skiinxs

I did a back to back test last fall between my 2015 6.0 and a 2016 5.3 using two very strong jumpers in the ballpark you mentioned above, one jumping in jump mode, the other in slalom. With my 409 I could run a 4 power factor with the jump mode jumper and easily tweak him to 5.19's. For the slalom mode jumper I could get him to 5.20's or 5.21's by bumping the power factor up to a 5. With the 5.3 I duplicated the exact times with the exact jumpers and power factor/jump/slalom gate combinations. There is no way in hell that a 5.7 could do that. Bottom line, I believe that at 35.4 jump speeds the 5.3 and 6.0 are pretty much equals in torque and yield pretty close to the same results. Both jumpers said the 5.3 felt very strong. At top end I believe that the 6.0 has a 30 or 40 hp advantage as my 6.0 would run right at 50 and the 5.3 would run between 46 and 47. If you are pulling 180'+ jumpers you need at least the 5.3, the 5.7 will not get the job done. Now, with that being said, I have a 6.2 in my 2016 and it is insane! I have never been in a ski boat with that much power.

@jdarwin I believe that it is because you are also replacing the tower judges where there are some fairly rigid requirements about height above the water. It is interesting that only the driver has visibility of the water in front of and directly beside the boat, since the tower judges are all on the shore looking at big monitors and the boat judge is looking back at the skier. We had an instance a few years ago where a duck was flying into the skier path and distracted her, but none of the judges saw it. The driver had to speak up and verify that there was a duck there.

@jdarwin This was the 2012 version, the current version is about 4' shorter. I will get more current photos to you this weekend.

@jdarwin It has been refined at Lodi (site of CanAm) the last couple years by using an RC airplane remote control to control the tracking servo. All we need to do is find a kid who is good at video games to control the camera position from shore. This works much better as skiers who get slack at the buoys would cause the rope controlled camera to sometimes not track wide enough. Kevin actually has all of the parts to build a second pole, which will allow us to use more than one boat. I would take too long to swap the setup to a different boat with only one pole. We will have this built and utilize both during our two C/E/L/R tournaments July 4th weekend. We used hand-held videos last fall during our C tournament for tricks and swapped cards, but will utilize telemetry from the poles for tricks and hand hold the cameras to make the angle a little lower than the poles. I have lots of photos at my server up at the lake and will look up a couple to send to you this weekend.

@horton +1 on that statement for me!

I would contact Danny danny@Towerbiminis.com and tell him what you are looking for. I know that they just developed a new bimini for the 200 this year that does not have rear bars or straps. I am betting they he could build anything you need.

towerbiminis.com should be able to hook you up with whatever you need.

If you want to try to shoot some grease first, it is really easy to get to. As mentioned earlier the zerk fitting is at the end of a hose that goes to the rudder log. You can find it by popping the round cover out that provides access to the shaft packing. Feel through the hole to the left and you should feel the hose and fitting attached to the stringer about even with the cover. There is usually a little rubber cover over the zerk fitting that you will want to remove before attaching the grease gun. A short extension hose on the grease gun makes it a really easy job. I prefer synthetic grease as I feel it reduces friction, but is not necessarily marine grease. If you want to change the cable, you can reach the connection to the tiller arm from the bilge under the gas tank, but it may be easier / quicker to pull the gas tank for full access.

I haven't had a chance to ski with them yet, but I bought a pair of X-Large and they are a little smaller than the same size in Goode or Masterline that I usually use, but they may loosen up after a few sets.

All PCM 6 Liters have closed cooling. Other than the first year for cats that they tried to cool the cat's with the closed cooling, they are all great systems. In 2012 they went to the partial closed cooling where the cats are cooled with lake water. The heaters always seem to put out more heat with the closed cooling, they are quicker to winterize (no block or heater to drain), and coolant with antifreeze in the block would seem to me to prevent internal corrosion. I have had a lot of them and never had any issues caused by the closed cooling. The 2015 model was more convenient after they eliminated the little screen from the exhaust thermostat housing. I previously always cleaned the screens every 25 hours since they would get a lot of stuff in them.

I think it was hanging by a thread from a bunch of digging and backfilling trenches after running some additional drains down the hill from the house. When it actually popped loose I was being a wally hanging on a barefoot boom. (yeah I know, age denial). I had taken probably 20 sets last spring on jumpers running slow speed passes trying to get in shape to get the slalom out. I did it on the day before I was going to slalom, the ski never got wet this year.

If it is a decent weekend we will probably be skiing. PM me.

Actually didn't ski myself today, but I pulled my wife and daughter on some slow speed jumper passes on the slalom course. Water temp was only 42, but it was frozen a couple days ago. Any time you get a 75 degree day in St. Louis in February, you HAVE to make good use of it!

@waterskicorey The doc said about 5 months before I could load it hard. Surgery was early June, which put me into November. My ski season was already gone and not much appetite for skiing in St. Louis in November to test things out, so I am trying to get in shape for an early spring. I could have skied today, actually had the new boat in the water pulling my daughter and wife, but the 42 degree water didn't seem like a good place to start. (It was frozen a couple days ago). How did you tear yours?

Not bad if it has the training wheels (glued in pieces at the chines that fill in the open area) and rudder with the wing that creates lift instead of the original one that pulled down.

Well, if you are going by frequency, it has to be lower back, which always gets better with rest after it goes into spasm. There are also the eight surgeries: Right shoulder rotator cuff and Labrum twice 9 years apart, same thing on left shoulder once. Right elbow twice, first bone spur related, second time pulled the triceps off. Left elbow spur that had sawed through the tendon. Right and left knee miniscus tears and repairs. Wow, when I write it all down I sound like a train wreck:)

Just unwrapped inboard #37 last weekend. There will be no power shortage at Lake of Dreams this year:) Here are a few pictures.

I bought one a few years ago, crazy me, tried to ski down the rope to my best pass. Definitely take the dowels out. I went out the front at 35 going faster than I have ever been on a ski after the line lock. If I had hit the 2nd wake going that speed I may have never skied again. My wife said I ended up about 10 feet in the air and did two complete rotations before I hit (almost to the next buoy by that point). Wish I had a video! Scared me so bad I never used it again until last year. It was completely my fault thinking I could ski in pb territory without figuring out how to use it. I am also getting age challenged. Last year I pulled the triceps off my elbow very early in the season, which ended with surgery in May. Surgery fixed it and I should have been ready to ski in November, way too cold to not "let it heal longer". I did actually use the Power Vest with the torn triceps, even the day before the surgery. I was skiing on Jumpers, just trying to feel like I was skiing. With the straps shortened up putting zero pull on my elbow I even managed to run a few 24mph passes on my jumpers without the benefit of triceps. My current plan is to get back in shape by taking 20 to 25 sets on my jumpers figuring out how to ski with the Power Vest, just repeating passes at 24-26. My hope is that when I then transition back to my slalom ski, the vest will be a non-issue and I can get in shape to ski with the vest, then ditch it if I feel strong. I did find that it was much easier to get used to the vest while skiing slow on jumpers. I also agree with the comments on weight. That thing must weigh 10 pounds, and that is the last thing I need on my slalom ski when I am very weight challenged from missing an entire ski season :) Also, here is a little eye candy for all the gearheads (and jumpers) out there, just unwrapped yesterday.

I signed the petition and listed the address of my 2,000' lake as a reference (can be viewed on Google Earth)

These work pretty good: http://www.foscam.com/FI9828P.html The only downside is that when zoomed in all the way they take on around a 20 degree down angle. When zoomed out they will barely hit the horizon if level. I mounted on an angle to counteract, since up against the building I don't need to zoom or see very high. I will try to attach a couple captures that show zoomed all the way in and out. I am not sure if they pull data when your aren't accessing. You can set them to take a series of shots and email or FTP to you when they detect motion and can remotely view video and pan/tilt/and zoom

Great looking boat:)

If you plug into a switched outlet, they start and stop recording automatically when the boat starts and shuts off. Although you can change in setup, they typically default to recording two minute clips. If you put a 64 gb card in one, even recording in HD you get many hours of recording before it overwrites. (You can also configure to stop recording when full, or use the default which will constantly overwrite the oldest file).

The one I have been using is not wide enough for slalom or jump, works for trick. I use it to monitor boat paths when my end course video isn't running. I ran one all last year. I run them on my cars too, seems no one can stay in their lane any more and I will have HD video when one hits me and trys to say I hit them:)

Looks like a real honest to goodness ski boat to me, not a wakeboard boat:) Real boat with no monkey bars!

@aussiemc say hi to Cole and Erin for me when you get to Stoney Park. My lake is only a couple thousand miles from LA, but I would be happy to give you a pull at Lodi if you ever get to St. Louis. Cole and Erin can tell you all about the lake.