TomH

I've skied in March before, but it's all based on ice out, as I have no desire to go ski in the river. One of these years, I'll finally pony up for a dry-suit, but I always prioritize other ski gear over that with the limited budget.

We went ice out on the 2nd, and got the first run in on the 5th, and have had 3 or 4 quick sets since. I'm just running wetsuit(s) and a stocking cap, so it's just a quick barefoot up the lake, then slalom until my hands are too numb to hold-on. The boat's back in the garage for a few nights though with the overnights getting into the teens, and me not feeling like draining the engine.

The mid-90's Hydrodyne inboards often fall right in your price range. We've been really happy with our 94 Hydrodyne Grand Sport (open bow version). They do have wood in them, but are solidly built, and have a little more room than the typical inboards of the time (both interior-wise and freeboard). There's certainly better wakes out there, but they're very capable ski tugs (aside from a healthy 22-off bump).

Just about every boat I've ever filled up needed to have the pump handle turned 180 degrees to get the nozzle to best match the angle of the fill tube to allow any decent flow into the tank. Even then, you might not be able to run full blast on fast pumps. I check the gauge before I start and shut down a gallon or two before full, otherwise, my boat will tend to puke it out of the vent since it's lower than my fill. But as said above if your vent is plugged, that will also cause it. Some vent lines have a little check ball in them that also can get hung up and need a new fitting.

Those are just some hacked up Cabrio-style (tongue vs overlap closure) downhill boots, probably old Dalbellos. The plus for those in a waterski setting would be that they have a much more tunable forward flex as opposed to traditional overlap boots. The tongue you install on those boots (can get them in different stiffnesses) can drastically alter the forward flex, while not having much impact to the lateral stiffness of the rest of the boot.

@bradb can you shoot me some info on that somewhere along the way, or who they would contact for it? My neighbor runs his own business out of his home, so, something during the day would be no issue at all.

Thanks @Nando . Those sound like the perfect intro into the course for them (three 60ish year old guys) to wet their whistle and let them decide if they want to pursue it further. They're all pretty good open water skiers, and have been itching to try a course for years. I assume in Shoreview, you're probably talking about Island Lake? I know there's a course on Owasso as well, but that lakes a crap-show on evenings/weekends.

Hey ballers - my neighbor is looking to get some lessons or coaching for his brothers and him to try out the course for the first time. While they're considering taking a vacation down south to get it done, they'd also like to save some of their vacation days if possible. With that, do any of the MN folks know if there's any localish lessons or coaching available for some slalom course never-evers to give it a try (or if there's any traveling pro clinics coming through this summer)? We're pretty close to the Center City Trophy Lakes if anything ever happens up there (we're in Wyoming), otherwise, they're pretty willing to travel around the state.

Snow holds a minor edge for me and pretty much always has. Love of these two activities are why I prefer to live somewhere with seasons. Waterskiing may creep into first next summer though, now that we have water out the back door and I don't have to trailer the boat anymore.

Grip it and Rip it

For your use, I'd probably be leaning towards the Calabria as well, with the 205 coming in a close second. The Sportster's open bow is just about worthless from a seating perspective, and the boat got cramped quickly with only 3 adults. There's also no storage in it (not even a glove box in the one my buddy had), so, for your use, I'd drop it from consideration. The one word of caution I'll put out on the Calabria is to keep an eye on the tower. If the 2002 had the Metcraft tower with the almost vertical rear section; they were known to crack/break, so keep that in mind (tubing diameter wasn't really up to the load).

Tom here - 38 years old. I learned how to ski somewhere around age 5 or 6 on one of our annual lake resort trips back in the day in Northern MN. From then on, I do whatever I can to get on the water. We had a miscellaneous collection of boats growing up from an old tri-hull to a Larson runabout, and a finally a fish/ski bass boat that my dad still has that was a pretty nice barefoot/slalom machine. In my teens I got associated with a couple different show ski teams and have been somewhat associated with that group ever since. Summer evenings in high shcool were spent either at practices or fishing on the lake for a few hours followed by ski sets up until sunset. I've always been one that enjoys a multitude of water sports, and on any given time at the lake you'll find me on a slalom, barefooting, wakeboarding, trick skiing, or a host of other things. Slalom and barefooting are my two passions though. In 2006/2007 we promo'd a couple Prostar 197's for the ski team I was on at the time, and from then on decided I would have an inboard no matter what (as much as I like outboards for footing). After marriage and kids, my wife and I finally drummed up the cash to pick up a low-hour 94 Hydrodyne inboard about 6 years ago, and have been loving getting the kids introduced to watersports ever since. Both our boys have been on the water since 2ish starting with platform trainers next to the boat, then out back, then onto skis, and some barefoot training on the boom. At 7 and 8 they're both pretty good skiers, but both fell in love with the kneeboard last summer, and will pick that most of the time. Up until this summer, I had them convinced our boat wasn't capable of pulling a tube, so they've only ever done that at friend's places... :smiley: In a couple weeks, we're finally completing our ultimate dream of getting on the lake, and are moving onto an awesome lake a little north of the St. Paul/Minneapolis metro area, and plan to be here until we die. I'd love to get a course up on our new lake at some point, but with the current population on the lake, I don't think it would go over well. But anyone that's up in the Wyoming, MN area will certainly be welcome to take a rip.

Cab of the truck held up surprisingly well to that size of a boat on it....

I'm like a few others above, just lay relaxed while rope is playing out. Once rope tightens up, call for idle - bring knees up, but let your ski lean the direction of whichever foot you have forward (if two feet in) and track lightly in that direction (it'll keep you from wobbling). Once the boat powers up, pull back foot up tight to butt, and pressure the front foot to shallow out the ski angle. The ski will straigthen itself out once you've got some water moving under it, and you'll be up before you can think about it.

@Brewski It depends if you want to put weight up there 'permanently' or not. If you want the weight there full time, then Lead-wake steel shot bags are a good option for a decent amount of weight in a small footprint, and you can really jam it up into the bow. Sandbags, or bags of concrete mix (wrapped in plastic) are options as well. If you don't want full-time weight, throw a fatsac or two up under there (1 or 2 of the Fly-High Side-sacs are a good option). We do that with the outboards on my old show ski team where we don't want full-time weight depending on what's being pulled. If you go that route, I'd recommend plumbing them in (versus a pump over the side), as they're pretty inaccessible on a routine basis.

I've got a 94 Dyne with the open bow (Grand Sport), love our boat. One of these days, I'll have to get some decent pictures of it.

I'd bypass the kill switch first just to rule it out, since a faulty kill switch allows the crank but no start that you have. Boat out of neutral is the one that won't crank.

Common on every boat I've ever dealt with, but I usually get decent flow by turning the nozzle 180-degrees so the nozzle angle matches up to the angle of the fill hose. If I go in the other way, it's an instant shut-off.

@jriester33 9/1 is the plan. It'll be a little weird being back on Lake Jane, as I lived right over there growing up, so spent a ton of time on the three lakes there through college and beyond. Nice to see they lifted the no wake before noon rules there.

I'm in on the MN one as well with my wife (but need to fix the reservation as I managed to sign up for different days...). I'm pretty damn excited to try out some skis as the squirreling money away for a lake house has left me on some old gear for a long time.

I've got at least 4 wrenches in the mud near our ski team's dock. 2 pairs of sunglasses. Even lost my board shorts one day last year after footing. Stripped out of my suit in the water and didn't feel them leave since I had compression shorts on....spent the rest of the day in my wetsuit.... And I'm still getting blamed 10 years later for an anchor off my wife's grandparent's pontoon, when one of the aunts for some reason untied the rope that I had just tied to the pontoon and tossed the anchor in... The neighbors found it a few years later when their prop picked up the rope.

If you want/need the stated capacity of the trailer tire, you need to run it at the capacity on the tire sidewall (cold max inflation pressure). If your load is well below the load ratings of the tires, then feel free to run differently, but it's common knowledge that the maximum load rating for trailer tires is only achieved when they're inflated to the maximum listed on the sidewall. Yes, pressures will change when the tire is hot/in use, but that's accounted for by the tire manufacturer, and why they list the maximum cold inflation temperature.

Looks like the exhaust only fires to the right (you can see the pipe on the right of the hump coming out the stern). The silver piece in the middle would be the stern thruster. They probably located the exhaust the way they did to prevent the thruster from cavitating on the exhaust (similar to how Nautique diverts the exhaust at idle on the G23's with thrusters).

I've skied with soft contacts for well over 15 years. I've never lost one on slalom, but probably wash about one out a year on barefoot deeps. My one gripe is my lenses are fairly hydrophilic (which I like for general comfort and they don't dry out as easily), but if I get a little bit of water on them during a start, they'll go completely blurry until I blink all the water out, which has resulted in a few spectacular diggers barefooting. My previous lenses weren't as comfortable, but didn't blur out at all.

Stand-outs for me are the 93 Mastercraft limited silver flake boat, most iterations of the LXI, and the 197's. My favorite was a 07 197 we promo'd - was the first 197 to have the LY6 - had power for days (but went through a few flame arrestor designs to find one that would fit under the doghouse). I wish I had a picture of it on the water - made the gunmetal flake shimmer, and perfect lines.