jcamp

Me and a couple of business-savvy water ski friends are looking for business opportunities within the sport. Does anybody know of any companies that are looking to sell or are seeking outside investment? Please contact me off forum at justin [at] thinksparkmedia.com. Confidentiality assured. Thank you.

 

For years I've wondered aloud if a bare bones boat could enter the market at around $40,000. Now it seems a newcomer could come in at $70-80,000 and still significantly undercut the big three. Maybe that'll encourage new players in the market?

Sold. To a baller.

Or this one.

So this worked out better than I could have possibly imagined last winter, but unfortunately the person I partnered with bought a second boat to keep down in Florida full time so they do not need a boat this winter.

 

Anyone else in Florida interested in some kind of arrangement this winter? DM me and let's talk. Thank you.

I have a lightly used, excellent condition large c85 (rff fin) that I will be putting up for sale on ski it again as soon as I get around to taking and posting photos. DM me is interested. Thanks all.

The middle class has been hallowed out. Disposable income is down for a massive chunk of society. Fewer people punch a time clock at 5pm and have time to kill and weekends totally free from work, instead we are answering emails 24/7 and feel like we can barely use our vacation days. Youth sports are insane with year-round travel teams, ID clinics, and expensive one-on-one coaching. Public lakes have waves on them that are literally big enough to surf on. People seemingly would prefer to just get wasted drunk rather than do a sport that takes time, effort and skill. The price of boats has outstripped inflation and earning power. The competition for the recreational dollar is much more competitive than it once was. The barrier to entry for skiing is much higher now than it was when I started behind a 16' outboard skiing a slalom course floated by milk and detergent bottles. The baby boom bubble moving into, through and out of the sport created artificial increases, and subsequently decreases, in participation levels and retail/manufacturing activity.

 

Some of water skiing's issues are self inflicted, but society is MASSIVELY different than it was 20-30 years ago and has created huge headwinds that are to blame for most of our sport's woes. Instead of wondering why skiing isn't bigger or why cornhole is on ESPN, we should be happy that there is still a vibrant, if small, competitive water skiing community that we all still get to be a part of.

 

This pic is from Sams Valley, just north of Medford, Oregon. The dry lake at the top was built by Wayne Van Wey in the early 90s or so. The story is he did it without permits, got busted, and I'm not sure that it has been used much since.

 

Anybody know anything about the lake at the bottom? It's a couple miles from my parents' new house. I visited in February and drove by but couldn't see anything. Just south of where the picture is cut off there looks to be a pretty substantial house ... with a tournament boat stashed in the woods.

@ral I did receive a notice last summer or fall maybe but I didn't do it then. I logged into my membership recently and saw that it was "not active" then remembered that I needed to re-take it.

The re-up only took me 17 minutes.

@dirt I didn't say anything about that. You, in a post that even Horton found offensive enough to erase, complained about a fake scenario where a boat driver ran over your rope in a tournament, your feelings were hurt and now you demanded everyone to take a 2-hour training video on not running over the rope. You equated getting your rope ran over with someone getting raped. Cute. I merely pointed out that that was a really sh!!tty thing to say and belittled people who have been abused. And seriously, how can you say we have never had a problem? You seriously think no one has been abused in this sport? How do you think you know of everything that happened in the sport? Most victims don't even report incidents because they know they will face people with attitudes like yours. It's just a stupid statement to make because you can't back it up. At all.

 

equating a fake rope situation to the devastating, life-altering harm suffered by those who have been sexually and/or physically abused is not funny and mocks victims. It is shameful and just illustrates even more why SafeSport training is important and needed.

 

Funny story:A good friend of mine is the worldwide president of a sporting goods manufacturer that has products in both the snow skiing and inline skating worlds. A water skiing employee of his sent him a picture of a water ski binding and suggested they try to develop a competing product. Knowing that I was a skier, my friend sent me the picture, saying "this is obviously an old binding for a combo set or something, but what do you think about the binding market in general." The picture was of a brand new, high-end (for water skiing any way) Reflex set up.

 

@Jody_Seal I won't get into a pissing match with you about my contributions to the sport, but I believe I've pitched in here and there.

 

More importantly, instead of just whining in an online forum, I plan to keep contributing when and how I can, beginning with attending (and voting at) my region's council meeting this weekend. Anybody who feels strongly about this issue or any other can do the same.

"We are sick and tired of being sick and tired about all this WOKE crap being pushed by a small minority (a very loud constant, media backed, bunch of flys buzzing around your head loud minority) and all they bring with it. The government can’t find its way out of a paper bag."

 

Thank you @The_MS for clarifying why this whole thread has been such BS and why I'm not going to mourn people like you leaving the sport if that's what you decide. Throughout this whole issue you've wanted, no NEEDED, to make this about something that it's not. You want to make some sort of statement against politics, wokeness, little-d democracy, or as @Jody_Seal has ranted about endlessly, the COMMUNIST ELITE NOBODY LIKED MY IDEAS SO THEY MUST BE CORRUPT ARGH!!!!. Admit it, you are old (I'm not that far behind but age is more of an attitude), you don't want to change and the world is moving on and it just kills you so you want to sh!t on everything on your way out the door and make everyone as miserable as you are. Well, from the looks of this thread, you've succeeded. Congrats. I guess.

 

If you want to talk about the big issues of the day, go back to facebook, Newsmax, Fox or whatever crap that tells you want you want to hear about yourself. The rest of us have to live in the real world.

 

These new rules are, and always have been, about a sports organization trying to adapt to modern times, both because there is a moral imperative to do so (protecting kids) and because of financial realities (insurance, USOC, etc.).

 

Just shut up and ski, right?

 

@Jody_Seal just when I start to think that maybe you have an idea worth looking into, you go and post some all caps crazy bullshit and I remember that there is no way I'm following you anywhere.

 

Some advice: Unhinged, baseless rants hurts your cause more than you realize.

@mastercrafter just sent you a DM. Thanks.

When the $25 license was officially introduced in Dec. 2020:

 

"During the 2019 IWWF Congress held in Malaysia, it was decided to launch an IWWF Licence to help finance/reduce costs for organisers to host future IWWF World Titled events in particular the IWWF World Open Waterski Championships which includes the hosting of the IWWF The International Hall of Fame ceremonies, held at the respective IWWF World Championships of each sport discipline, also needs to be financed.

This would result in there being more interested parties wishing to bid and host for this event so the IWWF can select event venues with the best conditions so athletes can perform to the best of their abilities."

 

Even if it wasn't an exact dollar for dollar swap, clearly this is the direction things are going and the results have been good so far.

 

Unless @horton you have some evidence otherwise.

A lot of people were complaining about the IWWF license fee when it was first introduced, but I for one am happy to have paid that fee this year. That fee - and the new funding strategy for Worlds that it created - is why this year's event was held on a world-class site and not alongside shipping barges like in past years. It's great for the sport.

Ya'll have spent more time whining on this thread than it would have taken to just do the Safe Sport training ...

A few years back I was the lead person for getting sponsorships for our Regionals. I dropped OJ an email and they immediately responded with a fairly large contribution.

@disland I am open to options, but generally I'm thinking Orlando area and south. Really just looking for warmth + good airport access.

@MDB1056 been there, done that. Happy where I am.

Throwing a trial balloon out here ... would anybody be interested in renting my 2015 ProStar in Florida this winter?

 

Paying $1,000 to wrap and store my boat for 7 months - and not being able to use it at all during that time - strikes me as a huge waste of a valuable asset. So, I'm thinking about renting it to some snowbirds who will be spending the winter in Florida so I could get some return on my investment, and more importantly, be able to use it some myself.

 

I realize there are a lot of things to hammer out, like insurance, appropriate payment (flat fee vs. per hours used?), how many hours would be put on it, the sharing of maintenance costs, etc., but I'm thinking the arrangement might look something like this:

I'd get the boat to Florida in the fall and pick it up in the spring

One stipulation would be that it is available to me to come and use 2-3 times over the winter (ideally, we'd ski together!)

It would need to be kept in a secure location

The renters would be well vetted and a part of the water ski community

 

Anyone interested? Open to ideas and suggestions.

So what are we going to do when people complain about how expensive/time consuming it is to go only to Nationals? Just have the rankings list determine the national champions? That is the logical conclusion to your argument.

 

The fact remains, for most divisions (maybe not Mens 9, Womens 6-10), and most skiers, Regionals is the best competition they have each year.