Ed_Obermeier

@Horton I did read it when originally posted but I'll definitely restudy it, in detail this time... Thank you John.

You can tune that characteristic out of the Vapor but I suspect you are better not doing this. With the stock settings, the off side requires some attention but the on side is literally automatic. When I tried some settings that allowed me to be stupid at off side, the on side was not nearly as good.

 

@Horton for the sake of discussion could you discuss briefly how one might tune the Vapor compared to stock numbers to make it not require quite as much front foot pressure to smooth out the off side turn. With my crap bad knee (I'm LFF, it's the right knee and I have to wear a hard brace to even be able to ski on it) I'm yet to find a ski I have any issue with on the on side but my off sides have always been an issue, I find it tough sometimes to get sufficient front foot pressure in the off side turn. Not looking for a cheat per se, just wondering how one might address such an adjustment.

 

Got my new Vapor right before Christmas so haven't ridden it yet, just wondering.

 

Thanks, Ed

That's how I do it Dave. Let it get a few years and 200 - 300 hours on it then buy it at half of new. Vehicles and boats. I'm sure I can afford new but I damn sure can't justify it.

My comments weren't directed at you @oldjeep, boat pricing is what it is and for those who can afford to buy ANY boat (or vehicle for that matter) new, that's great. My sarcasm was aimed at the advertising language used to attempt to convince the buying public that a $50+K boat is "accessible" to the average working stiff. If it were there would be a new boat sitting in my garage as we speak.

 

I just always find it interesting and amusing some of the language advertisers use to lure buyers in. Like buying a car - car salesman always asks first "What do you want the monthly payments to be?" Unsuspecting chump ends up with an "affordable" car payment not realizing how much they actually paid total for the car, how many payments, and how much they're paying out in interest. I know a lot of people do it but I'm damned if I know how they make it work.

OK then. $53K @ 5.5% @ $400/mo = 17.03 years to pay off. Much better...

...An NXT, with standard equipment, starts at a little south of $50,000. With good credit, a sample payment is approximately less than $400 a month which makes the NXT the most accessible MasterCraft ever.

 

$50K at lets say 8% interest, payments of $400/month = 22.47 years to payoff. That's not a boat payment, it's a freaking mortgage. Accessible?

For probably 20+ years now we've been regularly putting a portable course in on a couple of public lakes locally and seem to have reached a status quo with most of the regular fishermen on these lakes, mostly because they've seen us there so much and so regularly and over time have gained an idea of what we're doing, plus they've come to realize we're not going to be there all that long anyway. We've had (mostly friendly) discussions with some of them and occasionally you get a newbie to the lake who bitches a bit, but generally they either go to a different part of the lake or we don't see them on that lake again. We generally try to be friendly and patient when they get a bit close to the course as they're trolling around the edges to get past us, for the most part we've been able to make it work quite well.

 

First lake is a small city park lake that allows a wake only on Wednesday, first and third Saturday of the month, Sundays and holidays, otherwise its no wake/fishing only. We actually have fishermen (and women) who come to the lake on Wednesday nights knowing we'll be there skiing. Having the course in the water (structure) and because we're stirring the water up with our skiing, this makes the bait more active and thus the fishing better, they've told us as much and any fisherman worth his gear knows that to be true. Most people fishing are doing so from the bank (it's a fairly small lake) but we get a few who troll around the edges of the lake and even getting rocked by our wakes don't seem to mind too much.

 

Had one guy a few years ago decide he wanted to sit in the middle of the course on and fish just to screw with us. We just continued to free ski down the side of the course to let him know he wasn't going to stop us from skiing. He got the message and left. No confrontation, no angry words, but we let him know he wasn't stopping us. But that is a rare occasion.

 

Second lake is a much larger lake with a long cove off the main channel on one end perfect when the wind is strong from the South (which screws us on the park lake). This is generally our crack-of-daylight Saturday morning lake so generally just fishermen at this time of day, no general boaters. They see us setting up in the cove they either avoid the cove till we're gone or at worst troll the edges knowing they'll get rocked a bit (but that the fishing may be better). They know what we're doing, we know what they're doing, we try to work with them to make it work for everyone involved and for the most part it's very seldom an issue. Not unusual to have one hold up a nice catch to show to us.

 

Bottom line - you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. We try to be friendly as much as they're willing to accept, when there is an issue we try to communicate with them in a friendly manner. Many have no clue, some could care less, a rare few want to screw with you. Because we've done our best over time to be good citizens on the water and not come off as selfish water hogs we've been able to establish a working status quo. Set a positive example, be friendly, be patiently consistent, you'll generally avoid confrontation.

 

 

For probably 20+ years now we've been regularly putting a portable course in on a couple of public lakes locally and seem to have reached a status quo with most of the regular fishermen on these lakes, mostly because they've seen us there so much and so regularly and over time have gained an idea of what we're doing, plus they've come to realize we're not going to be there all that long anyway. We've had (mostly friendly) discussions with some of them and occasionally you get a newbie to the lake who bitches a bit, but generally they either go to a different part of the lake or we don't see them on that lake again. We generally try to be friendly and patient when they get a bit close to the course as they're trolling around the edges to get past us, for the most part we've been able to make it work quite well.

 

First lake is a small city park lake that allows a wake only on Wednesday, first and third Saturday of the month, Sundays and holidays, otherwise its no wake/fishing only. We actually have fishermen (and women) who come to the lake on Wednesday nights knowing we'll be there skiing. Having the course in the water (structure) and because we're stirring the water up with our skiing, this makes the bait more active and thus the fishing better, they've told us as much and any fisherman worth his gear knows that to be true. Most people fishing are doing so from the bank (it's a fairly small lake) but we get a few who troll around the edges of the lake and even getting rocked by our wakes don't seem to mind too much.

 

Had one guy a few years ago decide he wanted to sit in the middle of the course on and fish just to screw with us. We just continued to free ski down the side of the course to let him know he wasn't going to stop us from skiing. He got the message and left. No confrontation, no angry words, but we let him know he wasn't stopping us. But that is a rare occasion.

 

Second lake is a much larger lake with a long cove off the main channel on one end perfect when the wind is strong from the South (which screws us on the park lake). This is generally our crack-of-daylight Saturday morning lake so generally just fishermen at this time of day, no general boaters. They see us setting up in the cove they either avoid the cove till we're gone or at worst troll the edges knowing they'll get rocked a bit (but that the fishing may be better). They know what we're doing, we know what they're doing, we try to work with them to make it work for everyone involved and for the most part it's very seldom an issue. Not unusual to have one hold up a nice catch to show to us.

 

Bottom line - you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. We try to be friendly as much as they're willing to accept, when there is an issue we try to communicate with them in a friendly manner. Many have no clue, some could care less, a rare few want to screw with you. Because we've done our best over time to be good citizens on the water and not come off as selfish water hogs we've been able to establish a working status quo. Set a positive example, be friendly, be patiently consistent, you'll generally avoid confrontation.

 

 

Hilarious!

What's getting lost in all of this is that any half way serious course skier isn't purposely missing their gates anyway. Wide of the entry gate = poor angle to #1 so the likelihood of improved scores for a skier who skis wide of the gates is pretty much zero. If the argument is that it gives someone unfair advantage, there isn't much to argue IMO.

Reinforces poor skiing @richarddoane? The idea if I remember correctly the idea of the rule is to give beginners/new comers an opportunity to overcome their nerves if they happen to screw up an opener, the idea being to make tournament participation more "friendly" and thus more likely to draw some new blood. I fail to see how in any manner whatsoever that would "reinforce bad skiing". It's the freaking opening pass for crying out loud. IMO one of the huge differences in why INT continues to draw new people where AWSA doesn't, that 2nd chance to calm yourself and pull it together. Such a small thing but makes a big difference to a lot of fence sitters. But again, purists will never consider anything like that.

 

@ozski, again if it's questionable give the doubt to the skier and roll on, if it's obvious it's a miss. If it requires much discussion it's questionable, roll on. Not a tough concept and it's not a new rule. It's just an attempt to take over-analness (is that a word?) out of it and make it a bit more friendly. It's not going to change who ultimately wins, which appears to me to be the issue with the Purists - fear they might get knocked off by someone who got a chance to calm themselves and ski as they usually do. Everyone screws up occasionally, where is the harm in a first pass mulligan?

 

 

If that tolerance is already allowed, if most judges are already giving the benefit of the doubt, why is it such an issue?? Why are we even having this discussion? If that is in fact the reality it certainly doesn't seem to be the common perception.

 

This MINOR rule addition would just reinforce to judges to lighten up a bit on the opener, PARTICULARLY in C and below tournaments. It's not changing anything for different classes or adding any significant difference to how above C level tournaments are judged. It's simply saying "lighten up a bit" and quit being so freaking anal about a really close gate call on an opening pass. If judges are pulling gates on an opening pass when it's questionable one way or the other IMO that's too anal and is a net negative to growing participation.

 

If it were me I'd say go to the INT Mulligan rule. Miss the opener gates, come back on pass 2 same line length, give it another go, roll on. But I'm sure the purists would never have that...

As a casual observer to this conversation and a pretty much non-tournament skier, I honestly don't get all the argument against giving a skier the benefit of the doubt, on their opening pass especially. Obvious misses sure call it. If it's that close give them the benefit of the doubt; it's going to make zero difference in placing, rankings etc and the skier gets to at least try two passes making them at least feel like they're getting something out of the entry fee they paid, plus is less likely to discourage someone on the fence about whether or not they want to get into tournament skiing on a more regular basis. Makes the tournament move along faster and keeps it more interesting to both skiers and observers.

 

Reading this and the thread associated I get a strong sense that there a lot of folks out here who really DON'T want more skiers showing up. It's all this anal crap about taking long reviews and splitting hairs on a pass or two that make no difference in the final outcome of the tournament that turns off people like myself who might be a bit more inclined to ski tournaments if it didn't move so slowly and wasn't so freaking anal about small issues that make absolutely no difference in the final tally. Benefit of the doubt goes to the skier, keep it moving. That's how INT does it i.e. Or if you really don't want more people showing up at your tournaments keep doing what you're doing. You'll keep getting what you've always gotten. AKA falling participation.

 

Like @Horton said, when you get to L and R level tourneys THAT is where it rightfully needs to get more anal. Not at C level and lower; IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE. The KISS theorem needs to apply here IMO, assuming anyone really does want to see more skiers getting into the tournament scene.

I'm guessing '76-ish but I'm not up on MC's earlier than late 80's. Some serious MC person here will know.

Here is the boat I referred to in my earlier post. Anyone know the year?

I drive by an outdoor storage lot frequently where sits a pretty good looking later 70's/earlier 80's MC 190 Stars 'n Stripes. No cover, sits there all summer, still sitting there now full of snow like your CC above. I need to get a pic of it. As the saying goes, can't fix stupid.

close both eyes in the slalom course? only if i see something bad coming.

 

Yeah. Usually somewhere between the end of the 2nd or 3rd OTF flip and the big splash at the end...

@AB dude seems to like to pass out a disproportionate number of dislikes for some reason.

IMO one reason it was more popular 20 years ago was more course access/availability. You could go to a lot of large lakes, reservoirs etc and stumble across a slalom course you could give it a go on. That's how I got hooked anyway. Found a publicly available course on the water (Table Rock Lake, Missouri), tried it, was hooked on rounding buoys immediately. I'm sure whoever put the course there would have cringed to watch my buddy trying to keep that old tri hull IO in the boat path while I yanked it around. More people were into it because more were able to try it out to see if it was something they'd enjoy pursuing or not. There was just a lot more readily available course access.

 

So course access I believe is a very big factor. It's just really difficult these days to get a permit to even put a course on a public lake, and if you do put one out you have to put up with a lot of idiots chopping buoys etc (flashback to myself 25+ years ago...) and creating a lot of ongoing maintenance just so you can use the course yourself when you want to. Placing/maintaining a course on public water these days is definitely a labor of love.

 

I think to someone who basically enjoys skiing to begin with but doesn't really know why, IF they get an opportunity to try a course enough times to "get it" it's almost automatic. If you want to get GOOD at it that requires a lot of time and dedication to learning HOW to become better. But I think there is a potentially very large sub set that does or would enjoy it on a more occasional basis (INT League type skiers i.e.) who maybe aren't as into getting better at it as they are just having fun with it. Think wakeboarders. How many ride boards basically just for fun versus the number who actively are trying to get good at it?

...but I won't be surprised either if it quickly becomes all surf boats all the time.

 

Or wakeboard boats. Works for Supra. Of course at the opposite end of the spectrum is Centurion.

Words to live by @tjm. Thank you for sharing.

Another article on the subject, specifically relating to snow skiing but IMO pertinent parallel to water skiing. http://money.msn.com/personal-finance/skiing-becomes-a-luxury-sport. Kind of echo's the first article link I posted with perhaps a bit of different perspective. FWIW.

Sounds like some sort of Top Gun fighter pilot training thing.

Thanks @Horton.

PP does have a DBW version. I've skied/driven it, it works awesome. According to the PP website it's only available for boats 2008 or older though. I assume due to the engine computer control systems?