ScottScott

Asher and Tgas.... But for how long?

Youtube veiws does make a difference to anyone posting videos on youtube. There are sposorships etc that come through that medium. I can't say how much they are taking advantage of those, but viewer-ship on their channel can very well help them. (I also don't know how this effects that, just pointing that out as a potential.)

i don't know that I agree that is the best practice. In Aidan Willers account of his accident he says he threw the handle in the fall, but had lost track of which direction he was facing. He actually ended up throwing it backwards, away from the boat, and it then got pulled back across him and the handle caught his arm. As much awareness as is possible, I attempt to try to hold the handle untill its pulled out of my hand. Hard to guess if that same situation would have turned out any better if there wasn't a guard in place. The results sound similar to Aiden's accident (without a guard.). Then....how many times would an arm potentially gone through but a guard stopped it. Of course the main benefit is resisting a head through the handle which pretty much has one outcome if it happens.

Brand not terribly significant as far as it goes with a bow rider. A smaller 18ft boat is reasonable to start slalom with. I ran the course at 28 mph behind an 18' sea ray 180 before we got our prostar. Not long ago I skied behind my brothers 22 ft Chaparral and got launched over the wakes. No way I could run the course behind that boat.

I just went on google maps to look at 5 of the courses I frequent on public lakes near me. Course buoys are within 200 ft of the shoreline on 4 of them. 2 are uninhabited shorelines but the other 2 are 200' within residents’ docks, and this doesn't include drop area and run-in. I believe they are all permitted. How does the wording of this letter effect the existence of these courses? Especially when their existence is fragile as/is (even tho permitted.)

The more I think about it, the more this approach angers me. Certainly, on the part of Mastercraft, and to an extent on the part of Horton for passing their ill-advised message on to us. Why be this vague? You can't tell us what we need to say, and who we need to say it to, and not tell us why we need to say it. Do they really think there's a snowball chance in hell I'm going to copy/ paste their message and send it to who they say to send it to without knowing why? When I know more about what’s going on I will likely contact my representative, but it most likely won’t be their letter as written.

So it appears.....Mastercraft would like us to stand up for surfing, potentially at our own detriment..... when in reality, many of us are effected negatively by surfing also. I don’t want to see Mastercraft lose business, but it wouldn’t hurt my feelings to see fewer surf boats on our lakes. Maybe this is a call to the waterski community to promote the differences between surfing and surf boats, and waterskiing.

If someone that has skied for 20-30 years more than me skies better than me, does that mean they ski better than me becouse they know more than me, or becouse they've been skiing longer than me (possibly despite some misunderstandings, or focusing on things that don't really matter....)

@lpskier yes to the gator pass. Includes a little trolling by the Lilly pads at end of course. Good thing reactions aren't allowed in this thread. There'd be a lot of off topics being thrown around. Sorry @MitchellM

SEE a gator.....maybe. Doesn't mean they aren't there. Presume if there's a body of water, there's a gator in it. Its a rare lake that doesn't, and if it doesn't now it may tomorrow (especially in the spring.) In the winter you're more likely to see it laying on the banks, in the summer you can assume they're sleeping on the bottom till dusk (only coming up for air every couple hours.) Still, a skier has a better chance of getting struck by lightning than an encounter with a gator (which isn't really saying much in central florida.)

@MDB1056. Can't tell if thats a joke or not.... they can stay underwater for hours

Yeah, they're all there....but the turtles and moccasins are there no matter what depth there is. Dropping at the end of a course is often closer to shore, pushing limits to the shoreline where you may touch bottom. I almost always wonder if i'm going to drop in on top of a sleeping gator. Of course closer to the lilly pads you always have a chance of a moccasins slithering out. The turtles are pretty much everywhere.

For me, 10' is pretty minimum for any slalom course in Fl. If I am replacing buoys, or when I fall, I like the thought that my feet dangling below are at least a couple feet above the gator sleeping on the bottom.

You're calling your girlfriend "average?" Hope she not on BOS or you got bigger problems than teaching her to drive... .