VONMAN

Getting old as time marchers on.

He maintains building angle and load through the first wake, behind the boat and off the second wake. But at the finish of the turn/smear he achieves almost 90 degrees to the boat!? with tip up and progressively builds the angle and load back at center line using his front foot as the excelerator.

Slow motion, one with the boat. Not fighting the boat, controlling the boat to my advantage.

ProGear. Great fit, great grip! Not bulky.

Going back 5 years ago Robert Pigozzi was the king of crash. Jon Travers was contender for the crown, but Freddie Winter took it away with many stylistic crashes. Adam Caldwell has with brute strength and the ability to hang onto almost anything takes the Crown. Adam you have helped me so now it's my turn. When airborne, let go of the handle. Ha!

@scoke For me the C-85 is less Work on my body to get the same results. Easy to tune, very forgiving, and stable. The first ride on it and I knew/felt very comfortable. Wind chop doesn't seem to bother it, great angle and load cross course greeted by lots of width to the turn. Feels like a D-3 on steroids but very user friendly. The one thing I'm missing is the Quick, nice finish of the turn that the C-75 has. (the tail of the two skis is night and day different) I will post the results after Monday on the new numbers @adamhcaldwell gave me. So far He's been right on the Money.

@adamhcaldwell No, but I like where this is going. Thanks.

So I've been playing around with a new tune on my Large C-75 32.3mph. What I found is the ski now feels like my C-85, but with a quicker finish of the turn. Using some numbers that @adamhcaldwell had put out in August of 2019. 1.10dft, 2.520, 6.860, 7 degrees flat wing, Front boot at 29". So now what? I'm guessing going back to the C-85 to see if I can match the quick finish of the turn. Stay Tuned.

Who says you can't teach a old Dog new tricks. I noticed as I'm getting older (72 now) my problem is not skiing its the deep up starts. Some days I just blow starts and I don't know why. So last week I show up to the lake with no rope or handle. (I'm old and have a case of sum-timers). I borrow my ski Bud's rope and handle. His handle is Narrow, not my cup of tea but I'm sweating bullets that I'm going to blow my start. Wrong! I pop right up full control, ski doesn't want to turn right or left it just stays straight and I'm up! The next 5 starts the same!! Two days later I'm back at the lake with my U S Gear double bent 13" wide handle. This time I place my hands in the middle of the handle (something I never do) and I pop right up. There is no fighting the ski from rolling to one side or another, just straight!! Who knew? Well I certainly didn't after all these years! After learning that little trick I haven't blown a start. No more dreading the deep water start, just skiing.

@Mastercrafter you are not wrong, that has to be the shortest setup I've ever skied at. I remember at a few ski sites at the morning briefing being told they had a short setup, not even close.

At least 15 years of using Progear gloves. Best glove ever.

So after skiing on my C-85(large), I've been playing around with my C-75 (large) at 32mph to see if I can get it to mimic the ride I get from the C-85. I get the same performance but the work load is much higher. I've been playing with different fin settings with no luck. Any thoughts? @AdamCord or @adamhcaldwell The ski's seem very similar in the front, in the rear the C-75 seems to have more rocker. Just wondering. P.S. love the C-85.

Back in 1970 I had a 15ft Tri-hull with 55hp Evinrude outboard. Had 2 combo pair of Cypress Gardens wood water skis. We could pull my brother and me up on two skis and drop one and slalom behind the boat. We got so good at it we could do double deep ups on one ski but it would take forever for the boat to plane out. Even got so good as to do a deep up behind a 400cc Jet Ski in 1976. Back then I was 155lbs. Still skiing and loving it, but some days my body reminds me to stop writing checks I can't cash. Ha! I'll be 72 in July. Best Sport Ever.

I love my S-line R3 ski rope. And as for the no-stretch my ski partner who is a long distance Barefooter, came to ski with me but forgot his barefoot line. So I added a couple of fifteen sections to my R3 and he took two runs and was surprised that he couldn't feel any stretch at all. Even on the deep water start.

I Stopped using Masterline when they came out with 90% white line with a 10% color woven in. Couldn't tell who was skiing what line length from the shore. I'm sure it was to keep cost down and profit up. And we still bought them at a premium. Not any more.

Loving the new C-85, very user friendly like a D-3, only a souped up on steroids D-3.

@Mastercrafter Good battery and voltage is very important when it comes to fuel injection engines. No only for cranking over, but also energizing the fuel pump's and ignition system and electronics. On my old 200hp outboard I could pull/rope start it by hand if the battery was dead. On the new 200hp EFI with 2 fuel pumps it's no way. And with the Florida heat, I always have a battery tender on it when not using it.

@RichardDoane I used the stock numbers for 32mph which was the exact numbers the ski was shipped. I had checked and documented them before I changed to your numbers. Front Boot 29" DFT .80 Depth 2.50 Lenght 6.80 Wing 6 degrees flat wing

@AdamCord and @adamhcaldwell First I have to apologize for not skiing the C-85 with the fin numbers as shipped. That is my normal way of starting life with a new ski. And when tuning a ski I usually deviate from stock. But life with my C-65 and C-75 was "Let's figure out what works". I think I had 4 pages of setting's for each. So to speed up fin tuning time I first skied on numbers that @RichardDoane had given me, the reason being I ended up on his numbers for my C-75 and loved them so why not. Which brings me to today. Reset the fin to stock numbers and Bingo, I now understand what @Horton was talking about easy this ski is and in control. So thanks so much taking the pain out tuning. I'm not sure I will be tweaking the fin at all after today's ride. The C-75 is officially retired.

@Stevie Boy Bingo.

@Mastercrafter No more Goode Bubble Buoys? That's probably because I was the only one who rebuild them. A real pain in the butt, if you hit one easy on the ankles.

Low-Res, when I'm stacked and the boat pick me up I'm trying to keep my shoulders square to the boat and my head up and focused on the pylon past the second wake. As I get closer to the buoy line I refocus on the ball for early my turn in.

Back in my late 58-62 (age) I was at C-3, 34mph. Skied strong and loved to be picked up right after turning the ball. Now at 71 (72 in July) I'm find myself at A-3, 32mph and in total control of the boat instead it over controlling/over powering me. Big change, but so have I. Don't get old, Ha!

@Than_Bogan thanks, I found the bit in my toolbox. Don't remember ever have to use it before. By backing the screws a half turn I'm able to push the fin in the clamp with the caliper preset, instead of tapping on the fin because drag/friction caused my some fin blocks. If the fin moves easy after the 3 clamping screws are backed off no problem if not backing off the 3 fin block screws on one side does the trick. Just seems to work for me.

Hey Ballers, VONMAN here. My C-85 arrived at my door step yesterday. It's a large and doing a compare to my C-75 it's a tad wider in the front along with the flat spot in the middle of the bottom. Side profile looks to be thinner from middle of rear boot to tail and the second break is now a smooth transition. Just my observation, Build quality and finish is top notch. The one weird thing is the screw heads on the fin clamp to ski. All six are square not phillips head screw. I know that because you don't use inserts, you didn't recommend swapping out fin block assemblies because of that. But I found that it is easy to adjust the fin by loosening three screws by a half turn on the smaller fin block it makes life a lot easier. Will be going on a houseboat trip next week so hopefully I get it all dialed in. Thanks again @RichardDoane for the fin numbers, @Horton for the Drawing and thanks to Denali for sponsoring the C-85 for Drawing. Thanks @AdamCord, @adamhcaldwell and @m_deel for the great ski you design, test and build.