Rich

I use stock settings. I have and I'm currently using the larger wing at 10 degrees. This ski is sensitive to rocking back. You are rocking back a little. My greatest success is coming from staying with my ski, over my ski. It is much easier to lean back and away, than leaning away while moving with the ski. ( i believe it takes more strength to stay with the ski because you will ski with more angle) The person who does this best is Nate Smith. I haven't heard anyone really discribe this technique completly. However I know that I want to stay over my front foot, lean away, and make sure my body is moving in the direction the ski is going in, I DO NOT want to lean back at all. (That is ineffienct as the body will be going in the opposite direction of travel) I have found that if I'm on my front foot at the apex, if I have enough angle through and off the wake as I travel out bound it is much easier to have my body stay with the ski, keep my outside shoulder away from boat as I move out, stay over front foot at apex, reach and allow my self to ski into the handle, bend ankles/knees as 2nd hand comes back on to the handle, lean away and again stay with the ski as acceleration starts. This ski doesn't work as well when you push on your back foot even a little/ which you do in a subtle way. I do like stock set up 10 degrees of wing seems to pull the ski under me, which I do like. I do like how you come up over the ski coming into 1 3 5 You do push on your back foot as you gate in and 2 4. You push at the completion of 1 3 5 This ski will shoot out in front of you like it did on video 2 as you came around 1. I hope this helps, I hope I'm describing what I feel, it is a very subtle change of where your body is that will help you, I don't think its a fin blade set up issue.

Im 56, run 38 a ton, plus I'm all of 5'7". I hope to run 39.5 this season in a tournament.

Start with the factory settings and work from there. My experience is that if the ski is right for me I will know it with in a week. Most of the time with in 2-3 rides. My experience is that Fin settings are much less critical on a great ski. I use very close to factory settings. If the ski is less than ideal I will drive myself crazy trying to get it right. My experience over the last 15 years has been the right ski will allow me to ski within my PB with in the 1st 3 sets. The wrong ski will waste my time, and has always been just that, a waste of my time.

I ski in rollers, white caps, ect... If its really bad I may just spin without drops. I will ask for short spins to keep the chop down. My ski partners love this as I'm in and out in 10 minutes. Its not about the ski. All the high end skis in the market are excellent. If the ski you are on works great in glass, it will work fine in all conditions.

6

Its all about YOU. My experience with water skiing is that if you are edge all the time it doesn't matter what the conditions are. Conditions make you think about the conditions. Stay focused, stay on edge. I have never changed skis for conditions. And over tuning your blade is over rated. Work on YOU!

Fantastic interview, almost surpasses the Muhlighnter Method, in fact it does...

You are an awesome skier, Nate is right now the best there is. All of your analyisis is after what I think is the problem. Nate gets way more leverage on his gate and every other lean from white water to white water. That allows him to do things a little different in the turn. That is what I believe. Nate gets his hands down lower, gets in a better leverage position and has more angle from the start. That outbound angle after the 2nd wake is the difference maker. You can TRY to bring your hips up in the preturn, stay more open ect... I don't think that will happen unless you change the position of leverage from whaite water to white water. ;I think Nate can get a better turn, stay more open, because he has a better leverage position from white water to white water.. His strength to weight is pretty incredible at 6'2" 150lbs. You may not be able to dublicate that, however you can get more stacked, more ankle & knee bend, handle lower a more leveraged position in your own way and correct the problems caused by lack of angle. Its what Im working on personally and it has made a BIG difference.

A Special

My experience is if I turn too hard after the ball its because I gave up angle going into the turn on the outbound direction, its not about water temp. Water temp will have an affect on it "feels" it will take an adjustment on MY timing, which if I let it it will "play with head". That is my 2 cents on water temp. @Jim Neely good for you, change YOU, once you have the right gear its about YOU The hardest part about running deep shortline is mental. But you have to have the puzzle all put together, your conditioning, both mental & physical, the ski, the set up, good straight boat path, ect...

I ski at the pond in Santa Clara, it goes from 55 degrees in winter to maybe 75 in summer. I ski at Twin Cities in Walnut Grove 60 degrees to 80 plus. I ski in tornaments in Sac in summer, temps go into the 90's in Florida 90's I never make a blade adjustment. My experince has been that once the blade is set, I'm good to go, I haven't found that changing the blade makes a BIG difference. The ski itself does. The placement of the bindings does. However once I find the right combination I stay with it. I may not be the greatetest skier, however my scores are very consistent, always deep 38 (4-5)to mid 39 Water temp doesn't effect me, its about finding the right combination fro YOU and sticking with it. It makes a bigger difference if the boat driver one sides me at 38 or 39 than if my blade is adjused 4/1000's haha! I guess its a bit of a TEAM sport.

I would buy a 9100, 9400, or especially the 9500 over the 9800 any day! The 9500 was and still is a GREAT SKI!

As long as it was on the top of the ski and didn't compremise the core too badly it shouldn't have a BIG impact on the ski. I would have put some bondo on it, painted it black and used the ski. For whatever reason the core of the 9800 would delaminate from the skin, you could see a small bubble like issue on the bottom of the ski. When that happened the ski became junk. I had it happen to my 9800 and saw a few others have the same problem. The 9100, 9400, 9500 were all really great skis. No break downs for me on thoses skis. Jeff Rogers still skis on the same 9100 he set the world record on in the mid 90's Ben Favret skied on his 9100 for 15 plus years before finally breaking it. I still have my 9100 as a back up, I know I can pull that ski out and rip a 38 on it.

I would answer this however since you are the competion I'm not sure I should, I would take any answer with a grain of salt as I might be mis leading you, LMAO In cold water, the water is dense, therefore shallow works better lets the tail slide. In Warm water the water is less dense, deeper works good. Tail slides easier in warm water. I also always run my fin blade as short as possible, adds speed, speed is good. I try to make sure I'm working on staying with the ski after the turn, not leaning back, but leaning away,(knees & ankles bent & soft at the completion of the turn) and getting over the ski at the apex by keeping back arm pressure and staying as tight as possible with my upper body as I move toward the apex. By running as short a blade as possible I can travel more distance in the course from point to point or buoy to buoy. I always use the same set up, once the ski is right I always work on me. I find if a ski is needing fine adjustments its the ski lay up, or rocker. After years of second guessing myself over 1/1000 here or there, I realized I was a pysco in need of ... therapy Haha I'm much happier now that once I find a great ski, great settings, I just leave it all alone and work on me.

65.5 FYI the 9800 was a good ski, the 9100 better in my opinion. At your ability level either ski will work fine. I say this because the 9800 had delamination issues. The 9100 is bullet proof. Either ski is a Great ski.

I have Spondylolisthesis and had suffered from back problems from age 15. I tried everything and was able to keep it at bay with exercise. (This meant I had 1-2 major back spaams per water ski season) About 4 years ago I was able to really pin it down and started to stretch my psoias. If you look at the muscle and realize we stand on a ski in a way that will really tighten this muscle keeping it stretched is very important to skiers. Also make sure you are HYDRATED, keep your core muscles strong, you are only as good as your weakest link. Also about 4 years ago I stepped up my BIKRAM Yoga practice from 2-3 times per week to 5-6. That made a huge difference in both my back injuries (I have not had one the last 4 years) and my performance have improved. Learn about yourself, find your weakest links and improve them! Good Luck!!!

oh yeah

Twin Cities Ski Lake Walnut Grove Ca https://www.facebook.com/#!/TwinCitiesSkiLake

Amazing Tail wind performance, makes you rethink the sport. He stays with his ski so well!

@richarddoane, why not ask? I find it funny! @Ed-Johnson its an S 4 it helps to a degree, by being in the best physical condition possible by using the skiers edge, doing single leg plyo drills hops, and other body weight exercises that will strengthen the mind/body connection will help in the edge change which is about having great body awarness and strength to weight ratio which allows a skier to feel thier way into the most efficient lean which produces the correct amount of speed/angle that leads to a dynamic edge change. The edge change is a function of the right lean which leads to the dynamic edge change. Just another piece of the puzzle...

DRY LAND TRAINING IS AN IMPORTANT/ESSENTAIL PART OF MY TRAINING

@horton, most all of this is DRY LAND training. It has been my experience of teaching myself to go from the old tug of war, to a pretty efficient skier after 30 years of tug of war, being stuck at 2-3 at 38 for 10 years, this was my dryland game plan that took my sking to the next level, helped me LOVE zero off, and have more fun in the slalom course by actually improving. I know I added alot, actually gave out a good portion of my "blueprint" I hope it helps others see there is a way to learn on dry land skills they can use on the water.

check this out, great tool picture previously posted.. http://www.skiersedge.com/

http://www.skiersedge.com/

To @horton I voted incorrectly, I don't know if you can adjust that or just give me a panda!