jcamp

@AdamCord I don't understand your post. How would a states-qualifying system work when half the states don't have championships and even many that do would feature very little competition. At least having to ski at Regionals means that most of us have some competition.

While Regionals aren't huge money makers for their hosts, they are used by many clubs to build their tournament infrastructure, both in terms of physical (docks, jumps, etc.) and human (judges) capital. Killing or damaging Regionals would have a ripple affect that would do much more harm to the sport than do the travel/family resource issues caused by requiring Regionals attendance to ski at Nationals.

@jayski and @AdamCord what about the 20+ states that don't have state championships? Should skiers in those states not be allowed to go to Nationals? Or how about my state where I think I'm the only skier in my division? How is giving me what is essentially a free pass, while making guys in California or Florida duke it out, fair?

@dnewton just sent you a PM.

Available mid summer: https://www.ski-it-again.com/php/skiitagain.php?endless=summer&topic=Search&category=Boat_3Event&postid=60092

I would love to hear the story that inspired this post!

Cherry!

@Jody_Seal Not if your measurement of "success" is deaths per capita. Florida has had more than California. And that's even with a big assist from humidity. Florida should be much lower in deaths and infection rates given its warmer, more humid weather.

And how does allowing little kids to be molested or abused grow the sport?

Since previous posters have already tied SafeSport requirements to larger trends worthy of whining about, such as being woke or socialist plots (which is funny because I thought everyone liked public boat ramps, fire departments and meat inspectors, but whatever) allow me to do the same. Lately pursuing FREEDOM!, you know, the uniquely 'Merican kind, has been distorted into a license to show absolute disregard to our fellow man. It seems that as long as anything causes us even the slightest imposition, we don't have to put up with it, because you know, FREEDOM! Whether it's just simply wearing a piece of cloth over our mouths so that you don't kill someone you love, or even someone you don't even know, or taking a freaking online course so that maybe you'll notice something that prevents a little kid from being harmed for life, it just seems that people don't give a sh!t. I don't get it. Complain all you want and blast away at this comment if you will. But there are abusers out there that don't want people to take this training either, as it will create a less "target-rich" environment for their perversions. People talk about Making America Great Again, and you know what, in a way I agree. I wish we could go back to a time when people actually gave a damn about each other. My kids would live in a safer world, and participate in a safer sport, if we did.

Looks like OPEC and Russia are squeezing supply in order to get prices back up: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/04/business/opec-russia-oil-production.html?searchResultPosition=1

@kmenard I just sent you an email.

Is Line-Off Lake still an active club? Skied there 20+ years ago.

I think it looks sharp. And more importantly, @Skizombie is a hard working promo guy who brings his boat to a lot of the tournaments in our region. Somebody buy this boat so he can get another!

@The_MS I agree with everything you are saying and I'm with you on this issue. Just saying that some good has come out of our affiliation with Safe Sport (like this entire discussion).

@The_MS if it wasn't for SafeSport, I doubt many of us would have found out about the allegations against him. So at a minimum, hopefully it's prevented future victims.

I know prices are really high right now, but $45,000 for a 10-year old boat with 800+ hours on it seems like a bit much ...

@Horton, actually you can drive between guides and turn balls in Class F events. Look at page 23 of the 2020 Regional Guide.

@lpskier I'm not talking about the website development, but the "new content to membership, such as coaching videos." Who is going to make those and how much is budgeted? Professional content is not cheap.

Who is going to be creating all this "new content" and is there also a budget for that? Call me pessimistic, but efforts like this that rely on volunteer labor have a very hard time making it work long term.

Going to a school that has a bonafide ski team coach (and not some kid who graduated last year) will cut down on the craziness ... a little bit.

I think @Horton has been praying that I wouldn't see this thread ...

@harddock Uh, yeah it would! Just sent you a message. Thank you.

China virus. Cute.

@Jody_Seal like I said in my post on Jan. 6th: "The price of gas goes up in strong economies (because demand goes up) and down in weak economies (demand goes down), so no surprise that it's been pretty low lately. I also expect the price of gas to increase, just not so sure about an "all time high."' We've experienced one of the worst economic situations in our country's history and hopefully we are starting to the corner ... I'm ok paying more for gas if that means the economy is firing on all cylinders and people are going back to work. Not sure why you are trying to make some political statement out of this but OK, whatever.