WIRiverRat

I'm in Wisconsin and although I own a drysuit I have no taken it out in about 5 years. I have found that a full wetsuit and a HW shower on the boat keeps me much warmer. Fill the suit up with hot water before you jump in and you will never feel the cold. As soon as you get out rinse off your hands and head with warm water and you are good to go. I also have a reflex binding which keeps my toes out of the open air. When I used to have animal bindings and my toes were exposed things were way worse. I have also found that a neoprene head band does wonders if you keep your ears from the wind. This year the water was 38F for our first ski. We usually put the boats away halloween weekend and one guy takes his out of storage for an annual decemeber run before the water freezes.

While I am no longer in Michigan, I can tell you that in Wisconsin we had to get two permits. One for the structure under the water and one for the buoys to be above water if we wanted to keep them up. Maybe you need to look in to getting an additional waterways marker permit to keep them up if the DNR really comes down on you.

The poles are just a few inches off the river bed. I don't have a good picture but we machined up some brass inserts the neck down the hole on the top considerably. We also flared the edges of that insert so the cable would not wear on it. The gentleman who helped me design this does work in bridges and dams for a living and was confident we would not have sediment issues. His bigger concern was getting minnows in the pipes. He said they have pulled up 12in pipes before that have full grown catfish living inside them that must have gotten in when they were small.

UWSkier, I am in La Crosse, come join us if you are in the neighborhood. Andre, yes we put a weak link in to release in case of a major hit. We have a spring clip between the chain and subfloat. I think it is rated at 150lbs, would break away if someone were to really give it a tug.

I will have to get some pictures when we go out monday, already got our sets in today and tomorrow is supposed to storm. As for the price I am afraid to know what that really was, two of our members have a marine contracting business which is where all the support came from. I will say this course has had an effect on skiing in the area in that when I moved to this area 4 years ago my wife and I were the only serious slalom skiers I could find, now we have a club of about 10 people, two of which have bought new pro stars, and I get calls from people all the time I have never even met wanting to come out and ski with us. If you build it on public water they will come...

After a few years of attempting to use a portable course in our river and it be destroyed by current, frequently changing water levels (changes of 7ft are common), and fishermen we got a group of skiers together to form a club, get proper permits and install a permanent course that will withstand the challenges of our river. I thought I would share some pictures of our installation from yesterday and will dare say we now have one of the most heavy duty slalom courses in existence. A few details, each buoy is individually anchored by a 2in, 7ft long pipe. There is a steel weight inside the pipe that allows the buoys to move up and down with the changing water levels. The weight is attached to a stainless steel cable which attaches to a steel chain. The chain clips on to our subfloat which we put a machined aluminum plate on each end with a threaded rod through the middle so the sub floats will not get chewed up over the years from rubbing with wave action. The subfloat then goes to another stainless steel cable up to the bouy. If a buoy comes off the weight drops to the bottom of the pipe pulling everything down which we can easily retrieve with a magnet to the steel chain. The course was installed off a barge using a vibro hammer on a excavator. We used GPS to place markers at the bottom of the river in the correct spot and had a diver place the anchor pipe on that spot so we could get the location correct to drive the pipe. We began this project back in November and after many hours and countless meeting with the city/DNR to get our permits after that first pass was made I can finally say it was all worth it.

As someone who used to be a USA Waterski member and skied tournaments then took a 10 year break and recently rejoined this past year here are my 2 cents on what it offers. The tournament parts of it can be fun, even if you are new to ski the grass roots, F, and even C tournaments. Don't be scared by a C tournament, go down to the dock and tell the people you are new. Most are incredibly willing to take you under their wing. My advice is ask if you can help. You will certainly be made a dock starter and meet lots of new people. The majority of my use for USA waterski came outside of tournaments though. We used to put on a learn to ski clinic in association with a local dealer every week. This allowed us to have a trainer driver, safety coordinator and the $5 one day memberships to limit our insurance liabilities. The $5 one day memberships were a great way to get people hooked. Now that I rejoined I did it because I moved away and no longer have access to a good slalom course. I found a group of guys who want to invest the time and money to put a permanent course in public water with me. We just started a club so that we can limit our liability by taking out extra insurance. USA Waterski offers this type of insurance and that rates are not too bad. In addition we are getting trained drivers and safety coordinators so that we can sanction our practices and have the secondary insurance. I know a lot of people dismiss that but I had a jump crash that landed me in the hospital some years ago and the secondary insurance was great to work with and I never paid a dime for all of my recovery. I do wish USA Waterski had some better resources for applying for slalom course permits. This has been the hardest part of the entire process. A state by state database of what permits are required and maybe a template for those would go a long way in getting more slalom courses and thus more people in the organization.

I have a shower and use it every set in the early spring and late fall. Put it down your wetsuit and you will never get cold. Once your back on the platform after your set rinse down your hands and feet and you never get chilled. Bought mind from discount inboard marine. Hands down the shower keeps you skiing way later in the season than a heater will, and the shower is a lot easier to winterize. I have the shower and my ski partner has a heater, whenever it is cold out we both agree to ski behind my boat. The wife will even ski in sub 50F water and sub 50F air with the shower.

We just obtained a permit to put a slalom course on public water next year. We are currently researching how to best insure ourselves against any issues that could arise from a boater damaging their boat and or injuring themselves with the course. What do you currently use? How much liability coverage do you take out? Do you go through USA Waterski for this or a different carrier? There are three of us currently that will be setting up the course and skiing it. We have talked about either creating an LLC and taking out a policy or creating a waterski club and getting insurance via USA Waterski. What are the pros and cons of each? I did see its $100 for the club membership to USA waterski plus $575 for club liability insurance plus another $110 for the slalom course insurance.

As we came around the corner of the river this morning for our dawn patrol ski we were quite surprised to see the site of 110 fully loaded bass boats getting ready to take off and raise all heck on our glass calm water as the Bassmaster fishing tournament is in town. One of the guys in our boat mentioned how cool it would be to be a co-angler in a boat and I asked what that was. Apparently local people get the opportunity to go out with the pros and fish with them for an entire day. They use the sponsored bait and get tips while in the tournament setting. Many of the top boats will raffle off their co-angler spot through their sponsors. This is a really cool idea that could be adapted to grow our sport. Wouldn't it be awesome if you got to spend some practice sessions in the boat when Nate or Freddy skied and then got to demo a new ski they set up for you? Or even at the local level to team up a new skier with a top skier to show them the ropes. As I look at a park filled with tents, semi trucks, and a $650k pot for reeling in a big fish it goes to show what you can grow through sharing the sport to get someone hooked.

I am down in Lacrosse. If you are ever this way shoot me a message and bring a ski. It sounds like the bungee cords won't stretch enough for how often our levels change. In talking with ski partner last night I think the new plan is do a depth survey this fall and try to find the correct positioning of the course so they we have a little bit more depth at each ball. Then just do the traditional anchor to subfloat to a bouy with counterweight. Any advice on a good counterweight? When water is high it will be hear the surface, want to make sure it's safe on the boat if the driver swerves a little bit.

We don't get too much debris coming down the river, just a few logs in the springtime but that is usually before the course is in. After reading MNshorliner's comments I found some heavy duty 1/2in shock cord. I am thinking an earth anchor with a SS cable to a subfloat from skier to skier then do 1/2in shock cord up to an adjustable plastic clip from skier to skier. The shock tube is supposed to be able to stretch up to 125% of its length so maybe I would only have to adjust the clips a few times a year. Keeps it simple. We are hoping to do a detailed bottom survey of the river so we know all the depths and then overlay the course on that survey so we know the GPS coordinates of each ball and give those coordinates to the divers. I have put in lots of courses with PVC and cable but never anchors. Hopefully this approach works well.

Do you have a link to the bungee you use? This system is very simple and simple is a good thing. How much fluctuation in water levels can you get before you have to retie the bungee cord? We are on backwater of the Mississippi River and levels and fluctuate by a foot or two every week. I'd like to avoid having to retie every time we ski but if a 6ft bungee can give 2 feet or so I think that would be a good solution. I have found the earth anchors at farm and fleet. Looking at the 30in anchor just for some added security. I went to ski last night and someone had broken a pipe and the mainline in 2 places on my current insta-slalom. Looks like I may be doing this project sooner than expected. From what I have seen I need to make this durable enough for the wake surfers who decide to run the course with their boats fully loaded with ballast. Yes we have seen them actually do that. Thank you for the advice. Where in MN are you located? I am right on the border and always looking for new people to ski with.

I have been putting a course on a public river for the past two years and am getting tired of having to fix something every time we go out and ski. I have introduced a new ski partner to skiing the course and he has access to divers/survey equipment and is willing to help install a permanent course. We have two challenges that I hoping someone has experience with: (1) River levels fluctuate 5 feet from spring to fall so the course needs to be adjustable. (2) When the river is low part of the course is only 4.5ft deep. With the need to allow the bouy to raise up we can't just do the traditional subfloat to a line with a counterweight. My thought is to use an augered earth anchor at each bouy. Attached a triple pulley block to that and run SS cable to another triple pulley block on a sub float. This way for every foot the subfloat goes up or down the bouy could move 6 feet. Has anyone ever tried a set up like this? Suggestions for augers? Suggestions for a pulley that will withstand a river? I would really like to keep my sanity and spend time skiing instead of course maintenance. Thanks