Shortenit

Will never forget this fall. The last frame was where I think the 2 broken bones in my front foot occurred.

Truly inspiring. A life well lived and an incredible legacy left.

Every set. Indispensable. Especially in slow motion. Your body lies to you. What you think and feel it is doing is not always the case. Video shows you reality. (Even if it is depressing to watch!)

@skidawg thanks for the info, we are running water filled, maybe should go to power buoys. I am riding the Quest you had. To send good karma your way I will leave on the Cottonwood Water Ski graphics you put on it until you are back on the water! I know personally what catastrophic injuries are like. All the best for your recovery.

Wishing a fast recovery and rehab for you Ward! Question-was it a water filled buoy? And do you think that would have made a difference?

@Than_Bogan, you are sharp, I never thought of that. If he'd brought a chess clock I bet he'd have tweaked it somehow for an advantage!

@kmenard, I know there is an In N Out about 10 minutes away in Elk Grove!

I was at a ski school lake back in the day, (we'll leave out the name, unfortunate episode for a great coach), when it was blown out. Some other fairly bulked up guy was there and he wanted to kill time by playing chess while we waited for the wind to die (which it never did). So we played and it turned out it was Dr. Jim. He talked a little about his skiing approach but was generally just polite and quiet. You just can't tell from appearances. I was hoping to watch him ski as I had heard the hype about him from word of mouth and mostly from Schnitz's site. Would have been interesting to measure the rope he was using there.... Didn't think much of it until the scandal broke a few months later. He left before we finished the game. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Video gold!

A sad, sad day.

Exactly.

If the technology was in place to judge the gates accurately there would be no need to change the rules. But currently it is not, hence my vote to change. Rules aside, I wonder how many people think that a couple inches difference at the gate would actually translate to a full buoy more at 41 or 43 off? At 35 off I don't believe a couple inches of gate would determine whether I would make 1 more buoy or not. Way too many other factors are more important in my skiing. That said, I have no clue if it would really make a difference at the pro level with the rope that short.

That's dedication!

My wife is no slouch either. Was out in a drysuit a week or so ago, water 49, air 50. No OTF thankfully. Tough lady. And she can totally kick my butt snow skiing. (And pretty much almost all the guys on the mountain for that matter).

Just skied 3 days there with my wife and ski partner to start our season. Sweet site, setups are no problem at all, plenty of room-and my wife does not like short setups. Really protected site, one day there was enough wind to start swaying the huge trees in the distance and while it did effect the skiers body, the water only got a little chippy. I have skied a lot of Orlando sites and I can tell you there are a bunch that would have definitely been blown out with that same wind. And the location is great too. Landed at MCO on Saturday at 12:45, stopped for lunch and were on the water at 2. Additional bonus was having Kris and Taylor as drivers, and having Willy and JT show up one day. Always fun to watch 41 being run! Definitely the best value around. We are definitely going back often. For now though it's into the dry suits.... Eric, hope to see you there on our next trip, thanks for setting us up.

@Waternut, now it makes sense. I'm jealous you can leave it in all year. It pays to live where there is no ice! @BraceMaker, I do a similar wheel thing with my lift, unfortunately I have so much muck on the bottom I also have to put out connected 2x12's for them to roll on. Pain in the a**, but we addicts do what we have to......

@Waternut: Am I missing something? Sure that's how you float it out there to position and lower it into place, that's easy. But aren't you going to remove it at the end of the season? How do you lift it off the bottom to float it to shore to take it out without a way to lower the bunks with flotation attached? @PatM, has hydraulic down power to do that. If you have enough water it can be done with diving lift bags attached directly to the bottom frame and then inflated. Unless it's just a new lift and a one way trip in since you will leave it in year round?

@waternut, to float it out how are you planning to lower the bunks with all that buoyancy attached?

@Pat M, I just paid for the 7ft lift size, $1395 + $89 shipping. 6' is $1345, 7' is $1395, 8' is $1495. All plus shipping.

@waternut, I have a cantilever (Hewitt) as well. I made up a temporary reverse winch system that winches the cantilever down. Made a bracket to mount a regular trailer winch that bolts to the same post as the wheel operated up winch is, couple screw eyes in the frame at the bottom, 2 holes in the cantilever arms, 3 sailing pulleys with snap links and some good rope. We crank it up all the way, slide some dock floats under the bunks, Tubes like @OB uses will work too, slack off the up cable and crank it down. Rises the lift right out of the muck, float it to shore and haul it out. Has worked great for 5 seasons. It is a little heavier on the winch corner so we offset the dock floats to that side. That said, just 5 minutes ago I ordered the lift helper from Tim as I have moved my lift to an area that is much shallower and I want the lift frame to be up higher to make it easier to get close to shore. With the lifthelper it should basically be floating on the surface as opposed to below the water line. If I didn't move I would have kept using my old system.

@Horton, Drew's lake now looks more like magic too. Cleared all the brush the entire perimeter of the lake, deepened it by 5 ball where it was a little shallow, has the water dyed a little blue. Looks awesome, still skis like magic.

And one day his daughter Neilly may well surpass his impressive skiing achievements.

Some years ago, can't remember who, (Schnitz?), advocated a dab of Vaseline on the back of the heel to aid release in a bad fall. Soap or whatever used for getting bindings on will wash away, Vaseline dab will stay. Don't know what it will do to bindings over time. I did it for half a season after breaking two bones in my front foot from a partial release. Never had a bad fall to release during that time (skied very carefully!) so can't comment on it's effectiveness, but in theory it still seems to make sense. I also started running shock cord laces instead of non stretch laces.That was many years and several bindings ago.

No words needed.

I understand that Gordon wanted to have Will and Elaine Bush come down and drive but their schedules wouldn't allow it.