Fast351

My first ski is pretty sweet looking. 2005 HO Triumph. Here's a pic from online: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v457/guitarzan1972/Triumph3.jpg ETA: One of my favorite pics from the river (doesn't show the ski too well, but hell, I want to just show off the pic :smile: )

Lake is solid here 4 months a year (or more sometimes). Makes it tough to get out and ski. Water temp doesn't bother me. <50 = drysuit, 50-65 = wetsuit, >65 = board shorts. The air temp is what's key. 60+ and sunny is ideal, no matter what the water temp. Below 50 is a bit iffy for me, I'll leave that to someone else...

When ice fishing, we typically cover the beer cooler with snow. Good enough insulator to keep the beer from freezing... There will be an ice fishing party at my place this weekend. I'll take pics for the southerners. My pickup will be sitting where I slalom ski in the summer. :)

I'm part of the two zeros camp (add two zeros to the hours to get the equivalent car mileage). Of course, that only tells part of the story anyway. The care and maintenance is far more important and the interior of a boat tells you a lot about how well cared for the boat generally is. I saw a boat at the dealership once, had 7 hours on it, interior was shot. Rich daddy bought it for his kids, they destroyed it. On the other hand, I've seen 1000+ hour boats that looked factory new on the inside. I'd much rather have one of those. At the end of the day, engine hours really only tell you how many hours the engine MIGHT have left in it (that depends far more on regular oil changes than total hours accumulated). The rest of the boat is much more subjective...

Looks amazingly similar to my 2007 211. The wakes look VERY familiar. I would be interested to know if the ski wake is like mine. It's good at 15 off 36 MPH, but slowing down or shortening the line makes the ski wake pretty brutal. Surf and wakeboard wake shape look identical. I think crossover boats are the way to get more people into skiing. Not to mention they tend to be more gentle to lake shores than the tankers that are specifically wake/surf like the G series. Good on Mastercraft. Now if they can keep the price within reason ($75K-$80K) they'll sell a ton of them. I'm not sure why CC ever axed the best selling boat line (211) that they had, but I'm surprised no one has picked up the ball and ran with it since...

This forum is pretty PG rated compared to a lot of online forums. I can't think of any occupation where you really need to be disassociated from this forum in general. Now if you want to be a dick and hide behind a screen name that seems like a weak reason to allow anonymity. If you're in law enforcement, or a professional of some kind, why would you care if people know you waterski? When I'm not skiing, I do a lot of competitive shooting. As you can imagine, that community has a large overrepresentation of law enforcement, and quite a few of my friends from that community are not your run of the mill local police, but of the more secretive variety. They tend not to want their names showing up on facebook/forums/etc, and go through pains to make sure that their scores only show up with pseudonames or initials. But even those guys are the minority. But it doesn't bother me one way or another. My name is in my signature, and I use the same forum handle everywhere, and an internet WHOIS will give you my name anyway. Others don't want the same level of publicity, and bury their info a little deeper. I don't think it detracts from the forum.

I was surprised by how soon pink antifreeze turns to slush. I have a 5 gallon bucket mouse trap loaded with pink antifreeze and was surprised that it started getting seriously slushy at 15 degrees. They say it has burst protection down to -34, but I have my doubts.

I know there are at least two people with pickups in White Bear Lake in the last week or two. That goes to show you the IQ level of SOME of the people ice fishing. That said it is kinda cool to pull dinner through the ice. Nothing better than fresh walleye.

Not soon enough. Supposed to be -24 here this weekend :neutral:

Kinda cool news for another MN company. Floe makes incredible lifts. I have a pair of VSD5000s (actually the second one is coming this spring) but it is a great lift. They also have a reputation for building the best aluminum trailers. I also had no idea they were in the boating industry. Picking up Gekko and Sugar Sand definitely gets them into the market with some better known names (at least around these parts). Considering that every 6th person in MN owns a boat, not a bad place to own a boat company.

I have taught a fair number of people wakeboarding and surfing (hey, ANYTHING to get them on the water) my record is 5 new people up on a board in a week. My number is probably close to 100, but I don't think I'll ever catch this guy. I would definitely do "beginning to ski" clinics a few times a summer though. It'd be a lot of fun...

My last day was 54 air 45 water. It was gorgeous. Lessee: ((54+45)-100)*1.667= -1.6 I'll take it.

I almost pulled out the boat that same day @skibrain but it was late in the day, and it definitely would have been the last use. It'll be down in the single digits here by the end of the week and the wind has been 15 gusting to 40 the last couple days. It's brutal outside.

Yeah I finally winterized last Wednesday. No highs above 30s in the next 10 days.

First "real" season of waterskiing for me. Bought a 196 last year in October, used it once, and put it away. This year we moved to our lake place, so I got in a ton of skiing. Put 30 hours on the boat JUST skiing sets. Figure that has to be 75 sets or so. Finally getting comfortable and position is definitely improving. Video from the beginning of the year to the end of the year is vastly different. Did a couple of "ski nights" here in MN with local slalomers. First time in a course, just to get a taste for it. Next year my goal is to run 15 off @32. Not bad for a 44 year old guy...

Wow, that is some violent skiing. She is hardcore!

Glad I'm not the only skier in MN still skiing. Was out last night right at sundown. Boat had the temp at 51 in the water. It's definitely getting to the "extremely refreshing" point with a wetsuit. I will probably switch to a drysuit next week and ski until I have to dodge icecubes. I'm kinda crazy like that.

I'm around 205-210 and I have a Graphite Senate in 69". It's plenty of surface area for my weight, he should be fine.

Was just gonna say, my first new boat was a Glastron 195SX built with the same technology, in 2004. It was a solid boat. The most important part is that it allows for more consistent thickness, thereby reducing hull weight.

2 rub spots on all the vanes (not to mention dryrot cracking). My old one had wear spots just like that with spots worn on the vanes dividing it into thirds like that. There must be something in the housing that causes that.

@Jody_Seal, please tell me you ski year round in FL! I know I would.

Wow that looks only marginally better than the one I pulled with 300 hours on it.

The reason why 196s (97-09) TSC boats continue to demand premium dollars compared to many other boats of those years is because it's still a hull that competes very well with current model boats (wakewise). That makes it a bargain boat for those of us looking for world class wakes and 1/4 of the cost of a new flagship ski boat. I think until there is some massive innovation in hull design that alters ski wakes or someone comes out with a low cost low frills high performance ski boat, the 196 pricing isn't going down much below where it's at for a reasonably maintained boat. OK by me, I love mine.

Winter can wait another couple weeks far as I'm concerned!

I just got mine last week, with the explicit purpose of being able to mount a heavier camera on it. I have only used it once, and I'm a 15 off open water skier, but it worked good for me. I mounted a Canon SL1 DSLR on it with the stock 18-55 lens, at 32mm. This gave me a good zoom ratio and I never really left the screen. Unfortunately I had the AF mode set up wrong, so I got a bunch of focus hunting, but the stuff in focus was nice and the optical image stabilization worked great (the reason I wanted a mount that could use a heavier camera). Weather permitting I will try to get out one more time this year and get the AF mode right. I don't probably hit the rope like a lot of you guys though so I really can't comment on how well it would work for someone skiing short line through a course.