nleuth

As I sit here in Northern New York 20 miles from the Canadian Border, I can think of 10 slalom courses within 25 miles of my house all on Public water. If I expand that distance to 75 miles I can think of 7 more! I'm sure there are more that I don't know about! A few years ago a few friends and I attempted to ski at as many of those locations as we could in 24 hours. It was a great time!

Join the Wednesday Waterski League for 2017! We had a blast! Had a team of mostly non tournament skiers, and it gave everyone an excuse to get together at least 5 nights a summer. Great prizes and format!

I mean if there are no other takers I could find some good use for those!

@Colebrah Might be a long commute for ya but you are welcome to come on up! That or get a squad in it next year!

@bradb Here is the link: http://wednesdaywaterski.com/ There were 6 teams this year, hopefully more next year! Would be great to have another group involved

Just wanted to give a shout out to the Wednesday Waterski League set up by @wskierman8. Our team out of Hannawa had a blast participating. We had a couple happy team members win the Pelagic Boardshorts based on their weekly performances which was great! We were lucky enough to run the league out of a local restraunt/bar at the end of our slalom course, which allowed for some great extracurriculars and exposure to the sport. Most of all it gave a lot of folks an excuse to set aside a few nights this summer to ski who otherwise would have let daily life absord those nice summer evenings away. It was great getting everyone together. One guy on our team who has been skiing for many years, but had always shadowed the buoys ended up running the course for the first time! We had 4 kids participate and it was great to see them progress. Hannawa had a great time and we will be looking forward to the 2017 season! I recommend anyone thinking about joining to do so for the 2017 season. Great concept, great prizes, and great excuse to ski and socialize!

@Nautique196 The orange prophecy and the blue GT are 2 of my favorite skies of all time. If you get an orange GT the tip is softer, which may work well for you. I have seen people have more luck in the Orange GT if it is a size up to prevent the tip from stuffing to easy. Hope that helps.

@pgmoore I have the same problem in Northern New York! I just picked up a O'Neill techno butter wetsuit from h2oproshop that I have had great success with!

Big County Buoy Bashers have been training hard! Both on and off the water. Our Apres ski game seems to be our strongest point right now... Lots of fun to be had! I'm gunning for those boardies @wskierman8 !

Big County Bouy Bashers from Northern New York are registered and ready to rip! 6 adults and 4 kids... @rodecon I like your training plan! We will have to implement the same! Probably need some N/A beverages for the kids though.

I guess we would really have to ask ourselves what the goal of the rank list actually is. Is it based on pure score, or a skier's ability to perform at tournaments where there is more on the line like in a placement tournament. I looked up where I fell in the example and honestly didn't think it did a great job of representing my skiing compared to others. I received 300+ points for skiing a tournament last year where I ended up falling at 35 and was placed 8th against some great competition. Another tournament where I set a new M2 regional record with a score that was 13 bouys better only got me 50 points. Just some feedback on the system that I noticed that I figured I would share. Might want to weigh some points on performances unless the goal is to get people to attend more of these elite tournament and the carrot in this case is chasing points.

I thought it was actual spray leg from the first few times of skiing without a dry suit! Not the actual apparel. I will be sure to take a nice picture of some spray leg (not the apparel) when I can ditch the drysuit and hopefully the fleece bomber hat too! @The_Krista Great idea BTW!

@Stevie Boy I had that happen as well. Ski was packed tightly inside a snowboard bag inside a sport tube and it was broke in 2 spots. The airline was nice enough to reimburse me though.

@lpskier Thanks for the pull! Great gem of a site.

@klindy It is my understanding that if the team has the necessary resources to run an AWSA sanctioned tournament (new boat, officials, etc.) then they are welcome to do so. This ultimately puts the team in control of how to run their event - for example, how to obtain insurance coverage or gas money from participants or are these things even necessary? These are questions that the team is permitted to answer for themselves. The goal here is to get groups of passionate water skiers together to hang out at the lake or river and network with others outside of their club. I think that this structure is a great new opportunity that will trigger a lot of interest in skiers who are not familiar with the competive waterskiing scene. This setup will allow them to get a taste of competitive skiing, if you will, while experiencing the benefits of skiing at the convinience of their home site. From here, they may become more willing to travel to other sanctioned events, and they will still continue to enjoy their time on the water, skiing with their good friends.

@dtm The blue GT has a stiffer tip. This results and much more support on your offside and less tendency to grab and get buried. Same overall good feel as the orange GT just more support on the tip thus much easier to predict.

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@skidawg I like the video idea. You post each pass on the website and it could even be a conversation pience, a social media page would be neat to go along with it as well. I'm ok with a maximum of 10 skiers, but you have the option to participate with less. That way you can make the team more diverse and it will reward a team that finds more skiers, thus go growing the sport. I know we have 4 guys up there that compete in tournaments up here, so we would have to recruit some non-tournmanet skiers and maybe even some skiers that aren't as familiar with the slalom course.

I think with the original intention a handicap might not be needed. My understanding is that the contest would fluctuate at different tournaments. For example, the first tournament in the season would be big score, the next tournament might be your performance based on you average. That way, it helps to have a diverse team. Have a couple guys with a high buoy count, and also have a couple kids because they improve so fast! I think this is a great twist for our sport and something that has a great deal of potential. It can reach out to some site that aren't competive and get them involved as well. As for the class C part, you could sanction it if your club would like, but I don't necessarily think it would have to be sanctioned for the online league. Just get a website rolling and each team pays a small team fee to cover the cost of that and some prizes and this will be a really cool concept!

@wskierman8 Northern New York is already starting its training regiment!

@spitzleyj I was just dealing with this problem on a new ski while I was getting it dialed in. My problem ended up being that I had too much ski in the water at my hardest pass. So I took some tipped out until it stop spitting the tail and I had a fluid turn. Now my offside turn is great! As for technique, just make sure you're skiing back to the handle with your head not dipping in word and up straight in a good stacked position. I hope that helps.

I do agree that the financial cost to ski one round in a bathtub is outrageous, but that is due to a broken system of very high costs involved with holding regionals. The price tag is the same for every regionals because of this and I would say a change in the way we run regionals would be ideal. Too much money is spent on judges for these events, using a tremendous amount of volunteer judges who are participating anyway would be great. As for conditions, well they were the same for everyone and regionals isn't a tournament with the objective to post a big score. Instead you are striving to beat the other guys who are skiing in the same conditions. At mirror lake we sacrificed big scores to showcase our sport.

Eastern Regionals was the most fun tournament I have been too. The average person on the street was very intrigued. It was an equal playing field, but it was a different playing field. I personally skied the same at regionals on the mirror lake bathtub as I did at nationals, (Not sure what to think of that) but besides rollers on your 3rd pass it skied well enough. Most of all it was FUN! Again how many times have you skied in front of a crowd and at the end of your set people are cheering. And I have noticed people asking questions and showing interest after watching. I hope more events like that tournament come around. It was a great venue.

Gorilla Duct Tape works like a champ! Will last longer than your handle

Waterski events with excitement would be awesome! In my opinion the current national tournament is a very anti-climatic event. There are several positives that do exist such as personal gratification a good performance. The vendors are cool, seeing your piers, and skiing against a solid group of competition on the same site to find a true champion. All sounds nice, but none of that has to be lost by changing it to a new format. More rounds would allow for a more accurate selection of the true champion. The 2 main problems I have with the current system are: 1) There isn't much to show for skiing at nationals, I mean even a T-shirt or other momento's to go with the $160 ticket would be nice! And even if you podium, again the personal gratification is great but all you really have to show is medal for all your hard work. Don't want to dwell on that problem, but just something I noticed. 2) There are no spectators or exposure. We are talking the best of the best in the US and while you skiing it is crickets! The eastern regionals this year was held at a location where public exposure was huge! The skiing quality did suffer, but it was an equal playing field. It was also by far the most fun waterski event I have competed in. Not very often do you pop out of the water after skiing and have a couple hundred people yelling and screaming with excitement... That's what we need! Ponds are great for personal performance but generally not for showcasing a very exciting sport! I am all for an overhaul of the system, it needs to be more interesting to the average person. I think using states and regionals to qualify is great! It gives small tournaments more meaning. A bigger foundation will help the sport grow, not a bigger nationals. All the people who attend nationals already love the sport and are hooked. We need to spark more interest at the bottom and work up. All 4 change.