75Tique

My all time favorite training/inspiration video. My contention, I think probably pretty much broadly shared, is that great women skiers are probably better form skiers than men, since men can rely more on their strength to muscle through the course.

Jody, thought you sold that red one back when you got your first 200. Always liked that red one.

Nice. This is about 6 minutes, so if you have some time to kill, but the clip above reminded me of this video I put together of my kids, spanning about 10 years. They always wanted to ski. Never owned a tube. Not an issue.

Uhhhh, I believe he said wood.

You are doing it all wrong. 8 year old? You are supposed to go out and buy a tube, you know, the kind that looks like a lazy-boy recliner, and drag the kid around in circles for hours for the next 10 or so years. Oh wait, never mind, that's not you, that every single other boat on my lake.

So, Stx22, how did you make out? Here is a feel good, encouraging story for you, if you havent found it yet. This thread was well timed as the previous week I lost a course. Real kicker is, it isnt my course to lose, I have had full time custody of it for a few years, but still, not mine. You know the story, its like a piece of exercise equipment, someone bought it, decided it was too much fuss, so it sat for about 10 years. So I deploy it and retrieve it since HOA rules say it cant stay out. This year, ski partner and I decide to take the balls off and let it sink, with one buoy about 5 feet deep marking one anchor. To test finding it, we circled around the lake once and came back to "the spot" and couldnt find the buoy to save our lives. In subsequent days we both searched with masks, no luck. Based on this thread, I went and bought a $7 grappling hook off ebay. I know kind of where to go since I had a GPS waypoint, but as we know, phone GPS coordinates are less than great. Day one, I did about 7 transects where the mainline should be. Nothing except an extremely heavy log, I am guessing, because it never made it to the surface. Went back about a week later and did about 7 more transects. Bingo, found it. Hauled in mainline, pulled back to anchor. Marker ball was still on the anchor tensioning line, no idea why it disappeared from surface view, but it was there when I pulled the anchor up. I didnt mention, the shallow end of the course was at about 30 feet, deep end, 40 to 50 feet. Moral of the story, I think I will continue to deploy/retrieve the "not my" course from now on. A few stressful weeks there.

Raleigh session was today. Another great time. Conditions were perfect, my first opportunity to ski behind the new Ski Nautique, WOW, what a pull!. Ryan Dodd was the pro/coach. Who knew the world record jumper could offer a few swervin tips too? The people in slots both before mine and after mine didnt show, so I had over an hour to myself (of course since I'm old and tire pretty quickly, there was a pretty good break after first 5 passes.)

This came up by the commentators during the Moomba. I kind of chuckled when one of them said why would you define rope length by how much is laying on the floor of the boat. Kind of makes sense. Of course we could always say 60, 53, 47,43.... just to further confuse the subject.

I have "custody" of a portable slalom course, Instaslalom, I believe. Two questions. When deploying it, of course its not straight until you stretch out the anchor at one end. Twice now, in an effort to get it straight, we had to pull so hard that we actually buckled one of the arms between the boat gate bouys (and both times, it was ball one arm when pulling the anchor at the ball six end. Question on this. In the old days, when I laid out courses with my friends in MA, both anchors were on the bottom, with one anchor having another rope to pull on. Down here , the folks I ski with said stretch the course out with the anchor at the boat and drop it when straight, I find that method flawed, but its not my place to say. Could that be the problem. (They have a ski rope handle with a carabiner on it attached to the anchor (a 30 to 50 ish pound mushroom) The anchor sits on the platform and we hold that handle till we cant hold it any more and the anchor flies into the water) Seems when we did it with the long leader down to the anchor on the bottom in the old days, the course straightened out much more easily. The guys I was putting it in with today suggested trying to stretch it out as each arm is deployed. Any merit to that? Another problem. At the boat gate end of the arm, there is only an inch or so of PVC to put the loop of the nylon main line over. Sometimes the loop has slipped off the arm, some where during deployment or stretching. Im sure that may be contributing to the alignment problem if it happens during the stretch effort. Any suggestions how to avoid these?

Acme 422 (12.5 x 15.5) - 4 blade. Acme 1442 (13.25 x 15) 3 blade. Either will work, either will be good. 3 blade might have a little more top end. 4 blade will be more solid more consistent pull.

Sounds good Jim. Looking forward to seeing/skiing it. Like I said in my earlier post way up in the thread, have really enjoyed the events in the past.

Unfortunately, last I heard ( I believe in the other thread) that Nate will not be doing his Swervin' appearances. Maybe if there are some later in the season, not sure. Too bad, I enjoyed my session with him last year. Mine is in a couple weeks in Raleigh with Ryan Dodd. Looking forward to it. Wondering if our promo guy has a new Ski Nautique. Last 2 years he had a 200. Have not yet seen/experienced the new Ski.

You guys are overthinking this and making it harder than it needs to be. Plus, you are about 60 years too late. (yeah, I know, its soda, but that's safer for boating anyway)

Since it was kind of a wide gap (about 2" x 5") there was some discussion as to how to treat, because it might not have been able to be pulled closed. The doc went for it tho, and all worked out well. 28 staples, in for about 3 weeks and then some follow up "wound care" for about 6 weeks since it kind of pulled open when the staples came out. Good to go now. (happened feb 2)

OK, back to running into nice strangers and talking about boats vs what's the best coffee. I had a little "incident" last winter while working on my boat and experienced a little contact between my thigh and the spinning vanes on the alternator in my boat while working on it. In most of those instances, as in mine, the alternator won. So of course, in the ER, they ask how I did it. Next thing I know, the nurse and I are sharing pictures of our boats and discussing water sports.

Conversely, since you have an RTP, I say get up with your rear foot out. If you've never started that way, I guess it will feel strange and take some getting used to, but its much easier to start with rear foot out as there is no pressure pushing the back of the ski down. That and you have the thigh of your rear leg serving as a planing surface as well, also aiding in getting up. With your back leg stretched out behind you and your chest on your knee, there is very little back stress getting up, which is a good thing for us old folks. Definitely old school picture from a book i've had since the 60s or 70s but still holds true.

Yeah, it's pretty nice, but I think I will wait until the one a few doors down (to the left) comes available.

Always liked the old S&S boats, but ended up leaning toward Nautiques. Here I am behind a 72 Promo Nautique. [/url] There are a few of these among the CorrectCraftFan membership.

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Neither me nor my friends are competitive skiers, but I have skied with both kinds, I.e. despite level, either they are cranky, or they know how to have a good time. I have skied with some INT level, casual competitors. Some are never happy. "Dont sit there, sit there, you are messing with the wake, why did you not get lined up with the course that pass, you were off speed..." And I've skied with just as good skiers who are much more chill and realize its not the end of the world if every little thing is not perfect. Again, neither I or them are 39 off skiers, so its much more fun when you let it be fun. I can see a serious competitor wanting everything just right, but otherwise.... Saved these two clips off an old thread here. Thought they were pretty good summaries of the appeal of surfing over skiing. In another recent thread, someone asked the question, "how can I get my surfer friends into skiing?" One of the answers was show them someone running 35 or 38 off. I dont think that would impress a non skier. They really wouldnt recognize or maybe a better word is appreciate the difference between a 15 off run and a 38 off run. I think you have to be a skier for a while to appreciate it. Although we have a blast doing it, the blast is derived more from the satisfaction of accomplishment than it is the thrill of the ride. I have had the recent pleasure of having a non skier join a skier bud of mine and me on a weekly outing. The nonskier quickly mastered his two skis and is now ready to move to one. He really enjoyed starting out and looking forward to progressing. I think that is rare. I think a lot of people learn 2 skis (those that are willing to try skiing vs wakeboarding) and find it boring and have no interest in moving on. I rambled on a bit. I'm not sure, but I think there was a point or 2 somewhere in there.

I was thinking the same thing as Chef. Course takes up no more room and the whole thing can be accomplished with 6 extra balls. But....do we change the set up to accommodate peoples preferences? Inside vs outside lane in track, clockwise vs counter clockwise in track (or NASCAR?) completely rearranging the gates in snow skiing? Left handed monkey wrenches?

Well, there's that plus the fact that it's March, and on top of that, I don't have any immediate plans to get out with a skier the likes of T-Gas or Nate.

A ski bud has an 05. I am very happy with it as an amateur ski boat. Second half of this clip is the wake at 32 mph/15 off.