jwr

Hurt my back pretty good in april. Found out i have scoliosis, kyphosis, spondeolosis, three vertebrae out of place, two bulging disc, inflamed si joint, and inflamed facet joint. Nuerosurgeon said i could ski if i could tollerate the pain. He does not believe im doing any damage, even jumping. A lot of physical therapy and supplements and i was able to make regionals and nationals. I didnt ski great, but i skied and placed. Injuries suck because i was skiing really good and expecting a good year, before i got hurt. Worst part is i didnt even get hurt skiing, i was dicking around the house. Taking off the rest of the year to try and heal and strenghthen for next year. Hope you get better soon. Maybe see you at ski watch. Im not skiing but will go help out.

1978 on an el diablo behind a 24 foot sea ray. It was great. We would camp out the whole weekend on the sea ray right next to the slalom course. Get up first thing and get a set before breakfast. We eventually graduated to a 75 nautique. My parents had to force me to ski the course in the beginning. All I wanted to do is jump the wakes and see how far I could go. It was always the best when my dad and I would get out there together and see who had the biggest air.

@ob thanks for the picture. My three year old saw it and is fired up to try. My first time to run 38 was in practice in 92 or 93. Dont remember now. Ive never run it in a tournament.

As others have said I run the length at 6.841 and dft at. 778. You might changing the wing to 9 degrees. It might give you better feel on your pull out for your gates. The glide on the gates was the hardest thing I had trouble with when I switched to the elite. Going to 9 degrees helped.

Thanks for the proof, that I still suck.

Maybe someone has something good, but I don't think pictures or video could do it justice.

That is a good point, and I've tried that a little, but I don't get enough zo time to dial it in. Going to try it some more if I can get some zo time. What you are describing has been a big part of my problem. Also going 33 doesn't help because I can set a pretty hard angle and pull the boat down out of my turn. Don't think it will be as easy at 35. Maybe that will. All I want is everything the boat has on my counter and a nice progressive pull through the ramp. I need more zo time to figure out the lowest letter I can use and still get good times.

I can only comment on wiles. I have them on my slalom, jumpers, and trick. I love them and have no desire to try any other binders. Never gotten hurt in them. They are very comfortable. I don't even need soap to put on my slalom or trick. Wiley has great customer service and are easy to repair if you need too. They don't pre release. I could go on.

I jump practice behind pp and I was having a lot of trouble this year with gas into the bottom. I finally came to the conclusion that I was getting too wide on the boat. This was causing me to sink some in my turn and overload the boat. Even though I was pulling through the ramp zo would hit me real hard at the begining and let off at the base, which would cause me to lose my acceleration and put me on my heels. PP will pull like a freight train all the way. What helped me is to go back to a 3/4 and make a nice slow turn with momentum and then progressively pull into the ramp. I run r on pp and zo and the pull feels the same since I have been doing this. I may go back to a full double but make sure I don't get any wider then the driver. If you watch freddy he let's off his counter at the white water and only gets out to the driver. That way he doesn't load the boat too early. I was told you can't pull too hard because the boats are so powerful they will eat you up. In fact with zo it is just the opposite. If you pull too hard in the beginning the boat wont have anything left for you at the ramp. The keys seem to be turn with momentum and be progressive. As freddy says you want to sneak up on the boat.

@jdarwin you didn't offend me and I hope I didn't you. We just have differing opinions. Sound like you have an awesome site and I would love to ski it sometime. @LeonL I only saw one time where the boat stopped for any significant amount of time that they did not run a simulation pass. That was when the sticks stuck in the prop. That wasn't that big a deal because it was still on an early pass.

definately good advice. So many people have confused turning with speed with turning fast. Turning with speed good, turning fast bad.

That is all. Looking forward to more speed and hopefully farther distances next year.

If it's really bad I go jump. Frustration is good for at least 10 feet. If I really want to get mad i'll go trick. Sometimes i'll two hand the pass, just work on gates, trick slalom, or slow the boat down. If that doesn't work I go with skibugs approach and start dropping f bombs.

I believe I'm the little girl you are referring to. I jumped and slalomed bad.

@jdarwin Skiing in it, and watching everyone else ski I do believe it was fair for all the Men 3 skiers. Did the rollers hit different skiers at different spots, sure. But everyone had rollers at some point. They were fairly consistent with wait times for Mens 3, there were some small exceptions but no big deal. I find it hard to believe that the 20 extra seconds for MM helped that much. You should have been there, hard to explain how the water was, you just had to ski it to believe it. I thought about asking the boat judge for a rough water reride, just to see what he would say. I was kidding of course.

Really I thought I would ne in the minority Not raining on anyones parade. Just different expectations and different opinions. I can completely understand feeling that way. I like to ski in good conditions, but it did make the tournament very entertaining. It was also fair for everyone, which isn't always the case.cased

Wiley has one as well, just have to call them.

@jdarwin Those guys are million times better skiers then me, just compare our averages. They were not the best that day. If having the highest average garauntees you the win then why would anyone bother to ski Nationals. I would be more then happy to lay down my money and ski in these exact conditions at Nationals, because it was absolutely fair for everyone. I would train differently for it, maybe ski public courses on weekends. To me it is more of a fun challenge. I understand my score is not going to be great, I just wanted to do the best I can do with whatever circumstances there are. Nature has always been a big part of our sport, and always will. You can't control it. That being said, I would not be happy if I was at a tournament trying to qualify for nationals and conditions were like that. Like I said before, to me Nationals is a totaly different tournament then any other. Your score doesn't matter. The only thing that does is that you out ski the other guy. To the Mens 3 that ran 35 at Nationals, great skiing. It was fun to watch. It was also fun to participate, and great to see that even though it was a competition everyone was trying to give the next guy an idea what to expect out there. Great sportsmanship

We all like to ski in perfect conditions, but it is not always possible. Most tournaments you are skiing to qualify for nationals or to set a pb or something, but nationals is completely different. It is to take the top skiers and see who is the best on that day. As long as conditions are equal for everyone that is all you can ask for. Conditions were fair for everyone. If people don't want to compete because conditions might not be perfect then it is their lost. Quit worrying about the conditions and setting a pb and go out and ski the best you can. If you can't ski in those conditions then your not the best.

I didn't think the conditions were unacceptable, they were just very challenging. Reminded me of the old days. Sure I fell on my second pass, but I never felt my life was threatened. Makes me want to go to the river and try to slalom on a Saturday. It was a good reminder to practice even when conditions are bad. Later that day we jumped in a 20 knot cross tail. Nobody jumped their farthest but it wasn't dangerous

@jody Seal the 7 5 power factor is with the upgraded software. With the original software from the factory, it doesn't sound like anything will work. For the long jumpers it doesn't give enough gas, and for the shorter jumpers it hammers them. I have no complaints about the slalom pull it felt normal. Going to get a chance to jump and slalom behind an '11 with updated software this weekend. Will be interesting to see if it is noticeably different in jump and slalom. @Horton I wasn't the original poster, and I'm not sure if he was talking about the wakes or the program. I might be wrong about the wakes, but I have skied behind four differnt '11 MC and all felt the same, and never noticed the wakes at all, but when I was in jr. boys I used to practice behind a 24' Sea Ray cuddy cabin. First ski boat was a 75 Ski Nautique, and the wakes on that might have been bigger then the Sea Ray. Again, not to sound like a jerk, but if people are getting hurt behind today's boats they need to put on a helmet, get out of the course, and learn proper technique before they start chasing bouys. The jumping software on the other hand could get someone hurt. Not near as many jumpers out there these days, and even fewer real jump drivers. They don't know it's a problem.

Not sure what to say without coming off sounding like a total jerk, but the wakes are not a problem. The wakes are far better then anything we had in the 70's and 80's and there were not a larger percentage of kids getting hurt. If you want to complain about MC sending their '11 boats out without the right program, and then not informing everyone they needed to reflash thier program to make it right I can get behind that. Most people don't know there is a new flash for the MC's that gives a stronger pull for jumping and a softer pull for slalom. That is why some MC feel better then others this year. A lot of people are unaware the power setting for jump on the '11 MC should be 7/5 and are still running it at 4/0 like last year, and everyone is complaining about a soft pull for jump. They are just not getting the information out. Even some senior drivers don't know. Sorry rant off, I'm going on a self imposed ban now.

Now that would be something to see. He got back to the handle by walking to the starting dock and picking it up.

I was standing at the end of the course, and it looked like two to me. I was told It was also called two by all three judges, and then they decided to go to video. Not sure why you would do that. In any case it was very fun to watch those guys. Not sure why I fell on my opening pass either? Lot of crazy things. OB ran one of the prettiest 38 off passes that turned out to be 35 off. Boat crew forgot to shorten the rope. Still some great skiing by everyone but me. Damn I sucked in all three events.

Believe it or not, Orlando does get cold. I know I'm a wimp, but when I lived in Orlando I didn't ski in the winter. Granted, I did move to Orlando from the Virgin Islands, so I had forgotten what cold weather was. Boca/West Palm would be the ticket.