A_B

It is warmer there than what I would have thought. Those are conditions my friends further south are reporting.

We can’t get people to agree on 1/4, 1/2, or 1, on buoy count, now we will have SS and BGC police making calls around the country. For the record, BGC does not prevent or predict bad behavior from someone who has not yet chosen to act out in the past. But that is just common sense so it may not apply.

Watch all the top skiers and you see the similar hip just off the water on their good side leans. A little tougher on the offside, but @twhisper gets it as good as anyone. That is power going into the first wake! Most of these guys will be changing edges behind the boat and be on a turn edge right after the second wake, when mere mortals are still on a pulling edge after the second wake and out in the whitewater. Nothing light on the line here!

@swbca on point. If we are to grow the sport, how do they expect to pull in a weekend Wally who makes a nice spray and gets through a slalom course on occassion and tries his first tournament and gets a rude welcome to a USAWSA tournament ride? It seems like we are mandating and "advancing" the sport into a very small niche market, yet people ask how do we grow the sport? yikes.

Larry Nassar Olympic Team Doctor and the Girls Water Polo Coach cases show how bad people in a position of power can be. An Olympic Team Physician could exert control by keeping someone out of the lineup for "medical" reasons, just as a coach can keep a player on the bench or off the team. There must only be a handful of positions like this in all of water skiing. But our Insurance Broker can only come up with a policy to cover the governing body if we inflict BGC and SS training on ALL members..... Hard to imagine this is the legal and insurance world we live in. A shotgun kills a fly, can't argue with the result, but come on..

We need to think like USAWSA. Is the “driver” responsible for a mishap or the USAWSA or the manufacturer? How will we insure this? Who’s responsible when the boat ends up on the turn island because it doesn’t work right? You know, like when the Tesla’s have run over people? How the heck did us old guys drive in tolerance, time every pass with stopwatch in hand, keep the boat straight, and keep an eye on the skier? It’s a miracle we survived. I understand the technological advancements and the desire to replace humans, but I always looked at driving as an art and a challenge and enjoy it almost as much as skiing. In a way it’s like using a computer to create a masterpiece oil painting. Sure it will look good but you can’t appreciate the humanity of the artist. I guess at some point when we all have our digital chips we could self-scan into the boat driver seat to tell if you have had your SS training and BGC.

Skis are less wide than long so to conserve dock surface space and utilize air space they should be tips to the sky like @Mrs_MS photo. Just had a thought that a simple upside down T made from dowel rods mounted on a top rail above the skis could be used to slip a jacket and rope/handle, and gloves attach to the ski jacket or handle. The T would have to be wide enough so a jacket’s shoulders would rest on it. May need to be turned sideways as the jackets are much wider than skis. Whatever you come up be sure to post a pic.

I received a reply to my email to Nate. He is basically saying that it was all about insurance for sexual abuse. Once again, the American legal system fails miserably on holding a governing body accountable for no negligent act, and now all government bodies must react. This is one of the watershed cases that is creating a liability mindset at USAWSA; https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/water-polo-players-14-million-sex-abuse-settlement-78133052 In my opinion, the mandate for all skiers to take the training is way beyond the case logic of "coach abuse" from the case above. No skier or even a judge or driver at a tournament is an authority figure like a paid coach of a team or camp. This is where my common sense test issues a FAIL for this new requirement. It is way beyond where common sense would say paid coaches, Ski Camp owners, etc.. should be enough to show the organization is taking measures to help prevent an event. Why don't we all wear diapers just in case we shard in our underwear? Why don't we require all drivers to wear the kill switch lanyard? And a million other things that are "risky".....

Rule #1 - always choose vacation spot after you find a place to ski. Rule #2 - if it is work related and no ski sites available, extend trip by going before or after to another hotel with ski site available.

Ultimate Ski Lake take in any wayward skiers?

@Mrs_MS - hmm, now that you mention scoring, maybe this explains the 1/4 buoy rule that is never consistently applied.... :wink:

@Scoke yep, and I sent an email noting my lack of $upport for the mandate.

How can anyone "Dislike" a Stokes heater top comment?? Bah humbug!

@Jody_Seal does that take a gale force wind to move??

I messed up my best all time 9100 using scotch brite pads once too often. Dawn soap and a soft rag and treat it like a baby's bottom...

@lpskier I never put my cell phone in my ski trunks. I also have never changed in the portable toilet. I prefer to stand behind my car door on a mat I carry with my ski gear. But we are fairly isolated with no homes or roads, oops, will the SS police stake out my site now? At tournaments, I did the towel thing.

I have owned my lake for almost 38 years and we don't have changing areas but we do rent a portable toilet for summer. Somehow, we manage to get changed in and out of ski gear behind cars, towels, or some in the portable toilet, without incident. Men, women, boys, and girls... How on earth does this happen??

Another Stokes heater top so I have a dry one for round two.

I stand by my Nov 30 comment in this thread. The USAWSA appears to have no idea how big the can of worms is that they are opening. Who is developing the restrictions due to defects on background checks? What are the guidelines on what is acceptable defects on the checks? How will they ensure that these will be consistently applied across all Regions? What if it is dear old Billy Bob driver that everyone now loves who has turned his drunken abusive self around from his younger foolish days? What if this information somehow gets leaked into the public at large and Billy Bob rightfully sues the governing body? What if we have a situation with little Suzy, and all the efforts taken to ensure no harm comes to minors doesn't stop a damn thing? Who gets sucked into that lawsuit? We have seen both sides of the NS issue and there are folks at both ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between. The SSN and Credit Card brings in PCI Compliance, and more risk for data breaches. How good is the firewall at USAWSA? Better than Target? All I know is my 12 year old nephew is about to get home-schooled because he is picking up stuff I never heard of until late high school. His parents say there is ZERO discipline and respect shown in the classroom. A friend of mine is a teacher and breaks down and cries when she talks about what goes on in her 6th grade classroom, wondering if she can be a teacher any more. Houston, we have a problem. Lack of morals in children and adults is the problem, and no amount of Safe Sport training or background checks is going to help. It may make some people feel warm and fuzzy that we are "doing something", but I don't think it will be far out on a limb to say it won't do one damn thing to curb the underlying issue. The AWSA should run away as fast as they can while they still have a membership and focus on core three event disciplines on American soil. It isn't a matter of what will the AWSA lose by breaking away, it is a matter of what will be lost if they stay... The staunch supporters of the old AWSA will still be there, but not for long...

Maybe I am looking at this too simplistically, but the AWSA is a club that skiers pay to belong to with a set of rules that run tournaments to be fair for all within the USA. If a handful of skiers want to compete on an International level, can't they just join the IWWF or whatever, submit to SS baloney to be a member of a "woke" globalist organization if that is what is required for them? The USAWSA is poking Sasquatch by ramming SS down club members' throats, for whatever reason, and it really doesn't matter why. Just because "other sports do it" doesn't mean we all jump off the cliff. I would never make a good foot soldier. You go storm the machine gun nest at the top of the hill. Time to get back to basics of why we need a governing body in this ski club we call AWSA. Focus on providing good value to members and growing the sport from coast to coast.

Let's see, I haven't skied in a tournament in umpteen years, have been a member off and on since, mainly to support the AWSA when I remember to renew, but now I have to pay to take SS training? I guess I will sit this one out... I was taught right and wrong by my parents.

I think Hip up more than low handle. This thought also helps me from “sitting” back on my ski. Taken to an extreme, if you lower the handle to your ankles, you wouldn’t make a pass.

Any wonder how posting a picture of an infant while holding a beer bottle up to their mouth will go over with the SS crowd? It’s just an hour…. It’s just to flatten the curve. It’s for a good cause. Wait to see how you can spend your digital money on gas consuming recreation and if you can even access it if you don’t have your vaccines up to date, or maybe it will include your SS training….

Soon as I see signs of wear and tear and frayed rope or the handle loses tackiness. My ski partner had a rope that looked way too unsafe for my large butt so I gave him a new one to keep in his boat. He went down to FL last Spring and took the junk rope. First pass cracked his ribs with a line break. I’ve broken 3 handles and at least that many ropes. Neither are fun. Not worth the health risk.

Wait until we can no longer just have two sex divisions or a male identifying as a female at Nationals or Open level….. How about a membership level for coaches and ski schools taking some level of training versus those of us who just want to ski?