Phil2360

Both mine, 12 & 16, off to their first comp for the season. Addicts.

Merry Christmas from Down-Under! Chilling out today! Holiday Starts to-morrow! Filling up the Fuel Drums! Just need the weather to settle out now!

Sounds like "Ski-O-Caching". We lost a marker buoy off our Cylinder Head, (alternate anchor) last week. Searched in the GPS proximity for 15 minutes in 6 feet of water with no luck. 10 minutes later we hit the foam buoy that was 2 foot under the surface with the prop & a big lump of the foam floated up & we could then see the white part where the chunk was missing. Merry Christmas All!

Two Japanese fishing guests, staying with our lakes owner. English was about zero, or a bit less. So we had a morning full of charades, bush sigh language and gestures. Very enthusastic guys, friendly & polite. Both managed to get up on doubles & do a couple of laps of the lake. They were totally stoked & very greatful. Ahh, and whe took plenty of photos.

@horton, Was 37°C down here in the Penal Colony Yesterday! Expecting 34° to 35° all week. And Hey! We get to ski in our 26° Water!

Great to see so many older boats still about. Even better that Perfect Pass is looking after our needs. Ours is a custom built hull from a local guy with his own moulds. Probably less than a dozen built. Ours was late '97, has a carby 400 Chev that pulls 36 @ about 3100 rpm. StarGazer went in when it was released & Z-Box last season. Does the job & keeps us on the water.

@Wish, @Richarddoane, Love Glastrons. Old man used to sell them in the 70's back when Glastron = 007!

@AB, Funny I must have still been composing my post when you replied & jumped above me.

Was thinking along the lines of learning the different angles & techniques associated with the length & doing it at a speed where the mistakes/techniques faults could be eliminated, as opposed to trying to improve the buoy count with the mistakes still present.

Ok, Robbie, (16 next month, 50kg). Running 36 relatively consistantly now, occasionally back to back, & then thru to 3 @ 22off. Last Wednesday, I practiced him at 32 & 34 @ 22off. Ran them no problems. 36 brought his faults out. Yesterday it was fairly choppy with about a 15-20km/h cross/tail wind. Running 34 was a struggle for him but could run it. Dropped him back to 30mph & had him run some 22 & 28's at that speed. Probably did 4 at each length in both head & tail wind directions. Is this a bad idea? Skiing the shorter lengths slower & working them back up. Particularly in bad conditions? Cheers Phil

Had one just like it! What's a beavertail @horton?

@Horton, Am I correct in recalling that Kris LaPoint ran his tournament PB on this 50th Birthday? So it's Good from here on in! Happy Birthday & Go Tear Em Up! Cheers Phil

@Chef23, we need to be able to vote twice! EOS 50D DSLR for photos & a Canon SD Digital Camcorder for Video.

Update! Looks like the boat I posted previously (May 20th), has been receiving a bit of Pre-Season maintanence.....

We were always WAY more advanced than the "No Batteries Required" stopwatch... Moved on to a Robic Speed Timer about 12 yeas ago. Even had it wired to a trigger switch on the steering wheel so as not to antagonise the observer with yet another thinking task. http://timerspedometersstopwatches.robictimers.com/item/timers-with-several-functions/sc-554w-30-memory-speed-timer/87925?&bc=100|1012|1088

@ShaneH, Metric Crap? Gotta like the figures there like:- "Federal automobile exhaust emission standards: grams per mile". Cheers. Edit: Gotta kick myself in the butt here. Speed on my Perfect Pass is still in MPH!

Circa 1980, Just had to love the old 12" PolyForm A-Series buoys they used to use in a lot of places. From memory I think about 4 bricks used to weigh them down so 1/3 was above the waterline. They were like a log to hit & most only ever did it once. Cheers

@richarddoane, about 3 of 4 passes is where I'm throwing it at the moment. That's the point where I feel fatigue is only going to promote bad things at this point in time. Mentally blocking what you can do, but can't do now seems an important issue. Most mistakes are steming from that, & overdoing something. @Ryno, haven't been for a free ski yet this year. Extra bit of a drive to that lake & with the weather we've had it can easily run a 4 foot chop. You can often find good water, but can be difficult getting there & back. Skiied 3 back to back 30mph's on Thursday, seems too slow & unresponsive & like a nothing run when it's in the back of your mind that a couple of seasons back you'd start at 22off & ski it on anyones ski just to try it out, regardless of conditions. That was mid season when getting out twice a week. Just more practice I guess. Objective here....... Run 28 off before 50! Need to be running it this time next year!.

Ok, Best approach when you've been hung out for a few seasons. Coming back from deep 28' offs about 5 years back. Trying to getting back on top of strength & fitness, but just so rusty & endurance is pretty ordinary ATM. What's the best approach, go way back in speed etc, or use the by accident approach I've saw several years back. Generally always been a weekend only skier, but we seem to be getting the odd extra week day out at the moment, so potentially getting 3 days a week on the water. Can put it all together almost perfectly in places, yet make the simplest of mistakes & turn it all upside down. Very frustrating. Cheers Phil

Had a great Wayne Grimditch Slalom poster when I was young. On either a Orange or Blue EP.

Wayne definately. Have heard plenty of stories in years gone by from Bruce about his & Waynes travels together. Both chased the mark back then, Wayne always coming out 1 up. Apparently "Monopoly" was a different thing.

They arrived in the post today. Thanks again @richarddoane. Bit amazing really, $6.20 for postage. One of the big problems we face down here is a lot of vendors only use the big couriers, UPS, Fedex etc & anything will cost a minimum of $75.00 to get here. So if I can return the favor; if anyone up there wants something uniquely australian, let me know. Will see what I can do. Just no Kangeroos, Koala's, Emus or Wombats. Cheers Phil. Top day here today. Did the 3:30 to 6:30 after school run. Was Great! 35°c with the water up to 27°c.

This? @horton http://poser.smithmicro.com/index.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poser

Yeah, Much easier. Would be best to find someone that can sort of demonstrate on the back of the boat or something like that. Cheers

Agree @MarcusBrown, Also Hate Stainless in Aluminimum also, bad mix. I've always put a bit of Loctite Anti-Seize on all fin screws. (The Grey Stuff). For the Stainless screws in the inserts I last tried some Teflon Thread tape, Hoping this might also stop them vibrating loose on the skis of the "Junior" who constantly forget to check them. Dunno if that's going to be a good