o2bnMaine

@Clydesdale I used to have a place on Long Lake in Bridgton. We sold it in August. Now we're just Floridians.

@skihacker When I lived in Maine, I would ski from April through November. Usually it was the water level that forced the boat into the garage. I rarely would wakesurf until mid-October -- when my younger friends couldn't get their regular friends to join them on the water I'd be the defacto crazy person to get out there. Now, we make a note when the water drops below 80 degrees. ;-) @MISkier The camera has 2 180+ degree lenses that get stitched together. On the phone, I tell the software where I want to "point" the camera. I watch the footage and click at each buoy putting my body/the buoy 2/3rds over to the far side. During the transitions, there are a few different ways to make it interesting, I've found. I just uploaded my 10 28-off passes from later that morning. I chose to follow Greta during the spins instead pointing the camera at me. The camera software has amazing leveling an steadying algorithms. I can zoom in/out, change color tuning, speed things up. That's about all I do. There is more, but it isn't worth the effort. Again, though, the camera is no longer something worth looking at since they stopped development. I assume GoPro and Insta360 are better options now.

@RGilmore Good observation. Nobody has told me that one before. My primary issue is that I'm not consistent in my pull out or initiation of the turn in for the gate. Usually I get out to 1-ball with plenty of time, but that's not the point if I want to get all the way through 35-off. @MISkier I use a now-defunct 360-degree camera from Rylo. They were purchased for their software (amazing how stable the image is) an the new company stopped all work on hardware. Frustrating for me as they never developed editing software for my pixelbook or windows laptop. @skihacker Yup! We were complaining about that just this morning when we were chased off the lake at 10am by one pontoon boat. We've had a great summer. Boat traffic has been very light lately -- not even fishing boats racing around during tournaments.

@scoke I guess the boat is getting a little old, but we still love it. The wake is miniscule at 32-off and non-existent at 35-off. It is a 2009 Response LX with ZO. The ski is a Denali c75. In 9 months, it has taken me from barely running a 28-off pass to getting around 4-ball at 35-off. When things are clicking, I can get 4 or 5 complete 32-off passes in a set without much effort. This video is purely for grins because it is so awful. This morning, I didn't have much luck at 32-off (again), so for my second set, went back to 28-off to focus more on the fundamentals. I ran 10 consecutive 28-off passes while spinning instead of dropping. My wife kept wondering when I was going to be done. A few days ago, I strained my upper back getting back into position out of 3-ball at 35-off.

My whole set wasn't great. I managed to do a little better on the pass after this one. But I thought this was pretty funny -- I'm curious how many mistakes people will count in this one pass.

I have a rental available that is a great spot for a waterski vacation. The house is on Lake Jessie, which is part of the Chain of Lakes in Winter Haven, Florida. We're listing on many services for both long-term or short-term rentals. It dawned on me the other day that I should share the links with this group in case someone wants to get away for a week, month, or the winter! With all the Work From Home opportunities we are getting, this is a great option. The house is set up to accommodate 10 people. There are four bedrooms. 1 Queen. 1 Full. 2 Twins. 4 Bunk Beds. There are quite a few courses in the area. All are maintained by the skiing community at large. Lake Jessie (eastern shore; 1 minute!). Lake Howard (northern shore; ~10 minutes). Lake Hartridge (northern shore; ~10 minutes). Lake Lulu (southern shore; ~30 minutes). Lake Winterset (multiple courses; ~45 minutes). I usually ski on Lake Jessie or Lake Howard. If you want to try out a ski school, Lucky Lowe is ~15 minutes away in Lake Alfred. Kyle Eades at Ski Fluid is up in Polk City at the old USA Waterski site. They are ~30 minutes away. Beyond that, Jack Travers, Matt Rini & Whitney McClintock, Ryan Dodd and the McCormacks are ~1 hour's drive. And the World Barefoot Center for barefooting is just down the road too! Long-Term: https://www.zillow.com/b/900-Lake-Jessie-Dr-Winter-Haven-FL/28.056529,-81.767062_ll/ Short-Term: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/44593906?source_impression_id=p3_1602199436_aZA%2Fv1WP5BXYxxwA If you have any questions, please reach out. We're excited to share this location with other skiers!! Lake Jessie is home to a very good seaplane school as well. So you get to watch seaplanes come and go throughout the day. They aren't very loud, if you are wondering. ;-)

@SlalomSteve, I'm just over 150 pounds right now and use a small 2019 c75. I'm skiing at 34mph/28-35-off though. I'm curious what the recommendation will be as you are skiing a little slower and longer line lengths. When I demo'd the ski late-2019 it was pre-COVID weighing in at 160-165 pounds. They recommended the small for me at that time.

@skierjp Yes, we do have to deal with boats. We have our course on Lake Howard and another on Lake Jessie to use. There are days we don't ski, but I'm surprised how many days we do get on the water. Typically, we ski soon after sunrise. Spirit Lake has quite a few courses on it, yes?

I made mine slightly different. Since we're sharing, here you go. :-) This approach was super easy to do. These are for the end of the (insta-slalom) course. The eyelet in the center is for the buoy (so I can find the anchor easily) and to make it easier to move it around before dropping overboard. The eyelet on the side is where I attach the course cable. The shape of the concrete, using the bin I chose, is slightly trapezoidal. By placing the eyelet on the side, the force is more horizontal making it harder to flip the anchor on its side. You just fill the bin to whatever weight you desire. I think I used two 80-pound bags per anchor. All eyelets are stainless. I use 28-pound anchors as Lisa at Insta-Slalom recommended for the pre-gate anchors -- The 55m buoys are on their own line so that the main course cable is as short as possible. This is to keep the course from bowing too much. It is annoying to keep the 55m buoys in alignment though, so keep that in mind if you go this route.

Miles Per Gallon is just a measurement of how often one has to stop while driving long distances. It isn't only about saving money or using less fuel. My wife and I want a vehicle that we don't have to fill up frequently. Seeing almost 900 miles until empty equates to that for us. The size of the tank is also a factor.

I've been using Radar's standard handle (the $65 one, not the barlok) for years. I switched because that's why my local shop sells and the grip on the Syndicate and Accurate I had before wore out too quickly for me. I just replaced it with another. I'd love to see what the hype is about with Masterline, but I'm not willing to spend twice as much for a handle at this point. I have only had the handle pop out of my hands once this year and that was with a very end-of-life grip. I go to Radar for handles, ropes and gloves. I'm not loyal to the brand other than to say that the gloves are amazing, in my opinion.

Here's the video from this morning.

@markn I did that the next morning. I wasn't driving my boat. He likes to keep it in tournament mode -- and doesn't know how to change any of the settings so I usually don't like to change it and forgot. We were too busy gabbing.

Here's a video of a friend of mine with some grit. He hasn't barefoot this season until I got to Maine on Sunday. On Sunday, I gave him a rough start... I forgot that the zero-off was set to 34mph and, in the middle of his get up, I had to slow down, turn off the ZO and then accelerate to 40mph without him thinking anything was wrong. He managed to get up and foot for about a mile. This morning, I gave him a rock-solid barefoot start without adding anything friendly. I smoothly got him to 40mph and he then proceeded to stand up. But since I did not turn the boat to help him slide outside the wake he ended up standing up in the turbulence. Watch the video to see what grit looks like for a barefooter. I don't think I've seen a rougher get up behind the boat (yeah, that may be a challenge for this thread?). Corey has been barefooting for the past 5 years, but has not developed much confidence. Last summer was the first summer he felt he could "just stand up" without doing a long ritual/process. Last summer, he probably wouldn't have tried to hold on through this start.

I just drove from Florida to Maine. It took us a total of 29 hours (including stops). Our new F150 with the 3.5 EcoBoost engine started out at around 27mpg. It ended up settling at 25mpg as we got into hills. The trip computer was telling us we had 890 miles until empty at one point. We have the "max towing" package, which means we have a 36-gallon fuel tank. The 900-mile range is no joke. Of course, when towing it would be less, but we didn't bring the boat north this trip (friends with boats in Maine!). So, what is basically a 1,500-mile trip can be done on TWO tanks of gas. It is almost disconcerting to see 200 miles left until empty when the gauge reads 25%.

I've been happily using hardshells for around 10 years. I can't imagine going back. Connection to the ski is way better. My wife, who skis at 15-off/27mph now, made the switch this winter and sings their praises as well. She went with Edge hardshells, which is the same as the HO Syndicate design. I wish I had chosen them for my most recent binding. I like the design much better than Reflex. I feel it is much more durable. Oh, and with hardshells, you don't have to use soap. ;-) Seems silly, but getting ready to ski is streamlined. Clip in and go.

Hopefully I get the livestream of the dock working before I head out of town for a bit. In the meantime, you can watch the boats go through the canal. The tech told me to "just change this one setting to see if it fixes things" and now that area of my network is offline. :-/ Worst case, I'll have to climb on the roof and reconfigure something, but it is hot out and I don't want to right now. I also snap a picture from the camera every 5 minutes or so and stitch together time lapses. When I'm bored, I upload a bunch of them to the YouTube channel. Sometimes there are fun storms that are captured.

I normally travel to my clients' offices and they throw me in a conference room with no windows. So, I set up a webcam on my dock and got it up and running on YouTube as a livestream. I thought I'd share in case anyone just loves watching water. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFe_OobGe9K3PaLetVP_BPQ (livestream link will always show you the current LIVE link) (the LIVE link right now) YouTube may create a new stream link if the connection from my dock is down for long enough. We're also on a canal, so here's another link. This is the canal Parks Bonifay sometimes barefoots through. Be warned, sometimes people moon the camera. ;-) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJdrIxPMzjbcmRxXl4eF6A UPDATE: Of course, I decided to try to "fix" something and took the lake camera down. I'll get it fixed as quickly as possible. :-/

I bought a WeatherFlow (now called Tempest). There are different modules to be installed... The bridge goes inside and connects to WiFi. One of the satellites goes near the house in the shade. It does temp and humidity among other things. The other goes down by the dock. It does wind, rain, UV, solar radiation. My biggest challenge is getting an accurate wind reading. The course isn't too far from the sensor, but, still, the winds can be different. This morning, for instance, the wind at my dock was 4~ mph. The course had no wind at all. We are at the north end of the lake. For windsurfing, when the wind is out of the north, this station is useless. When the wind comes in from the south, it under-reports as the winds are never full strength at the shore. I guess no weather station is perfect. :-/

@Zman This is my experience in my '09 Response LX.

@Fast351 Let me know if you find a good WiFi-capable temp sensor. I may end up buying the thermometer that @skialex posted and point a WyzeCam at it to get it "online."

In 35 years of slalom skiing this is the only time I've broken a handle. I can't remember breaking a rope either. My friends have broken ropes while I've been in the boat. This time, I think what I failed to take into account is that most of my time on the water prior to 2017 was freeskiing at 22-off. I may go ski 10-12 miles each Friday, Saturday and Sunday for 6 months, but the forces I'd put on the rope don't compare to skiing in the course at 32-off. Still, poor judgement on my part. I knew it was getting old for a while. I was hoping it would last two more weeks... famous last words. Luckily, my back only got a little from the crash. I'm back to 100%. My punishment/penance is having to use a 12-inch handle for a few weeks. @skimtb Probably 2~ years old, my wife and I ski 4-6 days a week all year 'round. Usually just 1 set per day. Rarely more, but it does happen. @BraceMaker I just pulled out the "new" rope I bought when I replaced my last one, which was probably 1 1/2 years ago. It is in perfect shape. I keep the spares under the dash, off the ground so it never even gets wet. @BlueSki I asked my wife too. Neither of us use our thumbs when gripping the rope. My overhand grip actually puts the thumb on the outside of the handle most of the time. My underhand grip doesn't rely on my thumb either. We both use a very relaxed grip where we just use our fingers. It is something I started doing for windsurfing and transferred it to waterskiing. Still, good advice for those who grip the handle to the palm. No matter how it breaks, it isn't fun.

I have never had a the rope attached to my handle snap before. That was a new one. So, here's a PSA to replace old equipment. My back is very sore from the abrupt change of lots of tension (wake crossing @ 32-off) to hitting the wake on my side. Last week, I noticed the handle grip was down to bare metal for both hand positions. I had a tickler to get a new handle when visiting my favorite ski shop in Maine in a few weeks. I shouldn't have waited... I'll do what I do with impellers from now on... I'll get a spare and always have one brand new spare ready to go in the boat.

I love sighting down the course while driving and seeing our dock at the end. As I type this, I'm sitting on the dock looking up the course. :smile:

@cougfan A story from the '90s. My father and I went down to Peterson's Ski School for a week in June. I remember that was the year the NHL had a strike. It was in the 80's, so I assume the water was pretty warm. We got back to Maine and were excited to put all that we learned into action on our home turf. As my father was getting ready, I said, "remember, the water is going to be faster than Florida." He responded with "yup." Then proceeded to pull out for his first cut down a glass calm lake. I don't remember if he had a yard sale before or after his first turn. It was pretty funny. Cold water is a lot faster than warm water. I'm a data guy, so I like to keep track of stuff in case I want to nerd out and do some analysis in the future. I'm curious of I find that I'm more successful skiing at/near my new personal best in summer or winter.