Fbris

The Boarding School is easy for you to get to from Flagler. I drive down almost every Friday to the Boarding School from St. Augustine which is north of Flagler. Just take I-95 south to state road 50 and head west. The Boarding School is behind Tropical Plumbing so some GPS’s have trouble finding it. Travis is great to deal with. The facility is awesome and Ozzie is cute as a button. ‘Enjoy!

Congratulations!! Here’s to another 14!!

Is it possible to join the ski club at Victory Lake?

Definitely some great skiing by both the men and women. How do you ski half a buoy at 43 and not win? When Freddie Winter is still on the dock. I enjoyed watching the amateurs too. The young girl that skied so well in her first event. Forgot her name. How about those old guys over 75? Great to see their performances. My hat is off to them.

Is it just me or does it seem like a lot of or most really of the big name male skiers are sitting this tournament out? Is there a reason for that?

And it’s all about the water. The Boarding School has unbelievably flat water. I skied there almost weekly for 6 months and NEVER had bad water. It’s almost always like glass.

Which makes Nautique’s banning of Freddie for the following year even more ridiculous. The ONLY judge who could actually see what happened thought Freddie cleared buoy six yet Freddie not only lost out in 2022 but now Nautique seeks to punish Freddie further. Did someone say something about Nautique’s Christian values earlier in this thread?

It seems to me that the two tower judges should have deferred to the boat judge since a video was not available. How many times have we seen the judges in other pro sports get together and go with the judge who has the best angle/view. This definitely hurts the quality of this years Masters that one of the top skiers in the world has been banned in 2023 for language (let’s assume he used some language that you don’t hear on “Big Bird”) that occurred in 2022. The video equipment was obviously faulty. Did Nautique ban the video operator from future events? A good video feed solves this issue. Nautique has only brought ill will upon themselves by so many in the sport by their actions that clearly appear to be based on sponsorship. Does ANYONE believe if Freddie was a Nautique sponsor that he would have been banned from this years event? Certainly if he was a Nautique sponsor they would have said to Freddie: “We love your passion Freddie but let’s watch the language “Ok”.” Nautique would certainly have wanted to see Freddie’s D3 ski with their logo on it when he is on the podium if Freddie was one of their endorsers. For which he undoubtedly will be on that podium many times this year. Freddie brings a passion to the sport like McEnroe and Connors brought to professional tennis. Their passion brought in more viewers not fewer. I don’t believe Freddie would have been so upset if he hadn't made that 6th buoy. Numerous mistakes were obviously made last year. All Nautique has done is to compound those mistakes. It is a sad situation for all involved. I don’t know if I will watch this years Masters or not. Hardly a “Masters” when one of the top skiers in the world is missing. And BTW who would have even remembered this issue if Nautique didn’t ban Freddie this year. Sometimes you just have to let “dead dogs lie”. Nautique needs to reach out to Freddie and work this out. All parties need to apologize to the other, shake hands, and “Come out skiing!”.