GK

I have suggested in the past that they add a few more discount options also. They have the discount option already for Junior and Club Members. It would be nice if they added the same for Collegiate, Chief Officials, and Promo Boats. We set our base prices, then we give a 10% discount to ALL officials with a rating, a 35% discount on Juniors, and a 50% discount to club members. Chief Officials who are comped you have to go in and manually mark as paid. If you have other discounts (like collegiate), it is pretty easy through PayPal to refund that person a portion of their entry fee. It just adds an extra step that could probably be avoided with more discount options.

You can turn a good slalom boat into a decent wakeboard boat, it's much tougher to turn a wakeboard boat into a decent slalom boat. I've owned a lot of Response LXi's with Tower & Wedge. World class slalom boat and a solid wakeboard boat with the wedge and a fat seat (or a few people) in the back.

We worked it out from an insurance standpoint so that skiers could cross-over events without having to buy a membership with the other organization. Obviously your scores didn't qualify you towards anything without becoming a member, but at least you got to ski some more. My only suggestion would be to try and encourage cross-polination so that skiers can experience both organizations and ultimately hopefully they'll participate in both and bring skiers from both organizations together. That's what we were trying to do in Ohio is bring ALL skiers in the State together on one day for the State Championships so that we could spark new relationships and expand everyone's opportunity for more ski partners and more water time. What's left of the INT here in Ohio is primarily wakeboarders. The slalom skiers have mostly jumped ship to AWSA due to our handicapped fun format tournaments that we do with the Buckeye Buoy Tour. The Buckeye Buoy Tour is the best of both worlds, gives skiers a chance to compete based on ability and allows the high end skiers to still compete on a local level and qualify for regional and national events at the same time.

We held a INT/AWSA event same day same lake during our state championship a couple years ago. Some of the AWSA skiers crossed over and skied the INT event. None of the INT skiers crossed over to ski the AWSA event. It was the one and only time we did it. It was disappointing but the two groups just didn't mesh very well.

I've been skiing on an HO Attack since I started the season 3 weeks ago. I'm not back to the full swing of things yet but so far it feels great. Very comfortable binding and you can tweak the bungee laces just right so that you've got good support but your foot will still come out in a fall. I like it so far, no cramping like you get in rubber bindings. Plus the binding is insanely light!

I think Brent makes some good points especially in regards to younger kids who need the "pros" to look up to. On the other hand, the Big Dawg skiers are looked up to equally by a different demographic. Waterskiing is not like other sports where everyone starts at a young age. Many waterskiers today don't learn about competitive waterskiing until they're in their 20's or 30's (especially collegiate skiers). If you don't start running the course until you're 20 or 30, your shot at being a pro skier are OVER however you can aspire to be good enough to compete in the Big Dawg by the time you're 35 or 40. I learned how to run the course when I joined my collegiate ski team. Now I'm 32 and have aspirations of being good enough in a few years to compete in the big dawg events. I've also got to think that if I'm 40 years old and have the opportunity to square off head-to-head against Chris Parrish or Jodi Fisher or any other ex-pro skier at the time it would be awesome! The Big Dawg series gives skiers who came into the sport later in life a chance to compete at an extremely high level. I think the Big Dawg series does what Masters Men was not able to accomplish and the MM division could probably be done away with at this point and Big Dawg events expanded around the country.

 

I do agree with Marcus however that Big Dawg events should not be given the same noteriety as the pro skiers at pro events. If you want to hold a Big Dawg event the day before a pro event then great, but the pros need to be the focus (and I think they have been up to this point). I also think that top speeds for Big Dawg and all divisions should be 36 mph as I've stated in the past but that's a whole different discussion.

I think that ALL divisions should be allowed to ski at 36 mph and skiers should be able to max out at whatever speed they choose knowing that they're losing 6 buoys for every 2 mph. In other words a skier running 38 off @ 32 mph would equal someone at 32 off 36 mph. Ultimately, I think the most elite skiers in the world (no matter what the age) would gravitate to 36 mph because they would need to in order to compete at the highest levels and the second tier skiers would probably mix it up between 34 and 36 mph with more beginner and intermediate skiers possibly maxing out at 30 or 32 mph until they're comfortable with the higher speeds.

You could take pre-orders for a quality 30 minute production at x amount of money and then when you have enough pre-orders to make it worth while pull the trigger on it and do it. It could be distributed in a downloadable format and would probably need to be completed within a few days of the event. I would pay for a quality production with high def video and quality commentary giving good details on the days events, standings, and skiers.

Cincinnati is going down to Lucky Lowe's a couple weeks after that. We've been going down there for years and he always gives us a great deal. I would definitely give him a call and I would also consider getting coaching while you're down there (wherever you go). I understand trying out the new equipment, but having a solid coach to work with you on the fundamentals would go a long way come fall!

 

http://www.luckylowe.com/

Just thinking out loud, but what if the max speed for all divisions was 36 mph, but you could max out at any speed you wanted and take a 6 ball penalty for each speed decrease? So if you're in M1 and want to top out at 34 mph, you can ski as short as you want knowing a full pass at 28 off 34 mph is = to a full pass at 22 off 36 mph. If you wanted, you could even stay at 30 mph knowing that a full pass at 39 off 30 mph = a full pass at 32 off 36 mph which would also be equal to a full pass at 35 off 34 mph. It would greatly simplify the buoy count chart because you wouldn't need to distinguish between all the age divisions.

 

With this system, instead of USAWS telling us what should be the best speed for our age, we can determine for ourselves. Think of the advantages to NEW blood coming into the sport who wouldn't be forced into speeds they're not comfortable with and could experience the fun of shortening the rope if they choose to do so.

It depends what type of event you're holding and what type of support you have from the officials in your area. If you don't have to pay for hotel rooms for officials, then you can easily make money at $40 per skier. (unless you want to argue that the expenses of owning the lake factor in, which no tournament is going to cover.)

I would just make the tournaments more FUN and less expensive for all skiers and new skiers should feel more welcome. Give the event a handicapped scoring format that allows skiers of any ability to level to compete and win and new skiers will fit right in.

 

Our state has gone from almost all tournaments being 3 round slalom events with a max of about 35 skiers to about 50% of our events being handicapped scoring where skiers are guaranteed 2 rounds with the chance for 3 or 4 rounds if they "win/advance" out of the first two rounds. I was a little concerned when we started these events that people would complain if they only got 2 rounds, but we've heard very few complaints and we're regularly seeing 40 to 50 skiers at these events including a LOT of new skiers on a regular basis. These events also have a grassroots sanction attached so that a Grassroots membership will get you in the event, it just won't get you on the National Ranking List.

I still think you should count 36 mph as plus 6 buoys regardless of the speed. If you're a good enough skier to run into 41 or 43 off, then you should be a good enough skier to go 36 mph to compete with the big dawgs. If you're more comfortable at 34, then you still have that option and can still put up a damn good score that will allow you to compete with someone going 36.

I still think you should count 36 mph as plus 6 buoys regardless of the speed. If you're a good enough skier to run into 41 or 43 off, then you should be a good enough skier to go 36 mph to compete with the big dawgs. If you're more comfortable at 34, then you still have that option and can still put up a damn good score that will allow you to compete with someone going 36.

I think the last thing we need is another division (unless the proposal is for MM to be changed to 35 mph, but it doesn't sound like that is what's being proposed). I think all divisions should have the option to ski the max speed of 36 mph and be scored for the additional buoys that they receive (6 buoys per pass). This would allow people who want to go faster to ski faster and those who don't still have the option to go 34 mph. People could then stay in their own respective divisions and the MASTERS division could be awarded by taking the scores from ALL divisions M3 thru M10 who skied at 36 mph and awarding the TOP SKIERS from across all divisions. This eliminates the need for a seperate division to ski in and allows skiers to compete across divisions. No more heartache over not skiing in your age division.

It was a great tournament and watching Zack Worden stomp a new collegiate record of 195' was incredible!

I'll be there. Go Cincinnati Bearcats! First D-I appearance in school history.

Any lakes within an hour or two of Milwaukee that would be willing to give a guy a practice pull over the next two days prior to Nationals? Will pay for gas! Please email gk at rounding6.com

Links are fixed and yes, you should be able to get a practice set on Thursday night if you get there around 6:00. I would definitely suggest it since you've never skied on that lake.

Teams are posted for the "Team Assault" this Friday before the State Championships. We came up with a way to put slalomers, trickers, and jumpers all on a team and score it fairly with handicaps. Then we named all the teams after ski legends. We've got 50 people registered, for 10 teams of 5 skiers. Should be fun! http://skiowsa.com/

Ben, we'll put you to work, don't worry! You'll be a pro at putting a handle on and off a rope in no time!

The State Championships and Buckeye Buoy Tour Stop #3 (Team Assault) are this coming weekend! Registration closes Monday! Top Cat Challenge was great this weekend, see the results at www.skiowsa.com

 

Greg Kuenning

We have launched something unique with good results that does exactly what you're saying but the only responses since I laid out our plan on here have been about officiating. I agree with everything you say except for the part about only needing one official. As long as there is a national ranking list, I think you need 3 officials (for level 7 up). As it stands now, you could run all level 6 and below in your tournament as Class N, you'd only need one official in the boat, and their scores still make the national ranking list. Anyone level 7 and above requires 3 judges because then you start effecting regionals and nationals. I think that's perfect. We have a 2nd lake at our site and for our big head-to-head event we needed to use the second to handle all the pulls. We ran level 6 and below on the 2nd lake as a Class N. Without the option to do so, we would not have had enough officials.

If everybody was honest than a 1 judge system would work, unfortunately that's not the case. Plus, people make mistakes, there have been plenty of times that I've heard one judge call in a score that's accidently off by a buoy or 1/2 buoy and the other two are there to correct the mistake.

It takes 3 tournaments to become a judge, how does that equate to getting an MBA? What should it be? 2 tournaments? 1 tournament? There are plenty of ways to keep people involved who are not officials. Dock starting, rope handling, announcing, or even shadowing judges as they work towards their 3 tournaments for a rating. Whether it's overkill or not, I don't see it having much effect on someone's decision to attend a tournament or not and even the amount of fun they're going to have at that event.

 

Most hardcore skeirs wouldn't attend a Class N, that's why all of our tour stops are run as Class C. You CAN run Class N events in conjunction with your Class C tournament and all you need is a trained driver and one judge in the boat. I THINK you can even use the same safety coordinator for both events.

 

I think the original question posed by Horton is very important. I laid out a proven scenario that rivals anything the INT is putting out and no one seems to want to talk about it. It's frustrating because I've been listening to people complain on these forums for years about the competitiveness and fun of backyard tournaments, but when you put a REAL answer in front of them they seem to ignore it.