Thanks to the mysterious man known as "Scoke"the Water Ski Sites Google Earth file has been updated again.
A lot of brain power went into the development of Connelly’s new flagship ski, the GT-R. Among the masterminds involved, pro team skier Martin Bartalsky played a pivotal part in guiding the GT-R’s evolution. Check out what he has to say about it.
1. You were part of the testing process for the development of the GT-R. What were you hoping to achieve with the new ski?
I liked the GT a lot, but after some modifications, I found that I preferred more grip under my feet. With more grip, you are able to load the ski easier out of the turn and get to the other side quicker. Grip adds to the support and stability of the ski as well, which is important when you get in trouble and need to rely on the ski to be there for you. Grip is what we were hoping to achieve with the GT-R, and we got it.
2. How exactly where you involved in the overall development of the GT-R?
Doug got me involved during the early stages of the GT-R’s development. I rode a few different models and sent notes back and forth with Doug. He then ultimately decided which one would be the stock ski. I was in love with the finished product from the very beginning and knew it was going to be special after the very first set on it.
3. What was changed from last year’s GT in order to make a ski for 2019 that is on a whole new level?
The GT-R is noticeably different out of the box. The tip and tail are thicker and the side edge angle has been changed. While it has many of the great characteristics of the GT, the added grip creates incredible room in the course. The GT-R is definitely an improved ride.
4. What are some things people should know about the different ways to setup their GT-R and how to maximize its efficiency for their style?
I recommend that the skiers try all stock setups to find out which one makes them feel more comfortable before fine-tuning. They should know immediately which one they prefer.
The short and deep set up brings the tip out and drops the tail deeper in the water, making both turns very symmetric. The ski loads easily and holds a ton of angle through the wakes and gets side to side very easily. When you are in trouble this set up makes the ski pretty much bulletproof. The short and deep set up works great for me when I let the ski do its thing without pushing it too hard.
With the long and shallow settings, the ski rides flatter on the water and is more engaged. It also does not sit as deep and as a result glides easier and carries more speed. However, the turns are not as effortless and thus the turning radius is larger. With long/shallow, you definitely put in more effort to grab the angle through the wakes in order to create the room in the course. I personally like to push the ski hard myself, so this combination works better for me.
5. What is your favorite aspect about the GT-R?
I love the grip under my feet. The GT-R is truly the best ski I have ever ridden. It lets you load early with a ton of angle through the wakes, which creates the speed and lots of room. The ski is incredibly stable and predictable. I love absolutely everything about the it.
Neilly Ross explains why you should sign up for the 12 week online functional fitness training program, Method by Radix!
To learn more check out www.radixfit.com/method
While you will log in to our mobile app or website to complete your workouts individually, you will belong to a community of people around the world working hard to improve their health, movement and strength just like you.
Chelsea Mills defeated Lori Krueger Covington in the head-to-head final to win the third annual SportsInsurance.com Queens Cup at Little Mountain Lakes near Charlotte, N.C., on Sunday, Oct. 7.
Mills, skiing on her home lake, ran 4½ at 38 off, topping Covington’s 3 at 38 in the final, and claimed the $2,000 first-place check. The Queens Cup, also sponsored by Race City Marine and the Women’s Sports Foundation, was originally scheduled for Sept. 15-16 but was postponed because of Hurricane Florence.
Mills was the No. 1 seed throughout the two rounds of Saturday qualifying and Sunday’s Sweet 16. Covington, of Texas, was seeded third throughout and defeated No 2 seed Joy Kelley of Tennessee in the final four, running 1¼ at 38 off to Kelley’s 1 at 38.
Mills and Covington are Masters Women skiers, and Kelley skis in the Women 6 age group.
Kelley, 60, represented the mature skiers in the field and held her spot as No. 2 seed through the two qualifying rounds and into the final four. She has been a podium finisher in all three years of the Queens Cup, and also got the skiers fired up with a motivational speech at the Saturday night banquet.
“It would be impossible to duplicate how special a weekend we all had,” Kelley posted on Facebook on Sunday evening. “There is no other event like it … lives greatly impacted and inspired on and off the water! Really happy to get third with so many strong and tough women!”
Strong and tough were keywords in her speech Saturday night as she encouraged everyone present to be emotionally, mentally and physically strong.
“Put blinders on. Find a way that works for you and make it happen,” Kelley said.
The Queens Cup is for women ages 30 and older, and uses a format that allows all ages to compete on equal footing. The event included five Women 7 skiers (ages 65-69), and four of them made the Sweet 16.
Rounding out the money winners and podium finishers were Trish Burt of Florida in fourth place and Erin Peckham of New York in fifth. The rest of the elite eight were Jennifer Wood of South Carolina in sixth place, legendary Leza Harrison, a Women 7 skier from Florida in seventh, and Marla Lott of Indiana in eighth place.
Among the tournament officials were world record holders Nate Smith of Indiana and Jeff Rodgers of South Carolina, renowned drivers Tommy Harrington and Pat Bloodworth of North Carolina, and P.A. announcer Seth Stisher of South Carolina.
Slalom skiing with an endless course? OffCourse™!
Are you tired of spending more time preparing your slalom course then actually skiing? Then listen up, a new way of the slalom skiing we all love is around the corner. Introducing the OffCourse™, a revolutionizing way to roam the water, creating a slalom course on the fly.
The time of big, heavy and inconvenient slalom courses are over, thanks to Swedish company Rodics Innovation. All you need to do is start your boat, plug in the OffCourse™ and you are all set. The OffCourse™ is a patent-pending device that creates a slalom course by creating water splashes where the buoys usually would be. It’s powered by carbon dioxide cartridges, that continuously fires away projectiles to the water which shows you where to turn.
Rodics Innovation has not held back in the making of the OffCourse™, using aircraft grade aluminum and high-quality Swedish stainless-steel to ensure that the device holds for the impact that comes with skiing like a badass. Also, all the projectiles used are totally biodegradable which keeps the water clean even after all the havoc you’ve caused from riding it. The OffCourse™ is a result of years of work, late nights and countless testing sessions. It’s created by enthusiasts driven by a passion to change the way of water skiing as we know it. Making you able to roam the water like never before with a sense of total freedom, leaving no traces behind. It’s just you and the lake, like it should be.
Find out more about the OffCourse™ at Rodics Innovation’s website or on Facebook
Pre-orders are already available – and the release date is set at May 2019.
Hobe Lake Ski Club is a new man-made lake located 30 minutes north of the West Palm Beach airport. It is open year-round and has some of the best ski conditions and possibly the most pristine setting to be found anywhere.
The Club is proud to announce its affiliation with Wim DeCree as coach. They welcome all levels and abilities and strive to make your stay as enjoyable and productive as possible.
Their exclusive booking system allows you to book time slots that fit your schedule. This will enable you to make plans to spend time with your family enjoying the quiet beaches and many other area activities Dining, hotels and shopping are all nearby.
Go check out their website and keep them in mind next time you’re looking for some good coaching or for a nice ski vacation!
The 2019 Senate is hands down the best Senate we have ever created. Now updated to follow the shape of our most recent Vapor; this ski is a level riding, symmetrical turning, balanced, dream machine. Known for its ability to carry speed, the Senate allows the skier to maintain width on the boat. This gives a sense of freedom sought after by those that ski in the course as well as those ripping open water turns. By taking our Vapor shape and adding two tenths of an inch in extra width we have created a stable riding platform. This platform creates the balance needed for a skier to feel at home, while the profile of the ski allows the skier to feel the speed and angle sought after at any level.
D3 Water Skis from Auburn, WA is proud to announce the addition of 16-year-old Will Roberts of Dow, Illinois to our Elite Junior Ski Team. Will has been one of the top ranked junior jumpers in the Nation since 2010. He currently holds the Boys 2 National jump record of 144’. He was the first skier in history, at 14 years old, to go 170’ on a 5’ ramp. Will also won the Jr. US Open and the Junior Malibu Open Jump titles in both 2017 & 2018. Will is not just an incredible jumper, but he also excels at trick and slalom and has been a top competitor in Overall in Boys 2 and Boys 3.
Freddy Krueger said, “Will has an understanding that is very mature for a young man. He has soaked up what those of us who have gone before him have learned, but he’s not afraid to implement his own natural techniques as well. It’s a great combination. He’s the best I’ve seen at this young age in building a technique that isn’t just good for 31.7 mph, he’s building a technique that will work even better for faster speeds and bigger jumps. He has his eye on the future...that’s going to make him very dangerous...very soon I think. I look forward to watching this great athlete perform on D3 products for years to come”
Follow Will Roberts on our Team web site http://d3skiteam.com/junior-team.html and in social media as he gets ready for his next event the King of Darkness Night Jump, at the Isles of Lake Hancock on Saturday November 3rd. https://www.kingofdarkness.org
The first two years of the SportsInsurance.com Queen’s Cup were very rewarding for the women slalom skiers who traveled to Little Mountain Lakes near Charlotte, N.C.
Rewarding in terms of self-esteem, comradery, accomplishment and, well, awards! As in $10,000 and more in cash and prizes.
The third annual Queen’s Cup, presented by SportsInsurance.com and Nautique dealer Race City Marine of Mooresville, N.C., is scheduled for Sept. 15-16 at Little Mountain, and the rewards -- spiritual and material -- will again make it an enviable event.
"Oh my gosh it's amazing!” said Maureen Mosteller, who traveled from Alberta, Canada for the inaugural Queen’s Cup. “I hope this continues to grow. It's such a great event! The people, the quality of the skiers -- just so much fun! Just really cool!"
The Queen’s Cup was recently recognized by the Women’s Sports Foundation, which once counted among its board of trustees the legendary three-event skier Camille Duvall Hero, a member of the USA Water Ski Hall of Fame. The WSF is onboard as a major sponsor of the Queen’s Cup.
The Queen’s Cup plays out on a made-for-slalom lake that has produced world and national records by Nate Smith, Jeff Rodgers and others. Joy Kelley (Women 6) and Cyndi Benzel (Women 7) took home U.S. records from the 2017 Queen’s Cup. In 2016, Leeza Harrison also broke the Women 7 record, and Mosteller and Rhonda Powell played tug-of-war with the Women 5 Canadian record as both topped the national mark in qualifying rounds.
This year’s event promises more of the same in terms of quality and quantity. Each skier is guaranteed two qualifying rounds on Saturday, with the top 16 advancing to Sunday’s head-to-head finals. There is also a way to win a prize without advancing, as the qualifying rounds will use a handicapped scoring system that allows a skier of any skill level to win by beating her average -- even if it’s her first tournament.
The top 16 and prize winners will be announced at the Saturday night on-site banquet, which will also feature ageless wonder Joy Kelley as the keynote speaker.
Women 30 and older (who have not placed in top 7 of an Elite points event in the past 2 years excluding Worlds) are eligible to enter, and all compete on equal footing, as boat speeds are not a factor. Women whose maximum boat speed is 30, 32 or 34 are scored equally for each line length.
To enter, go to usawaterski.org for tournament information, or contact tournament director Jeff Gilbert at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Slalom skiers are an interesting breed. They are never fully satisfied with their score, constantly in pursuit of one more buoy and usually have some sort of gripe about lower back issues. Lower back pain plagues our sport as much as fin tweaking and spray leg. Maybe even more. And you likely have even experienced it yourself. Slalom skiing puts a rather complicated and heavy toll on our body every time we ski. We might not even be aware of it but the position is unnatural for the human body and our stance screams for compensation in our body.
This compensation, to make up for the unnatural stance, is necessary for us to ski our best and continue to gain more buoys. It is part of the game! But we have to understand that those compensations while we participate in our sport slowly cause the body to shift which more often than not results in bad posture and a myriad of other subconscious compensations.
So what do we do? It’s easier said than done but the concept is relatively simple: We must bring the body back to it’s neutral position.
Looking at a typical slalom position, we notice that we really try to resist the pull from the boat by pushing or holding the pull from the boat to create speed, torque and angle. As a matter of fact, waterskiing is one of not too many sports I see where you have two different sources of energy input. One is your upper body and the pull from the boat forward and the other input is the water where you resist against with your ski and lower body.
So you will notice that those two energy sources/inputs will meet somewhere. Ideally it should happen right in the middle of your body. Then you will feel “connected” to the boat as we like to say! But that’s also where we feel the most amount of pressure.
When we talk about a “normal posture” we mean that our hips are neutral (they feel tucked) straight under the center of our bodies and our back looks somewhat flat. This an ideal position.
In order to achieve a natural “normal” position, you need:
1. A really well-functioning core with substantial core strength
2. A mobile spine and a mobile yet stable hip.
As soon as any one of these areas begin to lack, you will subconsciously compensate in your day-to-day life which can result in long-term issues or can go completely undetected.
Where the two energy sources meet behind the boat and in the middle of our bodies, we create a ton of pressure and exaggerate those areas in which we are weak by leaning on the areas of compensation. So any slight compensation you had before will just get more pronounced and made worse. It’s a habit game because the muscles which are already causing the compensation in the first place will get activated even more and will exaggerate this compensation.
As an example, if you are lacking in core strength you are prone to do every single move you do over the day in hyperextension of your spine, shortening the distance between each vertebrae and in turn, shortening those muscles. In this instance the decreased muscles pulls your hips backwards causing the pelvis to sit at an anterior tilt or drop. This means that your pelvis falls forward, which decreases the space between vertebrae in your lower back even more. Muscles therefore continue to get tight and you will feel pressure in your lower back. Many people assume this means you have “lower back” issues when in realty it is a merely a symptom of an area of weakness.
So like I said before, you can go on without noticing, but putting it into the slalom skiing where we live in a slightly hyperextended and exaggerated environment, under an intense amount of pressure, for our spine to resist the pull forward, this compensation will wreak havoc.
The way to get out of this habit is pretty simple. If we already have this compensation, we work on relaxing / stretching and mobilizing the muscles in the lower back and hip and afterwards work on loosing the habit of our improper posture. Only after these first two steps are accomplished, we then train to strengthen the core and hip muscles (This includes your glutes, flexors, abductors and adductors).
By doing so, we have a chance of decreasing the pain and issues we bring upon ourselves through slalom skiing.
If you have any questions, or would like a free evaluation (either digitally via RadixFit.com or in person at our Central Florida (Winter Garden) location, please contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
The last hurrah of summer vacation is (sadly) creeping around the corner. To help make Labor Day weekend one for the books, we’ve curated a list of epic essentials for the entire gang. So before you trade the summer for the fall, smash the link provided to get the goods necessary to go out with a bang.
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Breaking News by Ellie Rae Horton
Ellie Horton is three event and third generation competitive water skier. She grew up skiing at Horton Lakes, which was built by her grandfather Dr Jack Horton, and began competing when she was ten years old.
Currently, Ellie is a second year student at Florida Southern College. She is studying journalism and skis on scholarship for the FSC water ski team. is ranked 3rd overall in the nation, 9th in the U21 overall world standings, and has her open women’s rating in overall.
She is a member of the D3 water skis Factory Team and is sponsored by CAMARO wetsuits and NewCity Clothing.
Her recent successes have included winning Division I women’s tricks at the 2013 collegiate nationals as well as taking the tricks and overall title at the U21 2014 Pan Am Championships.