2022 MasterCraft Pro

[Horton]

POLK CITY, Fla., September 19, 2022 - Action Water Sports and MasterCraft Boat Company are excited to announce the 2022 MasterCraft Pro professional water ski event held at Lake Grew at Action Water Sports near Orlando, FL. The event will feature the world’s elite men’s and women’s professional water skiers and professional jumpers.

The competition begins on Friday, September, 23rd at 9 AM EDT with the men and women’s slalom preliminaries. The professional tournament will conclude Saturday, September 24th with men’s jump finals. The event will be held at Action Water Sports, 1251 Holy Cow Rd located off I-4 in Polk City, FL. For the full list of events and world-wide broadcast link, visit www.actionwater.com/mastercraft-pro/

 The entire event is open to the public with no cost of entry and free parking. Food and drinks will be available for purchase on-site.

“The water ski history and culture runs deep in Central Florida and we are excited to partner with MasterCraft again to bring this world class professional event to this community,” said Action Water Sports General Manager Phil Miklo. “This exciting event will also provide a great opportunity to get your family together and experience watersports competition at the highest level.”

Featured waterskiers competing will be Freddy Krueger, Karen Truelove, Freddie Winter and many more.

“Since our founding in 1968, one of our goals has been to cultivate and support waterskiing globally,” said Vice President of Global Sales for MasterCraft, Matt McDevitt. “With the best athletes coming from around the world to compete, spectators can watch top-tier competition and experience first-hand the MasterCraft ProStar, the world’s best selling ski boat.”

For more information on the event, schedule and location, or to tune into the world-wide broadcast, visit www.actionwater.com/mastercraft-pro/ or contact Andre Broussard by email at andreb@actionwater.com.

About Action Water Sports

Action Water Sports is a premier MasterCraft Boat Company and Barletta Pontoons dealer who has been bringing families together on the water for over 30 years. With four locations in Florida and Michigan, Action Water Sports strives to set the bar for excellence for service within the Central Florida boating community. They are a major contributor to the watersports community hosting many grassroots events as well as pro waterski and wakeboard events over the last few years. For more information, visit www.actionwater.com.

About MasterCraft

 MasterCraft is a world-renowned innovator, designer, manufacturer, and marketer of premium performance sport boats. Founded in 1968, MasterCraft has cultivated its iconic brand image through a rich history of industry-leading innovation, and more than four decades after the original MasterCraft made its debut, the company’s goal remains the same - to continue building the world’s best ski, wakeboard, wake surf and luxury performance powerboats.

[chaloux]

Vaughn just said no one has run 41 off on a Radar, I had no idea!

[Stefan]

Just tuned in, why is nate not skiing?

[UWSkier]

@Stefan Nate has a lisfranc injury and is in a walking boot for several weeks.

[mylemsky]

Bartalsky not on KD anymore or just for the day? Riding a Nrg soft.

[eyepeeler]

How did Nate get hurt?

[VermontSkier]

The top piece of the pylon breaking was bizarre! Has that happened before?

[Jody_Seal]

thats embarrassing for sure. not the first screw up today either..

[1skinut]

That was scary! I’ll be more careful about what I do with the excess rope in the boat after watching that.

[Clydesdale]

[B_S]

Yikes, that looks scary! Who was skiing, and are they ok?

[Clydesdale]

@B_S Taryn grant. She was fine, but missed her 35 re-ride. I’m sure it threw her off mentally.

[B_S]

Thanks @Clydesdale, I'm sure it did!

[Jordan]

wow...52 years of skiing, and I've never seen that before!

[LeonL]

I'm currently in recovery from a LisFranc. Unlike Nate, I have fractures, not just ligaments. No weight on it allowed. 6-8 weeks recovery. Weird fall, back foot came out partially, didn't come out clean and completely. T-Factor.@eyepeeler , yesterday they said Nate was skiing on a "recreational" ski. ??? No other details.

[Clydesdale]

@LeonL HO Hovercraft.

[Bill22]

I thought Will got robbed until you slow it down frame by frame.

[vtmecheng]

That pylon cap coming off highlights bad and dangerous engineering by Mastercraft at their own event. You can see the boat crew tightening it many times during competition. The cap constantly comes loose on other Prostars I’ve skied too and it has to be checked. The friction in one threaded fastener should never be all that is relied upon for safety, especially with vibrations and rotation against it. It wouldn’t have cost much to add a locking method here and there’s plenty of room for one. Thank goodness no one was hurt at the even when it came off but MC needs to update the design. I’m using this at work to teach young engineers why we have requirements that do not allow such a design.

[skierjp]

@VermontSkier I have seen it come loose but never come off while skiing. I was actually the boat driver in the same boat when it almost happened to us. Thank goodness my boat judge Scott Greenwood caught it just before we pulled the skier. It comes unscrewed, nothing breaks. All they need to do is put a little blue Loctite on it.

[vtmecheng]

@skierjp it should never come loose. This comes off going across the wakes and it’s a really bad day. Also, that metal hits you in the mouth or eye and it’s a real bad day with stitches or more. As an engineer, there is no excuse for not including some method of thread retention. I’m going to add thread locker to ours but that is not really the right solution for high vibration applications like this.

[lefty]

Definitely a tough look for MC and seemed like a lot of weird stuff was happening. Is the pylon design new for the 21+ models or is it the same for ‘14-‘20?

[jjackkrash]

I'd hate to see that come off at the base of the jump ramp.

[Jordan]

Don't think that Mastecraft manufactures the pylons. Still, even if it's manufactured by a third party, it's still their responsibility to make sure that it's built and designed properly. I am surprised that there isn't a set screw that locks in the threaded ball. My '93 has one.

[Ski2000]

Had it happen this summer. Fortunately it was during a deep water start. Seems like the old way with a bolt that can be tightened down with an Allen wrench was fine.

[B_S]

Solid pylons are the Correct design...

[swbca]

While it was good having Nate Smith add to the color commentary, I wish him a speedy recovery.

[ISP6ball]

I saw weeds coming up in the spray of numerous skiers this weekend. I also noticed Regina subtly made mention of weeds being an issue on her final pass.

Do you think this was an issue for several skiers, or isolated situations?

It's unfortunate if that truly was an issue on her pass....

I feel like people would've been critical if skiers would've requested a re-ride but could they have?

[randy meny]

Not the same when Nate Smith is not skiing, he makes others ski better.

[BKistler]

After Regina crashed, she pointed down course and the boat went back and picked up a wad of weeds that I had seen floating around earlier. I thought she was going to ask for a reride but apparently did not. The lake has a lot of eel grass or some such in it.

[BlueSki]

That pylon design is a a less than ideal way to save on rope wear.

[mbabiash]

The pylon design is fine. It’s actually really nice to swap out camera mount or no camera mount. Hand tight is just not enough. We put a strap wrench on ours and doesn’t come loose.

[BlueSki]

@mbabiash don’t most of the camera mounts go on like a trick release? Which one are you using?

[dave2ball]

This pylon has been in the MC boats since the 90’s if not late 80’s. I have been to hundreds of tournaments and this is the first time I have never seen this happen. Not to sure on if the top coming loose is common or not. this mishap is definitely not the norm.

[Keith_Menard]

While most are wondering why Nate wasn't skiing, I am wondering why we had a person with a serious safesport violation in the booth. Anyway...looking forward to watching Michael Vick announce the next Westminster dog show.

[Broussard]

@vtmecheng MasterCraft introduced the WearGuard™ Pylon in 1989 in order to reduce ratcheting and prevent rope wear. These early WearGuard™ pylons had an Allen bolt which secured the pylon top to the pylon.

The 2014-2020 ProStar used two different pylons over the lifespan of the hull (one from ’14-’17 and another from ’18-’20) and neither had an issue with top. I spent thousands of hours in this hull driving and coaching.

For whatever reason on the 2021-2022 boats the top on some of the pylons seem to come loose but others have no issue. (maybe the tolerances aren’t quite right between the thread and the insert on some pylons)

An Allen bolt was added to the top of the pylon for model year 2023, but the boats used to pull the event were 2022 models which were performing really well (as evidenced by the scores produced during the event).

[vtmecheng]

@Broussard thank you for the information. I knew that the pylons have been different over the years, using screws for many of the years. Whatever the reason for the recent issues, it's good that they have added a screw to the top for 2023. I plan to apply some threadlocker to ours and tighten with rubber strap wrench. Hopefully that will be enough. We deal with enough danger in this sport to have yet another thing.

One addition: Non-captive threaded fasteners in a vibration environment is always asking for problems. Any engineer who has been around the block a few times with this kind of design work has seen it. At my employer we have lessons learned training on this every few years just so the new engineers don't make the mistake.

[RAWSki]

Our 21 pylon would come loose but never off until we applied some loc-tite and problem seems to be solved. I think the ProStars come with two different pylon caps??

[skihacker]

One is a plain cap the other is a gopro mount.

[Dacon62]

Just the right amount of Teflon tape and tighten with strap wrench. Hasn’t budged.

[DW]

Is the design for the '21-22 ball simply screws on to the pylon? Sounds that way given comments on how to tighten using a strap wrench and looking at the MC video. If so, assuming right hand threads the rope going from port to starboard will exert an unscrewing torque if I envision this correctly. Reminds me of my buddy's old MG with knock off wire wheels, he put the threaded wheel stud on opposite side (LH and RH threads) and after a few wheels falling off ...

[BraceMaker]

@Dacon62 teflon tape is odd stuff. Its purpose isn't to increase tightness or seal on tapered pipe fittings but rather to allow more degrees of turning ie lower friction so that a pipe joint is tighter. I wouldnt use it in this application at all.

My guess is that the bolts are too long vs the threaded hole depth. I would make sure the bolt isnt too long.

Beyond that it is possible the stem on the pylon is too short but the head shouldn't want to loosen.

Frankly youd machine a morse taper onto the top of the pylon and then a morse taper into the ball socket so the torque on the bolt would seat the tapers together.

But if not just make sure the bolt can bottom out before installing add red loctite and torque it then make sure the delrin is loose.

[Slalom.Steve]

@Clydesdale whats the video time stamp for when that happened?

[liquid d]

How about you just put a damn set screw in the side of it! Problem solved. Please send the engineering fee to me at Dehlinger Insurance 433 E Michigan St Orl Fl 32806. You're welcome!

[buoyboy1]

Now I finally understand why Nautiques cost more. :p

[wawaskr]

Anyone notice that Regina was back on the XTRcc vs. the new Team XTR at the previous tournament? Wonder why?

[Roger]

How were there two rejected boat paths at 38 and 39 for Charlie Ross and no reride for either?

[Sunapee]

Roger, IIRC SurePath flagged the passes as out of tolerance for a world record, but they were in tolerance for the Pro Tournament. Tony got a bit confused and finally figured it out.

[Roger]

@Sunapee - I heard that on the broadcast, but the tournament was sanctioned as R. The wider tolerances spoken of are only for E/L AFIK,

I was not there so not pointing fingers at Chris who is a world class driver, it may have been a glitch with Surepath, something I've seen myself recently at a tournament in Palm Bay. I was boat judge and the driver who was getting excellent Surepath numbers the whole set suddenly got wild numbers (-35, -25, -30, etc.). It happened twice to him and once to another driver, both times in the same direction. No idea what causes that (no way either of them was that far off).

At the Mastercraft tournament, they spoke a few times of the wind shifting to a cross from the head/tail and that can be an issue if it's strong enough. I've spoken with Will Bush about this as we had a very strong cross at Okeeheelee earlier this year and it was enough to move the course out from under the Surepath GPS coordinates. He said when that happens you have to go to end course.

I'm fine if it was a glitch in the system or they determined the cross wind shifted the course, but if it was a red screen with say one buoy more than 20cm, then I want to know why no reride...