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I cut the 24" exhaust sections in half to lift the motor while replacing the damper plate. Its an EFI MCX Indmar engine in a 2004 ProStar.

@TayntonYou may have said that because the clearances from shore don't look "real". Ball 6 looks like its 15 feet from shore, but its actually over 140 feet. The extreme telephoto lens messes up our impression of depth.

Its Predator Bay. The club has hosted world tour tournaments there.

Wouldn't mind having this in my back yard.

@bananaronI didn't know about Nisswa. The Correct Craft dealer in Cross Lake said he could squeeze it in if I brought the boat in this week. They are 3 hours away and I couldn't do it this week because our car with a trailer hitch is gone this week. Labor is about $2000 where ever I go, so Ill save that for gas.

@Mastercrafter I just visited the boat where its stored. 1. The rear floor section is 6" behind the shaft coupling on the transmission. And the rubber pipe connections to the mufflers are accessibly with the floor in place. Is there any reason to remove the rear floor section? Its one piece with the doghouse making it difficult for skinny old guys to get it out of the boat. 2. Is there any reason to separate the transmission from the bell housing ? I think I left the bell housing and the transmission together the last time I did this. 3. Are the 24" rubber exhaust pipe sections ordered by the foot, or are they Master Craft parts I am comfortable with the engine alignment process. On my 86 Master Craft with Power Slot, I replaced the strut with a 1" deeper strut Master craft used in '87 because of prop wash hull vibration with with shorter '86 strut. That made the hull very quiet until my son dinged my first perfect prop.

We have two dealers in Minnesota that work on Master Crafts. Neither of them will try to fit my boat into their schedule to replace the damper plate. Midwest, the big Master Craft dealer no longer performs more than simple service tasks such as Winterization on any boat over 10 years old. They say they have 200 boats to get ready for spring. So I am back to doing it myself. The last time I did this was on my 1975 Ski Nautique (decades ago) and it was simple, performing the task while the boat was tied to my dock. It didn't require any overhead lifting equipment. I think I only have one question. Is it necessary to disconnect rubber exhaust piping to perform this task ? If so, does the rubber pipe need to be replaced.

@Bruce_Butterfield@6balls Bindings are the problem on the current combos. The user reviews have many complaints. My 14 year daughter used to ski in my size 12 full wrap double bindings with no problem, but with combos we need something that is comfortable and makes it easy to drop one ski. I saw that radar has inexpensive replacement parts that could maybe be used to make a fixed size binding that is comforatable for women of any foot size.

This is from our 'yard cam' at the lake tonight. Minnesota has had near record snow fall which will end up in the lake; soon we hope. When I see people posting about their first run of the season a few weeks ago, its hard to figure how upper midwest skiers with a 4 or 5 month skiing season can be competitive, but somehow a few manage to do it. Minnesota has never had any open division celebrities but many National bronze to gold medalists over the years. This year a skier with a 4th in the Nationals and another with an Over35 World Tournament Gold. The only benefit of the short season may be fewer artificial joints with a lifetime of skiing.

Who thought it would be good for Ski Nautique and other advertisers to give their ads more air time than the tournament, even playing ads over the skier interviews and replays.

@Bruce_Butterfield @Horton If we had some combo skis they would be for women under 130lbs and with size 6-8 w shoe. In your opinions >>> Are the wide skis suitable - - are the bindings good for that size foot ? Do the wide-front skis turn better on 1 ski. . . the old wood combos don't turn if you are used to any real slalom ski. These Vortex page I saw had all the vortex skis at 65.5" Would that be good for 130 lb ladies.

Have combo skis gone past a branded plank designed by the marketing department. We have 30 to 70 year old women guests who grew up skiing but haven't skied for a long time. Are there Combo skies that benefit from new boot and ski technology to make Combos versatile and skiable for skiers who would want to get back on a single ski on the first day ? We had a 20 year male guest - a fairly good skier - try to ski on an old combo slalom we found in our garage and all he could do was fall when he tried to ski like he could at home. In addition to the ski, quality of bindings is a big part . . we don't need 3" of length adjustment with hardware interfering with the rear foot.

@HortonI wish you could review the Syndicate Works 2. Not much said about Syndicate skis by BOS subscribers, but the Syndicate skis look great with the men and women pros.

@Horton. Didn't you move your home and your forum since the last time you skied. Looks like residual exhaustion.

@Horton said Vision is multi-faceted . . When I returned to skiing after a long break, I found my eyes were bad enough that I did better skiing with correction. Lucky that my distance correction is the same as 2.5 Readers, so I can use $5.00 readers from the drug store. Glasses get covered with spray during deep water start, but the drops blow off when you get up to speed. This last season I learned to stop focusing on the wake and focus on the next ball. I needed to stop thinking of the wake as an obstacle.

You could soften the edge of the caliper tip a very slight amount, or you could do nothing. Either way it will not make a difference in your skiing. If you believe that, doing nothing would be my choice. A third choice would be to fill the notch in the fin with the original JB weld. It has the best bond and is almost black. Just make sure you shape it to match the fin's edge, or you might suspect the epoxy could affect your skiing.

I skied behind a Glastron I/O for 4 years. There were many differences from a ski boat, but we didn't know better and we never complained about the boat. My daily ski partner was a world trick champ and had also placed in overall in the world. We were both practicing into 36off@36mph (premetric) with timed runs on an accurate course. Even though the boat had many differences from a ski boat it didn't seem to hurt our skiing. With an I/O now, the size of the wake at lower speeds might be a disadvantage. And research the tow bar options carefully for position in the boat and for strength. Back in the old days we added struts to the factory tow bar to keep from breaking it off.

In Northern Minnesota our winters are so long we talk to our buddies about the "good old days", trying to remember our ski sessions from the last summer. This screen-saver is my reminder. (the ski has been replaced with a C85)

My Mom showing my sister how to plow a path in the snow so she could go down to feed the horses. A cheerful Minnesota day in January. Water skiing will be back in 5 months. (edit) I should have mentioned that this same sister had a moment of fame waterskiing. She appeared water skiing on the back Full Cover of Life Magazine when she was age18 skiing double on slalom skis with another neighbor girl. It was the only time we had a helicopter on Christmas Lake taking pictures of water skiers. Our neighbor was Frank Bedor who had the Scott Atwater account. They had their motor on a Crosby boat for the ad.

I think you were kidding about the Lazy Susan. Steve Nelson who won the 2022 World Trick title in M9 more than doubling the score of 2nd place, built something like a lazy-susan in his basement. In addition to rotating it moves fore and aft to give some front/back movement for practicing toe tricks. Living in Minnesota he has several months with no actual skiing. He has this a few other training tools specific for trick practice.

Back on the water in 4 weeks with some casual skiing; building back to your normal best skiing in 3 months after healing and strength recovery. Many variables but that's what I would wish for.

Older skiers skiing 30 and 32mph find the 22off bump behind late model Nautiques making their opening 22off pass in tournaments very difficult because of the extreme loft at the wake. Before buying a C85m I had switched from a D3 68" to a 67" to reduce wake loft. Has anyone tested what your newer wider skis do a 30-32mph 22off at the Nautique wake compared to a "large" C85 ?

Yes, but the efficiency of the skier on his ski will be different between skiers depending many factors including weight. Generally, its easier for light weight skiers to be more efficient because they have less weight to accelerate and their ski will have less slip angle (=drag), allowing the "lean force" to convert to speed more efficiently. If a skier maintains a constant strength to weight ratio as he gets heavier, his skiing may suffer because he and his ski will be less efficient. Changing the size of the ski can offset this but not completely.

I have always done all of my own work, but never had a serious mechanical problem. This spring will be the first time I go to the dealer to replace the damper plate on my MasterCraft 197. Originally, I was going to do it myself like I had before on a 1975 Correct Craft. But after looking at this heavier, tubing&wiring entangled power train, I decided paying the dealer $2000 for labor was a better path for me. I have an elastomer damper plate waiting to be installed. With a lot of practice in painting cars, in 1980 I converted the graphics and color scheme of my 1975 Red/White SkiNautique to match my neighbors Grey/White 1980 SN. This promo boat cost $2200 in 1976 with 40 hours . . . ! Not counting the MasterCraft trailer.

I pulled this card out at church benefit sale and the lady was from a ski family that I had skied with for years. Reconnected from an earlier time. She recognized my son in the picture before she saw the name on the card. Shes related to Roger Wall, possibly the oldest man to ski in the Nationals is the head of that family. Wells Fargo lets you position your own photo exactly the way you want on a Credit Card.