Jmoski

How fast are you skiing and where are you on the weight range recommended by HO for a 67”?

I didn’t install the course on our public lake but now help maintain it. You need to see if your state has regulations about it. In Maine you don’t need a permit, New Hampshire you do and friends of mine could only get a permit for a temporary course that has to be removed when not in the day/time slots issued, they sink it to comply…

I prefer to go early in the season if possible, but have gone in cold during winter when we are shutdown in the north and that was still worth it. The key is finding a coach that works for you and then continue to back so you get consistency with the coaching you receive. My goal in getting coaching in the Spring is to get the next several things to work on over the upcoming ski season.

Come Spring the demand and hence prices are only going to up given how little inventory is around. I sold my mint condition 2006 SN limited, 480hrs in October for $31k, trailer, cover, Stargazer PP. I had listed at 32k and gave the guy 1k off so I didn’t have to winterize and store it, which was worth it given my new to me 2018 SN was already in the boat spot in the garage for the winter.

I’ve had the rip curl flashbomb in both zippered and zipper free chest entry suits - they work great, no issues with the lifejacket.

Ski shed, ski shack, slalom central Cool set up you have.

Is it a front boot or a rear kicker/HRT? On my older vector boots it was: Front boot should be 6, rear kicker is 4. Maybe they have changed that with the newer versions. There are two base plate options as well…

The new Camaro pro suit, can’t wait to try it in April.

If you have the bags already to try loading the boat in the bow it doesn’t hurt to try, but I would not spend $$ on this as I doubt it will have a material impact. Make friends with someone on the lake that has a direct drive, ski with them in the morning and surf your boat in the afternoon.

I ski with an older version of this vest: https://radarskis.com/products/radar-x-30-cga-life-vest I’ve had comp vests peel up over my head in bad crashes, so I switched to this one as a good compromise given I often ski with just my wife as the driver.

@ScottScott - you make a good point about needing to quantify the impact of each contributing change on the ski as the water gets colder. Unfortunately that could only be done by rigging a ski with sensors to capture the empirical data. One point I was thinking about is buoyancy is not impacted by viscosity ( the formula is ~ to density). If you let your ski float by itself on the water - where it sits depth wise will not change with colder water. So why then do people either reduce wing angle on the fin, or move the front binding forward one notch to offset the real change in dynamics we experience? My hypothesis is that the amount of downward force on the back of ski created by the wing is increasing with colder water. The wing on the fin is an upside down airplane wing, just like a spoiler on a car, the faster the fluid passes over the spoiler, the more downward force it applies to the car to keep the rear wheels glued to the ground for traction. The formulas for lift & drag are ~ to viscosity, hence the colder the water, the more it pulls the tail of the ski down into the water. So if left unchecked, your tail rides deeper. Reducing wing angle reduces the downward force created by the wing, or if you move the binding forward a notch your counter balancing the additional negative lift, flattening the ski back out. Fascinating stuff. I am still trying to map the water depth experience to principals/equations that explain it.

I think you have the right idea with “let them swim to shore!” I can appreciate the pent up excitement about a new boat that you can’t use u til Spring leading to projects, but I would suggest just living into as is for a summer before making any changes

I like @BraceMaker’s suggestion as it’s temporary. Permanently attaching a ladder to a Mapple icon edition 200 will ruin its resale value, please don’t do that! An alternative might be to custom fabricate a new swim platform with an integrated ladder that folds up when not in use. This way if u decide to sell it later you can put the original platform back on. The platform on my 2018 is designed to be removed easily, not sure if the 2012 is the same. If it is I bet you can buy a second set of brackets to attach the custom platform without doing anything invasive.

The density of water does not materially change with temp, viscosity does - the colder it is the more viscous it becomes.

As a fellow Mass skier I have found a good 4/3 surfing wetsuit works well in the Apr start and the late Oct/Nov finish. Not as warm as a dry suit, but I do have heated seats…

I have an “in season” off the water workout schedule that works with skiing 3-4 days a week. And then an “off season” program that is more intense once I am frozen out.

On 2003 - 2009 Nautique boats the faria gateway boxes go bad over time. The 2005 and earlier are really problematic as they use pitot static tubes to measure speed, which connect into the gateway box, leading to water getting into the electronics. 2006 - 2009 they replaced the pitot static tubes with a paddle wheel to measure speed, so that stops the water infiltration problem, but it just gives you more life… You can’t buy replacement gateway boxes, you have to get the “Faria gateway bypass kit” from Nautique parts.com at the tune of $960 which replaces all of the gauges and has the wiring kit to directly connect the engine outputs to the gauges- hence bypassing the bad faria gateway unit. If you have upgraded your perfect pass to Stargazer, you have in effect already bypassed the gateway box for the PP gauge. Could be you have a loose connection or a bad gauge, I would start there given those are far cheaper fixes…

If your gauges are original, they just display whatever the faria gateway tells them to display.

@kirkbauer - if you were in the Boston area I could arrange for you to come see my 2018 SN 200 closed bow and my friends 2018 MC Prostar. Granted both are winterized, but you could still get in them. Maybe a few local BOS folks close to you would consider letting you come over for a visit. Atlanta is your home base? Side note, as others have said if you want a 200, the 2019+ 200 is not the same as 2018 and earlier. How far away are the dealers for the 3 brands you are considering? Having a dealer with a great service department that I trust factored into my Nautique v. Mastercraft decision as both are awesome ski boats.

+1 on using tape on the gunnels to make sure you are wide enough while free skiing. I am in the Northeast, so we always have a week or two of free skiing in the Spring before we get the courses back in. I use this free-ski time to work on drills I have picked up from coaches to get ready for when the courses go in.

Maybe the original owner got that hull color to mask the algae build up :-) ??

How old is it? I bought a Nautique cover awhile ago and it turned out the coating was defective and hence it leaked like a sieve.

The muscles involved in bench pressing are all push oriented versus the pull orientation of skiing. Skiing in itself is like a heavy weights work out session, so if you don’t have rest days your just tearing yourself down. How far are you skiing before your forearms fail you? If it’s immediate that sounds like you pinched or hurt something. I used to only get to ski in the slalom course one week every summer on vacation. So during that week I would try to ski as much as possible, skiing 3-4 sets a day, everyday. The problem was i completed destroyed myself in the process and by Thursday I couldn’t ski at all and the rest of the week was shot. Now I do a better job of pacing myself by building in off days for recovery. While waiting for your forearms to cam down try adding core strength exercises, lat pulls, hangs, pull ups/chin ups, etc to your “off water” training. Hope you get it figured out.

For period of time (and maybe still) the same company (commercial sewing in CT) makes the covers for both MC and Correct Craft. When I bought my used 196 from the dealer I bought a new cover for it. First big rain storm and I had 6” of water in the bilge, I sent it back and they determined the coating they apply was defective! I was so annoyed. I got a CoverSports cover from Brent in Washington state which has been awesome. Not sure if he is still in business. Sheds water like a duck. If your cover has two ratchets on the back to tighten it up - that’s the one…

Agree that getting the water out is the critical part, then AF in block and the heater for me as extra credit. The heater core you have to blow out the lines and the core to make sure it’s all out.