east tx skier

For anyone with exposed screws, I recommend picking up some teak plugs. Remove the screw, drill out both sides. Soak the hole with mineral spirits to remove natural oils in the teak, dry out the hole well, coat the bottom of the plug with epoxy, and pound it into the hole. Repeat for the other side. Sand smooth and apply teak oil. Had my platform refuse to come off the bracket slides. The bracket screws had loosened and the bracket wasn't lined up right any more. Removed the screws and filled all of the holes. Put the loose bracket on the boat and slid the platform back in place. Marked the hole pattern, drilled the teak, and reset the screws. Good as new.

@swc5150, if we end up with turbocharged 4 cyl, can we use VW engines. I'd love to drop the ECM off with my Unitronic dealer and add 65 hp and 90 ft/lb of torque (probably more since our exhaust is pretty free flowing) for $600. :) I figure we'll already be putting 93 octane in them at that point. So, why not. Until then, I'll stick with my 98 SN. I have skied behind a lot of newer boats since owning it, but haven't had the least bit of interest in anything else.

@h2odawg79 Thanks. I upload the pictures to Picasa, copy file location, click the little landscape icon in the post window here, and copy the link.

@Inboardfix, thanks for the compliment on the transom saver. It's from teak world. As for the effort, it took less than 15 minutes, including removing the platform and figuring out where I left the teak oil. I have been on the same bottle since 2005. By the time February rolls around, it feels good to get out in the garage and visit the boat. As for the sanding, point well taken. However, sanding is a rarity (usually when I get a new boat). Ordinarily, I just smooth out what's left of the oil finish with the wool and reapply a single coat. That platform in the picture hasn't been sanded since a year after I bought the boat. So that would be 2008.

The regular starbrite looks great, but it has a sealant in it that can be a bit slick. I use Amazon golden teak oil. It looks good enough for a platform that is going to be used for its intended purpose. When I first got the boat, I hit it with a sander and some 120 grit. Follow up with some "zero" steel wool. Dust it off, and add a coat of teak oil. I rub it on with the palm of my hand and get it everywhere it needs to be. Wait 10 minutes and wipe off the excess with an old sock or rag. Let it dry for about a week and reinstall the platform. In the interim, i.e., once each February, I'll rub it lightly with the zero steel wool, dust it off, and apply a single coat of oil by hand. Wipe off the excess and it's good for the rest of the season. This is before the excess was removed. And the finished product.

Yeah, it varies by state, but if I had to guess, you cannot charge for alcohol without a license. Calling it a donation probably isn't going to work as a viable loophole if you you get caught.

@blacky1205, yes. You can use the display and puck with the Master Module (mechanical) that you purchased. You mentioned 8.0. If you want a Zbox, you will have to buy that separately. I wasn't sure if they had the 8.0 software out yet without buying the Zbox.

Merry Christmas!

The Green Machine is truly the Lamborghini Countach of children's riding toys. And, yes, Santa brought the one that adults can ride. Merry Christmas!

@MS, my story doesn't resemble any of that. I was a litigator in Houston for about a year and a half. I hated it. I got a job as a staff attorney at an intermediate appellate court and have been loving my job for the past eleven years and many years to come. So, yeah, I'm not in that category.

Interesting. Not sure how that would play out here. Again, as mentioned above, this is all state-to-state laws in play. But a cautionary tale to be sure. Particularly worrisome to us since we have courses on public lakes, which are open to injury incurred, well, by anyone. /shiver

@ZR6Hurricane, what state was that in?

@MS re: Ambulance Chasers, I know a lot of lawyers (goes with the territory of going to law school). Of the ones you might qualify as ambulance chasers, a few are pretty nice people. Of course, they aren't the O'Quinn (handing out business cards in the swamp after the ValueJet crash) variety who literally chase ambulances. A very close friend of mind did some personal injury and represented a person who was killed in an explosion in the BP plant south of Houston. Suffice it to say that I believe that dead guy's family deserved some representation. But, then again, my friend, now a professional brewer and brewery owner (good recovery), did not chase them down. They (family friends) called him. I have never done personal injury and am, currently, a judicial appellate lawyer with the goal of making things fair for everyone that comes before our court. I love lawyer jokes and despise the stereotypical ambulance chaser as much as anyone. But in my profession, it can be a fine line. I'm not sure exactly what everyone else on this forum does for a living. But I'm sure it's above reproach. That said, I reasonably certain I have been screwed over, in separate instances, by someone in every profession there is.

Just to get the two policies separated, there is the policy you get with your $100 membership fee or whatever, which supposedly covers participants in sanctioned _s. Then, there is the second policy, which costs an amount dependent on the number of courses, sites, jumps, ramps, etc. that your club has. That is more in the nature of a general liability policy, wherein if little Suzy, who is not a club member, swims out in the lake, gets tangled up in the buoy lines and drowns, the insurance coverage would be applicable. That is, at least, how I read it. Not tested in the field, fortunately. Thoughts?

@Razorskier1, waiver and release is a state law issue. So the effectiveness will vary from state to state. There are plenty of waivers based on valid consideration that have defeated negligence claims in Texas and plenty more that have not. It just depends on the language of the document and the circumstances. Our club members sign waivers as consideration for membership and the right to participate in club events. I hope that these waivers will never be tested in court. /not an ambulance chaser //not married to an ambulance chaser

For me, it's not the cost. It's the busywork. As for signed waivers, they can and do work if worded properly, at least from what I have seen. Everyone in our club has to execute waivers in addition to the USAWS waivers. They don't keep you out of court, however. And lawyers can be expensive if you aren't one or aren't married to one.

All of this has me looking back at videos we took skiing on the river. I didn't worry about visible buoys, insurance, whether my wife's driving was meeting certain fundamental procedures (other than the ones I was implementing on the fly), etc. I just kept looking at the water and thinking, it might be too smooth. Yeah, my form is crap, but look at the persistent smile on my face. And this may be the only Lionel Richie song worth listening to, ever. At this point, I was in a club, I had access to a course at home and had my own course back by the lake house. But my birthday wish was always to make an end of season river run. I know we, as clubs and participants, need to be insured. But this sport is so much more fun when it's less complicated. Have a nice day!

As I approach 40 (slowly), which of you guys with the wort injuries suffered them on rubber boots and which on Strada/Hybrid style or harder. On Stradas now, still have the Wileys, and just thinking of my next 40 years since I'm reluctant to count on the USAWS insurance. ;)

@Horton Naturally. @Jody_Seal had to break myself of saying AWSA in meetings and newsletters. It was the way I had always thought of it. The question that I have about a break is does AWSA have the clout/muscle to get all of us reasonable deals on club insurance. In reading past posts, I think the answer is that AWSA brought a lot to the table when it was absorbed into USAWS, but if that's the case, it gives me a happy to hear it again.

Rod, with proper care and maintenance, the sky's the limit (the sky being around 3,700 hours). But the passed around numbers are 2,000 hours for Indmar and 2,500 for PCM. I'm a big fan for having long conversations with the owner and looking around his garage. You can learn a lot about how a boat was treated by having a couple of beers with the owner. I have ended up with some well cared for boats this way.

I voiced my opinion to USAWS last April in an email to Melanie Hanson. For what it's worth, I may be the reason why a higher rated driver doesn't have to sign off on hours for a rated driver to keep his rating at the end of the year (unless that is still the case and I missed it). We don't anyone like that within 100 miles of our fair city. Life was a lot simpler when I was just a duffer running up and down the river. I always have that to return to when our club can't practice unless the insurance adjuster is on site, which may be the case by 2014.

@Horton Sorry. Don't mean to make your job harder. But it's just the reality of how we use our club. We need USAWS for insurance, but little else as far as I can tell. I just got off the line with a somewhat nearby ski club president. He calculated that the amount their membership (52 or more drivers with some having individual and others having family memberships) would spend in dues and driver courses to USAWS this year as approximately $9,000.00. He's investigating private insurance arrangements in response to this driver training requirement. I investigated it last year when we first got wind of this, but a club our size unfortunately doesn't have the weight to absorb private insurance costs for general liability on public and semi public waters.

See you in March, Joe. At some point, I am going to leave this sport (in its organized fashion) behind. My portable course is in the attic and is just dying for some use. Our club has to have the secondary policy with its general liability coverage to be in compliance with our lease with the City, who owns the bodies of water on which we ski (these are leased premises with exclusive rights of access for the club (sort of)). But for that, we would have no affiliation with USAWS because, apart from insurance, it provides our practice only club zero benefit. If they make it prohibitive to maintain this insurance policy, our club that has been in existence for over 40 years will cease to exist. If I weren't in charge of the club, I wouldn't bother being a rated driver, that's for sure.

Our members, what's left of them, will be thrilled.

My first ski boat was this 1993 MC PS205. It now lives with its new owner in Canada (2003--2007). This is my 1998 Ski Nautique. GT-40, Stargazer/Zbox, Upgraded Tunable Rudder, Acme 422. (2007--Forever).