JohnN

When I was a newbie to the whole private lake thing, a friend and I did some work for Tommy at his lake and needed a boat. Tommy sent me out with this boat, and man did I feel like a badass towing a Pro Tour boat from the shop! That boat still stands out as one of the best driving and skiing boats I've ever had the pleasure of using, and I can't think of anyone who would pay more attention to the details when reworking it than Dave. @waterskibumfl It looks like you've done a great job and I know it'll make someone a great boat. John from Bergen

O'Brien Jr amigo We moved the toe loop up closer to the front binding. And a definite yes on the light line We moved our boys to a traditional ski when they were starting at 24mph in tourneys. fun times!

How many other tournaments don't have a bracket besides AWSA? No bracket is a race usually, not a tournament. Qualify by ranking list or a regional tournament. At Nationals run brackets so the winners work to get to the top, either head to head or by score. Maybe even a consolation bracket so everyone gets two rides at a minimum. How to make it happen in a reasonable amount of time? Here's one that I don't think I've seen yet, but it changes Nationals from a family get together - have a Jr. Nationals and a Sr. Nationals, separate events. Hard to staff and all the rest of the issues, but, think about qualifying to the US Nationals and making it through to the finals. That would be exciting, and something skiers would strive for. It solves the fun part, but introduces enough other issues I'm already telling myself it can't work...

62nd or so annual 3 event tournament at cottonwood/Denver water ski club. Can't imagine a better place to be.

I had a chance to drive the new PS this week as well, and agree with @ToddL and @Drago - the boat tracked well, but it did have a different feel from past boats. Very good, just a little different. Loved the new dash (or lack of it) and especially the ZO display. No longer does it take an advanced degree to find all the necessary settings! Bow rise was minimal and visibility was outstanding, and I loved the machined aluminum bits and pieces. Getting the plug out from under the engine is a nice touch, and little things like being able to comfortably point the kids out to the side were noticeable. From watching kids at 15mph to 36mph/28 off, the wake seemed very flat and friendly to them. Comfortable and adjustable driver's seat for spending a long shift. A great boat, as always well sorted and dialed in (Thanks Jeff Thomas). The only suggestion I would have on the boat is to alter the throttle by wire map to get full throttle sooner. At 36mph, full throttle seemed to only get part throttle at the engine for several seconds, then the engine would open up and occasionally was still accelerating when the skier was pulling out. I felt like there was plenty of power, but the electronics were holding it back. Looking forward to skiing behind it this weekend!

Here's what may not be the most popular suggestion, but it worked for one son and will be used for the other in August . If you're shortening at 34, start at 34/22, or even 32/22, and stay at 22 as you speed up. I don't know why, but 36/15 seems tougher to get than going straight up at 22 and seems to promote skiing to the buoy. As always , ymmv. But it's worth a try.

Awesome ski for it's day. Turned well, fast and stable. Switch to full carbon skis was eye opening, however.

You had to make us think about it, didn't you? 30000+ miles/year at maybe an average of 20mpg (between the Volvo, F350 and Beetle), plus gas for 100 hours on the boat, plus a handful of tanks in the Chevy, probably between 1500 and 2000. Of course that supports the 4 of us, and includes a fair amount of carpooling. The sheer amount of seat time boggles the mind...

Whether we like it or not, performance snow skiing and performance water skiing are both very much exclusive clubs that you have to work your way into, and for both sports being on the "inside" or "local" can make all the difference, money-wise. Retail in either world is a killer for any serious enthusiast making under 6 figures and only the sub-retail (promo, ep, pro, discount, blem, rep, etc) market keeps both performance snow skiing and water-skiing alive.

You know, what if you had a slightly flexible layer under the fin block and a small, locking bolt in a threaded insert through the center of the block? Turn the screw and flex the bottom layer slightly for rocker. Infinitely tunable, no need to have a stack of fin blocks. @Wish, that's exactly what I did - progressively shorter pieces of tape making a sort of pyramid presuming the fin block is stiffer than the tail of the ski. It's an interesting concept to play with - for the last 7 or 8 years I've been using the same type of tape to adjust fins' alignment when needed and a little bit can make a difference.

I used the metallic silver tape used to work on hvac systems. didn't seem to compress too much. I did have to re-do my fin settings slightly as the clamp is further from the bottom of the ski in the middle, if that makes sense. The ski seemed to stay in the water better, particularly on the off side, and my consistency seemed to go up a little. This is on a Z7.

Thumbs up on the Jr Amigo and a lightweight line. The key to Jr Amigo happiness when they're small is to move the toe loop up closer to the front binding so the kid isn't doing the splits.

Gate (alpine) when you're really on, GS and SL. Best rush was DH at Keystone of all places. The last pitch took you from about 40 to 75, with a nice compression at the bottom. Best comment was a coach saying "I can't believe they let you guys do this, you're way too old". Vail resorts pulled the plug on a great venue shortly after...

yeah, they pulled the plows out for hail in Denver as well... just not the same as snow. But, we generally start mid-Oct so snow or snow-making temps are likely coming soon to CO. It's been an incredibly warm and nice September, but from here on out you can almost feel the water cooling each day.

a great resource for sports psychology is Dr. Jim Taylor - http://drjimtaylor.com/2.0/blog-2/ - plenty of information and thoughts on preparation and competition. For me, when I was missing openers consistently, it helped to focus on just a single thing ie. knee bend through the gate, or level shoulders at the 1 ball. If I did that, the pass was a success regardless of buoy count. And it led to much fewer missed openers.

Have a 66 C-6, may be a 2001 (the one with the flames), it was set at 2.37, 6.90, .80. If I remember correctly this was a little shorter, shallower and further back than stock, and I had my bindings all the way back. Mostly skied it in fairly cool water. Great ski, great tracking through the wakes (very defined bevels), stable with a carve-y feel to it. Pretty heavy compared to the newer skis I had to move to get to it.

For me (C2 -> C2+), it made the boat much less of a factor. Like @sbink, I seem to be able to get downcourse or even finish the pass before feeling ZO force the rhythm.

@jimbrake - I get it on the skiing thing, it makes water skiing look real affordable :-). The skis that UPS dropped off exceeded the cost of our family's season of water-skiing. Although, we've got a friend who just went to Sugar Bowl for next year - now that's commitment. @escmanaze - we had kids pretty late, so we played real hard for ourselves for a long time. Having the family commitments just makes us appreciate the play time more, especially now that we're chasing the boys, and in a few years it's just us again. For now, we live for flexible schedules, odd hours, carpools and multi-day sleepovers. Days like today, when my wife, my younger son and I hit the lake for a mid-day hooky set and had a great time make it all worth while.

@ScarlettArrow - I console myself thinking that everyone else's bodies will be worn out from skiing so much more than I have time for :-). Club sports like football, soccer, lacrosse or skiing out here seem to go to about 5 days/week or more by 8th grade - just the logistics of getting to practices is a challenge. For our family the decision was to remain active and competing in waterski events, but waters-skiing is the third sport behind snow ski training and whatever team sport is in season (football or lacrosse) so it gets less practice time. We'll all be water-skiing for a long time, but the other sports have a very limited life-span. For now we try to keep it as fun as possible every time we go to the lake.

Regular slalom driver and judge

@Marco, sorry Sunday didn't go better for you, but I've gotta say you guys put on a first-rate tournament! Thanks again from John, Tammy, Kyle and Eric.

Skied R version for first time this weekend in a tournament, and it was the best that ZO has felt to me. Opened with C3+, then dropped to C2+ for the next pass and stuck with that both for the Nautique and the MC. Normally I go with C2, the + made it much smoother feeling, and I felt less hit from the boat. Like @Jody_Seal said, I pulled a 135 lb 14 yr old at 36 with C2+ and ran consistent 16.05s. 16.08 with no +.

For direction, have her point her front knee where she wants to go (i.e. 20' up lake from the next buoy). On a gear note, a looser or softer rear binding, or a toe loop, can make the offside turn easier. Finally, have you done the work your way into the course method - start outside 1, shadow 2, 3, 4, 5, go around 6 and out the gate. When that's comfortable, turn around 2 and 5 as well. then add 3 and 4, then the start gate. The key is getting lots of successful turns rather than one and done.

I'm with @Drago, the cost of not doing it could be far greater - how much do lawyers and therapists make? We're fortunate that most of our tournaments are pretty local and camping friendly, and keeping tournaments affordable for families is a priority. At the regional level the incremental cost is fairly small, mainly gas and additional entry fees, a second hand ski when they grow, maybe an extra $1K per kid per year on average. And we get to do it as a family! Compare that to ski racing at a regional level (alpine) which runs about $6000 per kid per year with coaching and camps ($4K), 4 pr skis ($1K with selling last year's), and entries/travel ($1K). Then there's the LAX, maybe football, conditioning costs. If you really want to cringe think about how much you have to make pre-tax to pay post-tax dollars for the kids' activities.

@ntx I think the B2/32 division makes sense from a skill development standpoint. As a sport is it better for kids to start the progression to shorter lines earlier, or to learn how to handle higher speeds at 15 off? Nothing to do with results, just what makes for both fun and long term skills. For reference I've got two boys - the older one jumped to b2 as a young b2 and ran into 22 his first year, the younger one has spent two years just getting to 15 off at 34mph. I believe the older one would have benefited from more time working on more shortline skills at 32 mph, and the younger one could have been starting to acquire those skills instead of battling 34mph/15. Even with the older one a second set is generally spent strictly at 32 mph where he can run multiple passes at his harder lengths. On the jump from 34 to 36, I would not slow down the U18 group, at that age they are big and strong enough generally to ski well at 36 and when they've acquired the skills at the lower speeds they want the additional speed to stretch their limits.