Nando

@Gloersen : First, gotta give my respect to anyone who can change from LFF to RFF- that had to be tough. Second, THANK YOU for this solution. I'm gonna try to copy it. What is your flap made of? I'm thinking of using a piece of binding material, but will that be too stiff? Anyway, even though it doesn't happen often, I'm sick of smacking my shin and appreciate the ides.

I believe the biggest mistake made wasn't as @JeffSurdej says not embracing wakeboarding and later wakesurfing, but by trying to include those sports in an organization they had no interest in, therefore losing our focus on skiing. The start of the decline was the obsession with getting into the Olympics, which started the obsession with eliminating every variable and making all conditions perfect. As some have pointed out, alpine skiers don't get exactly the same course from the beginning of an event to the end and are subject to weather variables, but we're so concerned with conditions it's tough to get skiers to come to an event at a non-manmade lake because the conditions might not be perfect. Things used to be a bit sloppier, but they were more fun.

@04196 , who needs a house with that combo?

From the home page Instagram, it looks like @CParrish43 has what might be the ultimate tow vehicle.

Very sad- one of the sport's really good guys.

I know, who puts a wakeboard tower on a perfectly good salad bar?!?

I'm a Nautique guy and still think it's the best three-event boat, but if I were buying a brand-new boat, I'd sure consider a Prostar. I don't like open bow boats, but the fiberglass cover for the open bow is genius. Wakes on all three are so good that it's tough to find issue with any. Driving, the Nautique is my preference. And I find the new Nautique ugly. If the 200 were available as a closed bow or with a hard bow cover, that might be my choice, but I really like the new Prostars.

@KRoundy , what bindings do you use now?

The definition of a stacked position.

One of my ski partners has had both replaced and still slaloms and tricks. He wanted to jump (totally against his doctor's orders), but the guys who used to drive jump for him had an intervention and told him we wouldn't drive for him.

@The_MS , this one?

Other than the brothers, I'm stumped, but it's a great photo.

We were once able to avoid the over-width issue by separating the deck and flotation frame and loading the sections on edge onto a truck designed to haul large quantities of sheetrock. That left us over the height allowed for shipping without a permit, but avoided pilot cars and such. It did require a crane, but the truck had one that worked at that capacity. It helped that we jumped with the guy who hauled sheetrock for a living, so we had him to load and drive and his boss let us use the truck for the fuel cost (and it was only a hundred miles or so).

Looks like an old Connelly tournament fin that Adam used his mind powers to stretch and remove matter. Probably changes shape between passes if he concentrates.

@skialex, I was not aware that the Goode was softer than the Reflex- is it significantly softer?

When I was kid we'd be working at the lake and when we took a break, my dad and uncle would pull out a Hamm's. As kids we'd always ask for a taste and, based on that, I thought beer tasted terrible. It wasn't until later when I discovered it didn't all taste like that swill. (And my uncle owned the liquor store!) For many years, the plant engineer at Hamm's brewing was the legendary Tom Chapin and that's what he'd buy if it was available. We were setting up for a tournament one time and he went on a beer run. PC asked where his dad went and his response was, "Oh, no- you can't let him go for beer- he'll buy Hamm's!" I though that may have been him in the ad, but no.

I always thought of the Monza as the evolution of the phantom and when it replaced the Phantom, I got one- never could ski on that as well, though. Anyone know if the Concept was the first ski offered in 1" rather than 2" increments?

The 80s were a very fun time!

Oh, man, @Broussard, there's just so much wrong with those old ads! Different times... When those old Mastercraft ads came out, I was coaching baseball with the guy who was the account manager. Not a skier, but his boss was. He then got a sweet deal on a Prostar so he and one of his coworkers bought it. He told me that neither of them had ever owned a boat before and unintentionally abused it pretty badly. The went to the local dealer to sell it on consignment and he looked at its condition and asked, "What happened, was it stolen?"

I'll throw out my list, going back a few years, because I'm an old fart: O'Brien Comp- the original wood one- the basis for modern slalom ski shapes. Kind of the last of the long line of wood skis and the most evolved. EP Comp 1- largely an O'Brien shape with state of the art composite construction- for the time. Taperflex Apex- a flawed design, but one that introduced a bunch of changes in concave and bevel designs. When it came out everyone had to have one. Kidder Redline- refined a lot of earlier ideas into an extremely user-friendly ski. Goode 9100- a classic with many attributes and few flaws. Connelly HP- fit so many styles. Mastercraft- took the Maha Lapoint design and refined it into a hugely popular ski. HO Phantom- one of the first speed-control skis- I tried my old one recently and couldn't believe how aggressive it is. HO A1- one of the first Zero Off skis- there may be a better example. Denali C65- the 75 is probably a quantum leap beyond it, but the 65 is a pretty radical departure on a lot of design levels. I also loved the Mapple T3, but it was kind of a rarity. Certainly a different approach to the torsional vs. longitudinal flex issues, though.

Interesting topic. I use the thin Fluid Motion liners, that look a lot like the Radar Vapor ones (but thinner), in a Reflex. They work well for me on fit, as I'm lucky that the contours of the shell match my foot and I have no room for a thicker liner. But, what do people think of thicker liners? Greater comfort, I'm guessing, but any loss of feel or control? Better to have a slightly looser shell, with a thicker liner? Do thicker ones add any stiffness? I've used the snow ski racer's principle of anything that separates you from the ski being bad, but see some preferences for thicker. Are orthotics a good way to go? I always had them in my jump bindings but never used them for slalom or tricks.

@Shakeski, what's your experience with the Rebel Z releasing? I was under the impression they were a non-release binding.

We had a course that was on a sandbar, sheltered between two areas of reeds. The middle of the course varied between about 24” and 30” and the bottom was very sandy. We eventually had a trough about 18” deeper in the boat path where the prop wash had blown out the sand. Never hit bottom, but the sand polished my prop and rudder so they were very shiny. Then we had three years of drought... In ‘87, the pro tour championship was on a lake that was very shallow on the shore side. The lake had an outlet with a valve that someone had opened Saturday night. After a panicked half hour of tightening the buoys with Ed B., he told me, “get your ski, we’ve got to see if it’s safe to ski”, which I knew meant I was expendable and the tour skiers were not- he didn’t want any of them to get hurt. I ran a couple of passes and noticed KLP was watching intently. He asked me what it felt like around the two shallowest balls and I said I could definitely feel the tail being affected by the shallowness. He said he could see the tail rise up as the ski went into ground effects- he used tha aeronautical term and it seemed apt.

What's a Boesch going for these days? Maybe 200 Euros?

@Thager, what's the side padding on the A10 like? I bruised my kidney and spleen (and ribs) with a vest with minimal padding on the sides and would like a fair amount of padding- maybe I should go back to a CGA vest- or quit crashing...