BKistler

Only Eric would drill a hole through the bottom of his boat. Sucking wind again. 
🙃

Johnny was a good guy. My condolences to Cindi and family. 

Damn close Jake. Great skiing. 

Damn close. 

I will send you a private message. I might have what you need. 

28 minutes ago, DW said:

The US market for all things seems to head down the bigger is better path, no matter what the product (houses, cars, trucks, SUV's, boats, food consumption, beverage sizes, drugs, implants ....).  

You hit the nail on the head. 

Many thoughtful comments on this thread. One that has not been mentioned (unless I totally overlooked it) is that kids do not water ski at all these days. It’s knee boards, wakeboards and tubes. It’s rare to see kids being taught to get up on skis.

I was successful in building the administrative foundation for competitive barefooting. That resulted in the largest growth spurt the organized sport had seen. 

@Dano When I was executive director in the early ‘80s I feared this would happen. I tried to get the Board to focus on the recreational skier. I was roundly ignored. They would spend hours arguing about technical rules and could not have cared less about growing the base. 

I’d need poles to get my weight forward. 😛

@Horton somebody who is an experienced water skier and snow skier. Hybrid technique. 

That’s insane. The physics is interesting. Must be closer to snow skiing, sliding downhill. Big Wave Water Skiing, new sport just invented. Kudos to those guys for experimenting with what’s possible. Better them than me. 

Hedlund is the only other one that I know of. 

21 minutes ago, DW said:

Your snow skis have an HO sticker on them.

I just added a Performance Ski and Surf sticker to my Dynastars. Did that after I discover that Performance tunes snow skis. They’ve got my business in both seasons. 

I think Horton has a good point. A big part of the issue is that today’s skis are not designed to be used as a pair.  I cannot imagine doing a WLBB on two Airas but I could stick it with my old narrower prototype-EP O’Briens.

@ETskier I had a two-ski W5B and WLBB but that was about as fancy as I got. Thanks for the mention. 

Skied Lex’s pond about 1970. I assume it is no more. 

@kmenard Oakham, as in Lex Carroll?

Holy $@<##!! The aliens are among us. 

Wha? If I had the talent to perform any of those tricks I might venture an opinion. However. ..

You’ve still got the 54” trick skis you used as a Junior Boy in your first tournament in 1964. 

@Horton How old was Irene when she was still skiing?

Back in the day I submitted the Guinness record for Billy Nichol’s epic barefoot ride. The record was approved. There was no fee involved, at least at the time. 
 

Lucille taught me how to do my first wake helicopter.  Someone should send documentation to Guinness. Lucille deserves the record if there is no one older. 

Cities don’t put on ski competitions, ski clubs do. Okeeheelee is one of those rare instances in which a ski club has been entrusted with the operation of a public facility. The setup benefits both sides. 

@The_MS The rule-of- thumb that I have heard is 600 skiers. I have no doubt that the local economic impact runs in the several millions of dollars. I’ve certainly added my share to the pot over the years.