lottawatta

On the used market you might look for a 69" CoX-SL or a 70" Connelly F1

There aren't many sites wanting to host nationals now. If we go adding burdens on the host like guaranteed ski times, even fewer sites would be interested.

http://www.mowsc.com/ Mid Ohio water ski club is a good option too.

No pics, but I have a story. Years ago we held an INT and the local CC dealer brought out an Air Nautique. After the day's events he wanted to demo it. Loaded with fat sacks and 10 people, It made about 10 -15 passes. I ran out on the end of the dock, stopped them and told them to leave. While my shoreline was gradual and sloped at normal water levels, the thing was throwing monster waves that washed three times as high as a comp boat would throw a trick wake. I literally lost three feet of real estate in some places into the lake and ruined the gradual water line slope I had. This was all in less than an hour. Even in places with rip rap and concrete chunks, the wakes washed over that and pulled the rip rap down the slope to below the normal waterline. Never again. Ever.

Water skiing lost a great ambassador and bundle of positive energy. My thoughts and prayers to those close to him.

I will advance the idea of a baby step to eliminating the regional requirement while still retaining a meaningful regional. Why not allow the top 3 in each age division at the state championship skip regionals as long as they are level 8 or above on the ranking list?

Consolidating the effort, sponsors, hosts, etc. to promote a visible, viable, meaningful protour does more the satisfy the stated objectives of the organization than increasing size of nationals to 1000 skiers.

Mission From USAWS Bylaws as found under "Governance Documents" from USAWS homepage ARTICLE III VISION, MISSION AND OBJECTIVES A The vision of USA-WS is to make the United States of America preeminent in the world in competitive, organized water skiing. B The mission of USA-WS is to advance and service the sport of water skiing through education, widespread participation, promotion and sustained excellence in competition. The objectives through which USA-WS shall accomplish its’ mission shall be: 1 Serve as the National Governing Body in the representation of the best interests of all Water Skiers in the United States 2 Ensure understanding and support of its mission 3 Maintain financial stability 4 Administer education/training programs at all levels 5 Promote all USA Water Ski programs 6 Administer fair, competitive programs at all levels 7 Increase participation in water skiing at all levels 8 Preserve, develop and protect waterways access for water skiing in the United States 9 Grow its membership 10 Optimize membership satisfaction (customer service) 11 Establish and maintain world dominance in water ski competition 12 Partner with industry in the mutual pursuit of growing the sport

Observations from an outsider after skimming the packet: 1.) Do we really need the continued exponential growth of the rule book? I understand tech advancements necessitate some changes. How do we expect new tournament participants to understand the sport’s rules when we continue to add rules and complicate the ones we already have? 2.) 53 of the 180 pages in the packet deal with our representation to international events. I would like to see 53 of the 180 deal with increasing the membership base or consolidating and uniting efforts and sponsors to create a real, visible, season long protour. 3.) 74 technical controllers nationwide worked 132 record events, and yet 40 of those controllers didn't work enough to maintain their rating? The sport has become too technical. 4.) Loss of 116 ski clubs from 2010 to 2014….97 of those are AWSA clubs. Loss of 589 members from 2013 to 2014….470 of those are AWSA members. Instead of shrinking nationals to make it more meaningful and more manageable for the volunteers that host it, we are on a push to increase it to 1000 skiers? Why? According to the summer meeting minutes, because the “major sponsor is adamant about having 1000 competitors” at nationals. How is increasing the size of nationals bringing in new members and new clubs to support the mission of the organization? Again, I am an outsider, with no dog in this hunt, but it seems the cart is in front of the horse.

I have repainted the surface in the past after repairs. I got a few ounces of coloring from the paint store and mixed two gallons of resin with the coloring in a big bucket. Make sure the coloring you get is good to go for resin. In my case, I like a blue jump surface. I get a baby food jar of both blue and white coloring and mix into the resin to get the shade I want. When the color looks good, I mix in the hardener and paint like crazy. Just make sure you have all the old wax off first!

I realize some of the romance of nationals is in the fact that multiple generations can ski the nationals at the same site during the same week, and USAWS likes a huge field to use for marketing and other purposes. However, I hear people complain that they have to take a whole week off, accommodations are expensive, use their vacation time, etc. Why don't we consider having 3 national tournaments. Break them up similar to the way the world championships are broken up by age. Keep them all to where you can go over a three day weekend. It is much easier to swallow taking off work half a day Thursday for travel, attend Fri-Sun and be back to work Monday TWICE (once for me to ski, if I were to qualify, once for the kids if they were to qualify) than to take off a whole week for the kids to ski Tuesday and me to ski Friday. B1-3 and G1-3 could have their nationals early August before school starts. M1-3 and W1-3 late August, maybe even over Labor Day weekend. Then M4/W4 &up in September sometime or even early October if it is in Florida. This opens it up to more sites and takes less manpower each tournament. The work is spread out over more clubs so one doesn't get burnt out hosting it multiple years in a row. However, it may make it difficult for the manufacturers to bring their new products to each. Alternately - work the ranking list to keep each nationals to 300 or so pulls over three days and make all three nationals at Lake Grew every year. It would be easier for USAWS to coordinate everything if it was in their back yard. Everyone would know where and when the nationals would be every year. Airfare and hotels are relatively cheap if you know where to look. USAWS could easily keep officials costs low. Vendors wouldn't have to lug their wares to 3 different sites around the country. The southern skiers wouldn't complain about the cool northern waters. etc. I'm just throwing ideas out for discussion here. I am surprised there hasn't been more sentiment to take the nationals back to Waters Edge. Great site, Chicago has a lot for the family to do, cheap airfare, etc. They proved a two lake site could do it and they run a big tournament as well as anyone - at least from this outsiders view.

I prefer the polyforms from Ed. His price is as good as any, service is top notch, and Ed is always quick to help anyone out with course supplies, questions, or problems.

If it wasn't caused by hitting bottom, was it caused by power turns / bat turns / spin outs?

The IWWSF will likely require random PED testing for the 35+ world championships already. I know it has been a requirement of IWWSF world competition in the recent past. The over 35 water ski association dues will have to be pretty steep to cover the cost of random testing at the big dawg events. From what I remember, our lowest cost was somewhere around $6000 for something like 20 samples for one event.

@kstateskier Not to derail this thread off topic, but you can take 100% of play out of the linkage with the use of plastic/nylon flange bearings and bushings. I will admit I have used stainless shims of various thickness to take up a fairly large gap, but I always try to use nylon. It won't bind up, corrode, nor cause premature wear on the mating surfaces. It is hard to tell from Chuck's pictures up above, but those washers don't look stainless. If they are not, I would be worried about corrosion and wear over the long term. Just my 2 cents.

@Chuck_Dickey: Ditch those washers for Nylon washers and it will be more smooth and take out some vibration as well. I did that to my 2013 PS190 with excellent results.

Yes, as long an you can turn and burn your second round you are practically guaranteed to get to the hospital in time.

Also, The Germans have WAY more experience at multi level replacements. I had a very well respected surgeon with thousands of fusions and hundreds of single level replacements under his belt tell me (off the record of course) he would have to think long and hard for a reason not to go to Germany if he needed his neck done.

They never fully recovered in that they are not able to do what they did pre-surgery. One still has pain, numbness, and loss of strength. The other has trouble swinging a golf club like he used to. I was scheduled for a 3 level fusion and cancelled it at the last minute. I have done a ton of research on this issue and If I get to where I can't function, I will consider getting the M6 (spinal kinetics) in Germany - even thought it won't be covered by insurance if I go out of country.

Before you get fused, check into the artificial disk replacement. Until last year you had to go to Germany or Australia to get multiple level artificial disks, but the FDA approved 2 level replacement late last year. I know two people who have had two level fusions. The loss of range of motion and cushion put pressure on other levels and they never fully recovered. My mother in law had a single level fusion and she fully recovered rather quickly. My advice is for you to lots of research on your own. Best of luck.

I am pretty sure prop selection was a ZeroOff revision R change. I know I have seen it on my 2013 Mastercraft.

I was telling my Dad about this silly optional first pass gate rule last night and his comment was "this sets the sport back 20 years". (He has been around the sport from the late 1950's. former AWSA board member, senior judge, blah, blah, blah.) As someone who has hosted tournaments ranging from INT, collegiate, grass roots, class C, record, and international competition, I have to say, this rule makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I have no idea how this is going to encourage participation. It sounds like change for the sake of change. Is there some goal to get the rule book to 200 pages I don't know about? We need to simplify the rules, relax tech requirements, reduce costs, THOSE are the ways to reduce the intimidation factor and increase participation.

Jodi Fisher's isn't too far away either.

There is going to be a serious price increase on the 2014's. I doubt anyone will have to firesale their 2013's.

Lake Ownership is not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. Be prepared for HUGE amounts of work and less ski time. I was able to ski WAY more before I owned a lake, and that was with having to fight the river taking slalom courses and jumps over the dam every year. Never would I ever even consider having more than 1 partner in ownership or lease of a ski lake. Multiple partners never work out, and many times a single partner doesn't work out. If you let people ski, don't charge them a dime. It is simply amazing how much help you get from someone who wants to ski at your lake when they aren't charged anything. Once money is exchanged, not only does your legal liability change, but your member's expectations change. If you do charge them, be prepared to be expected to fix everything from a buoy floating to high to making sure the port o let has toilet paper. Don't ever expect that you can have a club that rents a lake and you are going to share the responsibilities evenly, it never works. Someone HAS to be in charge, and that person has to be prepared to be the arsehole. For insurance, since USAWS sold out it's members for the interest of the insurance company, I no longer make the members join USAWS, nor do I join as a club since there is no longer any benefit for me. I make all members name me as additional insured on their boat owner's policy and set a high minimum liability limit. I also carry an umbrella policy. As far as rules, make them short and simple and expect to have to remind the members of the rules from time to time. Someone has to be the bad guy. My rules are that each membership gets you one spot in the rotation. If you are a single member, you get to ski every time your rotation comes up. If you are a family of four, one of the four gets to ski when their rotation comes up. A rotation consists of 6 passes of slalom or tricks or 3 jumps. Keep membership small enough so that time is not an issue - EVEN if this means you don't have enough members to cover your costs of running the place. I have a rule that I run my lake by: I will keep membership low enough that every member WILL get to ski at least two sets in the evening after work, and as much as they want on the weekends. IF for some reason they lollygag in between skiers or boats, it will be their own fault they don't get to ski two sets in an evening. It will never be because there are too many people waiting to ski. Bottom line: For me, I would MUCH rather pay $4200 a year to someone else for a membership to their lake than to own my own and have 7 members at $600 each. Believe it or not, I would come out ahead in the end dollarwise and timewise.