DangerBoy

I hope you guys can figure out a good way to break them in to meet your standards because as @Than_Bogan rightly states, there is a lot to like about the Dyneema liners. FWIW, I'm using them inside Masterline K-Palm Curves (https://h2oproshop.com/products/masterline-k-palm-curves) and they work great for me. The K-palms were so tight when I got them (especially the fingers) I thought they had either sent me ladies gloves or that the gloves were defective. The finger channels were so narrow I didn't think there was any way I would ever get my fingers into them but I did and now the gloves fit absolutely perfect and the Dyneema liners are thin enough to get into those tight, tight gloves.

I didn't think that O'Neill Revenge Vest deal was going to happen so I bought a Medium Slate Blue Slasher vest on Zappos for a real good price. Had it shipped to my friend's PO Box in MT so shipping was free. My friend will bring it up to where I live the next time he comes up to visit his son. Saving $70 CAD compared to what local place has them on for right now. I'd like to support the local store but I just can't afford the $70 difference right now.

@OldboyII Did you find that the sizing on the O'Neill Revenge vests was consistent with the sizing on the Slashers? I have a line on a Revenge that I might be able to get for a decent price and it's a Medium.

That's awesome news! :) I live in Canada so to take advantage of the free shipping I had my ski sent to a border town in MT. A friend of mine who lives just across the border from that town is picking it up for me and will bring it up to where I live the next time he comes up to visit his son. As such, it might be a number of weeks before I get to unbox mine. I sure am anxious to see it though. :#

@Than_Bogan I did not notice this happening at all with the gloves I've been using. It may be that the insides of my gloves creates more friction with the Dyneema liners than whatever gloves you are using. It could also be that my gloves are so tight and fit me so well there's just no way for them to move around relative to my hand. Despite Dyneema's abrasion resistance, I did note that my liners roughened up a bit after a few uses. Very fine pilling was visible. It was a minor amount but it might be just enough to alleviate the movement you experienced the first time out with them. Why don't you try to roughen the liners up with a fine sandpaper or something and try them again?

I should point out a few things here. We are skiing early in the morning in a place where there is rarely any other boat traffic at that time of day so we are not really endangering anyone or any other boats by dropping the ski. We do not do loops because they mess up the water. We only go straight in one direction and then back in the opposite direction so we're always inside our wake and are never crossing our wake. When we drop a ski we are very careful to do it straight out from a recognizable landmark such as a set of cliffs or whatever so we can get straight back to very close to where the ski was dropped and find it as quickly as possible. The skier waits until they see a landmark the drop location can be referenced to before they drop and both the spotter and skier make note of what the landmark is and about how far out from that landmark we were when the ski was dropped. Despite all that, it's still often really hard to find the ski owing only to the invisibility of its black base on the water. Weighting the tail of the ski so the tip pops up is a good idea and I think I will find an old crap ski and do that. I will also paint it neon yellow. I don't want to drill into the Celebrity drop ski but I am going to paint the bases of the Celebrities neon yellow. Despite the arguments to the contrary, I still believe the point of my rant is remains correct and valid. Ski companies can choose to make the bases of their combi skis any color or colors they want just as they do with slalom skis. Almost without exception though, they choose to make the bases black which is the absolute least contrasting, hardest to see color they can be when floating on a lake with any depth to it. When you consider how combi skis are often used, this makes absolutely no sense at all and defies all logic. It's like deliberately choosing to make grass green coloured golf balls. No golf ball company would ever do that because it would be completely dumb and golfers would be the first to call them out on that yet somehow it seems that a good portion of the waterskiing community doesn't think it's right or valid to call the waterski manufacturers out for making the bases of all their combi skis black but doing that is just as poorly thought out as making grass green colored golf balls would be. I mean, why would you do that when it's just as easy to make them a color that's easy to spot when the ski is floating? Yes, people can easily paint the black bases some more visible color but why do the waterski manufacturers make it so their customers have to do that? Why don't they just make them a visible color in the first place?

I know there are some representatives from various waterski companies on this forum and I sincerely hope they see this post because this is a grievance I've had with the way recreational waterski pair skis have been made by pretty much all manufacturers for decades now. HO, Radar, O'Brien and others, hear my rant. This year, I had some friends visit the cabin and one of them had done some waterskiing before and came out with us every morning to ski. He was just at the starting on doubles and dropping a ski stage so I broke out my pair of O'Brien Celebrity combo skis for him. The lake I ski on is quite large: it has three arms about 20 miles long and another one about 14 miles long. The width varies but probably ranges from about 1/2 to 1 mile across everywhere. It's nothing like one of the Great Lakes but in my part of the world it is considered quite a good sized lake and is easy to lose something small on. It's also fairly deep, with depths ranging up to 650 feet deep so pretty much everywhere the lake looks dark right up until very close to shore. On any given morning we could be skiing in a number of places depending on where we can find calm water. From my experience, whenever a ski gets dropped, the vast majority of times it ends up floating upside down. And do you know what color every waterski company seems to make the bases of their pair skis? Black. Can you guess what color of ski base is the absolute most difficult to see on a huge expanse of deep dark water? Black! So what do you think happens every time the ski gets dropped and the skier goes on down the lake for some time before he/she crashes or throws in the handle? We spend 10+ minutes trying to find a stupid drop ski we can't see because it was made the exact same color as the background it was released into. It's so stupid you can't help but channel your inner Louis Black and smack yourself in the forehead. I know some people's solution to this is to mark the drop point by throwing a brightly colored lifejacket or something else overboard when the skier drops the ski but the easier and more intelligent solution to all of this is for the water ski manufacturers to grab a brain and start coloring the bases of their pair skis some highly visible color like neon yellow or orange so they can be seen from a long distance on a dark background. Are you listening ski manufacturers? Stop making the bases of your combi skis black! It's a terrible idea with no thought behind it whatsoever. I have now resolved to purchase a can of neon yellow spray paint and paint the bottoms of those pair skis. Those skis don't often see much use but I hope I can find a paint that will stick to the bases well and last for a long time. If anyone has a suggestion for what type of paint and primer I should use, I'd be glad to hear it.

PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way. GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. An OTF is just another path, one that we all must take. You feel yourself going over the front, the grey spray-curtain of this world rolls back, you make impact, and then you see it. PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what? GANDALF: White shores, an ambulance and paramedics, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise. PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad. GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.

@dvskier I don't really do OTFs (knock on wood). I've chosen not to. Can I just do some belly flops off the dock instead to make it fit? ;)

Of all the slalom courses in all the lakes in all the world... she walks into mine.

@Chef23 I hear what you're saying and do agree. Unfortunately, I just can't afford it. I was laid off from my job a couple years ago when oil prices took a dive and my Province went into a deep recession. Since then, I've been picking up whatever consulting work I can to try and scrape through. The last 4 or 5 months have been really slow so things are really tight right now. I'm trying to find a job but people in my age group (55 - 60) are finding it really hard to get hired back on by anyone as we inch our way out of this recession. Such a jacket is a "nice to have" but not a "need to have" so I just can't justify spending very much on one especially since I just purchased a new ski and set of bindings. I got a great deal and only spent less than $400 for all of that but it was a big expenditure for me. I was just hoping that someone might have one of these jackets they're not using any longer and would be willing to let it go for a price that's more affordable to me. I realize that may not be possible but I thought it was worth it to try... I'll watch the prices at the local shop though. I have a feeling they'll start blowing their water ski and wake sports stuff out in September to make room for their snow ski stuff so maybe I'll be able to snag a good end-of-season deal if they still have my size in stock by then. Right now the discount is only 10% and I think they might go to 20% or more off a little later on.

@Chef23, @dvskier You guys saved me again! I went back to the store to try the medium. It was a bit of a struggle to get the zipper started and going but I did manage to get it on and it felt good. I could breathe fine and I didn't talk like I was breathing helium either. Those vests are a lot stretchier than I thought! I also have to take into account that I tend to lose a little weight off my gut and torso when I'm out at the lake so the medium does seem to be the right choice for me. I just might need a little help getting the jacket zipped up sometimes but that's no problem. Okay so now what I need is a Medium. Unfortunately, I can't change the subject line of the posting now... :( Anyone got a medium they could let go of

The gloves I have are really tight and fit me perfectly but it takes a little while to get my fingers all the way in them with or without the liners and they have to be wet. No way I can get into them dry. I can still get into the gloves with the Ansell liners on and I don't notice any movement of the glove in the palm area when in use. My gloves are really tight in the palm area though. They might not work as well in a pair of gloves that have been stretched by wearing Kevlar liners underneath but they shouldn't give you any sliding problems when used inside a new pair of tight-fitting gloves. My impression is also that they will outlast Kevlar liners by a fair bit. How much they'll outlast them I don't know because I haven't worn out the first pair yet but after many uses, they aren't showing any wear to speak of and are holding their shape and size very well. I have used Kevlar liners for many years in the past so I do have a pretty good idea of how long they last.

@dvskier What is your chest size? I'm about a 42" and I have a few (okay maybe several) lbs of "surplus energy storage tissue" (my new PC term for fat or blubber ;)) on my belly. I carry most of my weight in my chest area and mid section but I can still get into 32" - 33" waist jeans.

I didn't try on a medium O'Neill. I tried putting on a Medium Connelly which is supposed to fit the same size range and the zipper ends were so far apart that there was no way I could even get them to touch no matter how hard I stretched the jacket and sucked my gut in. After that, I didn't bother to even look at the Mediums in other brands. I guess I have to go back to the store AGAIN and try on a medium. If I do manage to get it on in the store I'll probably talk like I just breathed in gas out of a helium balloon... ;) Good thing the store is only about a mile away.

@Chef23, Thanks so much for speaking up and saving me from buying the wrong size. The store did have a large for me to try on so I went there and did that. It was snug but I could definitely tell it was the right size for me.

I shipped a boat from Pipestone, MN to Sweet Grass, MT (Canadian Border) about 1,000 miles through UShip. Cost me less than a buck a mile and the guy delivered it very quickly. He picked it up about 4 pm local time in Pipestone, drove until midnight, caught a room in a motel for 5 hours and delivered it to Sweet Grass by around noon or 1 pm, Mountain time. I told him he didn't have to be in such a hurry but he said he had other loads to haul ahead of him and needed to be quick and efficient to stay on schedule. He was very professional and stayed in communication with me the whole time. Overall, I was very pleased with the way things went using UShip.

You had me at "Hit it!".

Go ahead, make my spray.

I know what you're thinking; did he make 6 buoys or only five? To tell you the truth, I kinda lost count myself in all the confusion, But being this is a supercharged Nautique, the most powerful ski boat on earth; powerful enough to pull your arms clean off, I'd ask myself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well do ya, punk? :D

I find this discussion of precise fin and boot settings interesting and useful but I can't help but think that given the large amount of error introduced by my much less than precise technique and the variability of my positioning, timing, weighting, etc., on every single turn, that to be precise down to even hundredths of inches let alone thousandths in fin settings seems a bit overkill to say the least. I'm sure that being precise to that level in all the settings makes sense for really good skiers with really precise and highly repeatable technique but for a hack like me striving for such precision doesn't seem to make as much sense. Once you get to a certain level of precision - which I suspect is nowhere near the thousandths or even hundredths of inches for me - it becomes impossible to differentiate between error caused by non-ideal settings and non-ideal technique when trying to assess what's wrong or right with my turns. That being said, I will be trying the settings people have found to work well on the new V-Type until I find something I like. I remember that I couldn't turn my Monza at all when I first got it but after moving the bindings forward and tweaking the fin settings a bit, I now find it super easy to turn so I do believe that settings can make a big difference. It's fair to say, however, that part of that is due to the fact that my technique and ability improved a considerable amount since I got that ski. Whether getting the settings right for me helped in any way to facilitate that improvement is really hard to say. Much of it, I think, was simply due to the huge superiority of the Monza over my previous ski which was a HO Mach I. Just having a ski that turned so much better, could hold so much more angle and hold that angle with such increased stability allowed me to take my skiing ability up several levels in pretty short order. I'm sure that getting the settings right had something to do with that as well but since I went from an old tech and design recreational level ski to what was considered a cutting edge high performance tournament level ski at the time obviously had a lot to do with my improvement also.

Okay, I've revised the ad to ask for a Men's L as per @Chef23's advice. Anyone got a large to sell?

@Chef23 You could be right. I've never used a comp vest before so I don't know. All I know was that I had to suck my gut in a lot and pull pretty hard on the zipper to get it started and when zipped up the jacket was quite tight everywhere but I was able to breathe. But then again, the vest was dry. Unfortunately, they did not have a large I could try on. The chest size range for a large is 40 - 44 and I am middle of that range and not in the 44-48 range the X-large is supposed to fit. I just figured all the makers made those Comp vests about a size too small.

@Andre I just tried one on in the store today and the XL fit perfectly. I'm 5' 9" and a slightly rotund/pudgy 180. ;) I tried on several brands of Comp vests and I took an XL in all of them. I came to the conclusion that all comp vests fit small because I've never fit anything larger than Large in anything else. For example, my Hyperlite life jacket that I bought at Costco is a large and fits me perfectly. I liked the Slasher best of all the ones I tried on or looked at so now I'm looking for one at a price I can afford. Haven't been working much lately so funds are really tight... :( I'd be interested in yours if I knew of a way I could dye it black and was sure the fabric would hold the dye and not dye me black every time I wore it...

Note: I originally posted looking for a Men's XL. I was subsequently convinced that I need a Men's L instead. I have revised the subject line and this original posting to correct the error. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- If anyone has one of these in Men's Large hopefully black, grey or Slate (dark blue) and wants to rehome it, I'd be interested if the price is right. I do have a US address it could be shipped to if you prefer not to ship to Canada.