inboard and generally produced the same scores...in fact my PB was almost always my tourney PB as opposed to practice. Today with speed controls etc it would be much tougher to pull off similar performances between the two towing situations. At longer lines/slowers speeds back in the day the outboard was FAR more skier friendly in the course. Up through 28 off at 36 she holds her own and then the wake gets too firm though small. Tracking not as bad as you might think.

 

Really funny is that in '91 the Centurion outboard was AWSA 4-event certified...slalom, trick, jump, barefoot! Nut-so. Trick would be the worst...the boat hates that speed and either wants to plane and go fast or sink in the hole.

[Wish]

@6balls‌ I thought I knew every barefoot boat out there but cannot figure what that is. MC? And I would also say that it was kept fairly straight considering it's an out board. I was first introduce to a slalom course via a BF MC with a 200 Yamaha on a public lake. Conditions look about the same as the lake I grew up on.

[Porkfight]

I ski behind a 36 year old outboard and my turn buoys are gallon orange juice jugs. We use a target buoy instead of path buoys. Those guys have it made!

[wtrskior]

@wish its a mastercraft for sure. Looks like a prostar 200, which I believe was made to be a pro-jump boat. MC had an inboard barefoot boat around that time; the Barefoot 190, a tristar with a big block in it

[Wish]

I learned to ski the course behind a MC outboard...1987 I believe, with the funky windshield. That must be an earlier hull...early 80s maybe?

[wtrskior]

@wish my guess on that boat is 86-87 prostar 200. prior to 86/87 they used the rainbow graphics and the bubble windscreen. After 87/88 they used the same top deck as the new prostar 190, without the scoop.

 

 

[Wish]

@wtrskior‌ thanks. That makes sense. The one I cut my course teeth on must be a few yrs later. Had the funky windshield. Like this;