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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.

I drove for two World Champs when they had no choice and it's ancient history. I had no tournament qualifications as a driver. I was attending the Roberge ski School in Florida. Tom King the water ski photographer of that era showed up to shoot photos of Karen Roberge for a wet suit manufacturer. At the time I was the only person on site who could drive. No big deal but it was fun the meet Tom and Karen. After Mickey Amsbry won the world trick title he took a real job with General Mills in Minneapolis. He needed a place to ski. He came to our place every weekday morning at 7:30am before work for two summers. I pulled him on Tricks and Slalom each day for two summers. I learned a lot about skiing and skiing "attitude from this Hall of Famer. Regarding "standards", we were skiing behind my parents Glastron IO. We both were practicing into 1@36off at 36mph back before Metric. We timed every pass, but its now hard to imaging skiing behind a Glastron IO.

In the history of competitive water skiing, the standards for boats, drivers and equipment have evolved from no standards to extremely high standards. A few BOS members have been top level drivers and skiers in their their lifetime. Some had this experience a long time ago and some are currently tournament driver's. Maybe someone was desperate for a practice driver and you were the only choice. Maybe it was last year or decades ago. This a poll to share your experience driving the World's best skiers at any time or under any circumstance.

I may not have expressed it correctly . . When a skier is pulling the boat to the right, the boat centerline has to be rotated left to offset the lateral force caused by the skier. To keep the boat on the course centerline, when and how much I turned to compensate for the skier was by anticipation and feel. Still probably too simplistic, but its a start. When instructing a new driver, I learned they have to avoid trying to drive the boat down the center as if there is no skier. If you let skier pull you off center, there is no graceful way to get it back to center fast enough. That was the mistake I made on the first couple of passes pulling my friend after 30 years of no driving through a course.

From age 14 to 45 I had drivers, a slalom course and a boat in my front yard. Except for two seasons with Micky Amsbry skiing at our place 5 days a week, no other skiers lived within 30 miles, so I rarely drove other skiers. Years later . . I now have to break in a new driver with no experience in the course, but what do I know ??. Last summer when I pulled a 35off M8 skier behind his SN196, I remembered nothing about keeping the boat on center. On the 3rd pass I adopted a strategy of guiding (pointing) the boat toward the next left or right gate buoy just enough for the skier to keep the boat to center approaching and through the next boat guides. He skied into 38off with no complaints when I asked. Then when he observed the next set, I was pulling his ski partner. He said I was within 3 or 4" of center at the gates . . it sounded like he was complaining. No thanks to my driving, he went on to place 3rd in Men 8 at the 2022 Nationals the next week. For a new slalom course driver, is there a simple instruction set for their first time pulling a skier ? I know as a skier, good driving is an art built on natural talent and years of experience . . but how to guide the first time boat driver ? (edited >> first time driving in a slalom course . . many years without a course)

@MISkier@Bruce_Butterfield AWSA sent this survey to members by mail January 2023 . . . Any history on how much bearing this survey might have on possibly changing the rules ? I agree its a bad idea.

My only insight into this is the lack of equivalency between Rope Length increments and Speed increments creating a scoring system based on strategy and not strictly skill. What about this ?

@skibrain Regarding water-break on glide. I remember watching some videos of AndyM. At the time of those videos, the water was breaking very far back on his ski, the tip very high, ski darting left and right until he started the turn to the gates. On the Free-Skiing part of this Wade video, he had his weight very far back approaching and through the wake. Haven't seen anything like that lately.

Before I quit skiing in the Mid 80's I occasionally volunteered to man a Safety boat at the National tournaments getting a great view of the LaPoints, Carl Roberge and others. At the time I had never heard of Wade Cox. Later learned of Wade through his role in TWBC. December is a little quiet, so check out this great video of Wade. His technique is consistently near-perfect through every pass. AWESOME !!

Things are already changing . . . must log in to see discussions today. That must be a transitory state otherwise it appears guests would be locked out.

BOS is already published on one of the best forum platforms that I have seen. Looking forward to seeing what's next.

Has anyone else found that turning the rear binding a few degrees is easier on the rear-foot hip? I skied for 25 years with full boots lined up straight. 3 years ago when I set up a new ski after a long break, I found that I had to turn the rear boot out a few degrees to avoid rear-foot hip pain. I can't assess if this has any affect on skiing performance, but have seen that Nate Smith has his rear RTF plate turned out the same way. With all the surgery discussion on this thread it makes me wonder of there would have been less hip surgeries if an angled rear boot alignment was the standard in slalom. Any thoughts on this ?

Charlie has a distinctive body position as he completes his turns on both sides. He breaks at the hips/waist keeping his upper body almost upright through the turns. Check the video. Some other top skiers do this as well, but not as upright as Charlie. Back when Carl Roberge won the Nationals (in Texas) and a World slalom title he also had this distinctive upper body animation as he completed his turns on his most difficult rope lengths.

Ditto on the hair dryer to get the decal off. The most aggressive solvents won't penetrate most decals in reasonable time, so you have to get the top layer off before using solvents. Once you get a corner started, keep applying heat as you remove the decal . . the heat on your fingers will be a gauge that will keep you from over-heating the ski surface. Main point, different decal adhesives require different solvents. Alcohol won't touch some adhesives. TEST whatever you consider using. I end up using Lacquer thinner on all types of products that tolerate it because its the most aggressive on adhesives. Most OEM finishes on tools or sheetmetal housings on electronic equipment will tolerate lacquer thinner, but most modern skis will be damaged with lacquer thinner.

@JackQ What ships were you on and in what campaigns did you see ? Even the administrative operations you guys did were amazing. I was just a guest DAD when I took this photo on board CV63 Kitty Hawk while traveling from Hawaii to San Diego.

Celebrating Vets day with a shout out to my Son . . A good skier before heading off to the Gulf war on the Kitty Hawk carrier as a Navy Medical Corpsman in 1993.

The latest PP with Star Gazer and Zbox is better than ZO because I was able to spend the money on a nice 2004 ProStar without being thrown out of the house by my driver.

Some good skiers successfully practice with ZO and PP We have a couple of good 38/39off local skiers that ski together every morning with an alternate boat each day. One of them just placed well in the Over-35 world tournament. One has a late model CC with ZO and the other a much older CC with current version PP-Stargazer-ZBox. They say they have found settings where they don't notice the difference in the speed control characteristics. Their divisions ski at 32, probably be a different story at 36mph

Related to balance, did you start wearing a wet suit with the colder water and air ? I know even a shorty wet suit with full length sleeves changes my skiing until I adjust.

@Nando Someone told me its Mike Toffle - not sure I have the spelling correct.@pc As you noted, the course on Bald Eagle goes back about 65 years. It was built and maintained by Tom Chapin and his kids Paul and Evy Chapin. They are all life-time tournament skiers with the kids starting before 10 years old. They all have national titles including Paul's 1st in a Mens trick event, and just placed 6th in the Over-35 World Tournament in slalom in the 65-70 group with 3 at 38 off. They don't have much trouble with their course after being a community fixture for so many years. Paul free-skied with us on Baylake near Brainerd last month a week before the world tournament.(from video with 8 year old Samsung Galaxy phone on SkiDoc)

@RAWSki The ice gets up to 48" during the coldest winters coupled with not much snow. The locator buoy is 5 feet down. Using GPS Waypoints Navigator on an Android phone I can drive up to a submerged marker buoy every time. It takes some practice because GPS is more accurate when moving than when standing still. When standing still accuracy is 15-20 feet . . when moving at walking speed its about 5 feet. We have very clear water in our lake. If we couldn't see down 5 feet, we would have to jump in the lake with Goggles to find the marker after getting close with GPS. GPS becomes very accurate at greater speed. That's why it works for speed control systems and GPS lap timers.

@RAWSki The ice gets up to 48" during the coldest winters coupled with not much snow. The locator buoy is 5 feet down. Using GPS Waypoints Navigator on an Android phone I can drive up to a submerged marker buoy every time. It takes some practice because GPS is more accurate when moving than when standing still. When standing still accuracy is 15-20 feet . . when moving at walking speed its about 5 feet. We have very clear water in our lake. If we couldn't see down 5 feet, we would have to jump in the lake with Goggles to find the marker after getting close with GPS. GPS becomes very accurate at greater speed. That's why it works for speed control systems and GPS lap timers.

@AJNORD1 Since you are making corrections in accuracy, you should be accurate. I didn't say there were "safety lessons to be learned". I said "Maybe there is a safety lesson in knowing" indicting we don't know what happened, not asserting their was some possible carelessness.

@AJNORD1 Since you are making corrections in accuracy, you should be accurate. I didn't say there were "safety lessons to be learned". I said "Maybe there is a safety lesson in knowing" indicting we don't know what happened, not asserting their was some possible carelessness.

@Mastercrafter Sorry, the firewall where I work has prevented access to the https://leadwake.com for about 2 years. Don't know why. I used to buy from them, then switched because their web site appeared to be gone.