mwetskier

make sure the majority of the ski pressure under you, during pull up, is on the little toe side of the ball of your front foot.

@Drago -oh okay i get it i guess i wasn't clear. I actually sit in the driver seat backwards and look over my shoulder using a hand mirror, much in the way annie oakley used to shoot clay pigeons in her wild west show. that way i am able to double check my boat path directly in real time. and in case *that* wasn't clear, this is whats known as ' doubling down on a typo '.

@DanE -not sure why you'd guess that -or bother to guess at all. fortunately for me i regularly pull nationally ranked skiers who ski into and sometimes thru 38 off. i constantly ask for feed back when they're skiing or riding in the boat. so far they seem to be satisfied with the results and i'm pretty sure they get a better look at the boat path than you do. just sayin'

@elr -i don't think you will find a distributor cap and rotor on a Nautique 200. (disclaimer: i could be wrong cause i was one other time.)

i always sight down the left hand boat guides and drive as if i was trying to brush my right shoulder lightly against those guides. i also remember a post where someone recommended lining your right foot up with the guides but the imaginary shoulder brush works better for me. most important is to look *ahead* down the line of buoys, not just at the one you're closest to.

@"Keith Menard" -i agree. used engine water is *always* better for the shower, cuz its already broken in.

personally i think the trick for practice is to skip the line length just *below* your mid loop. So if you have a -30 loop you ski up the rope thus: -22, -30, -32 etc. if you're using a 33.5 loop you ski -22, -28, -33.5, -35. that way you aren't skiing an extra loop, you're just making the pass before your ' wanna make ' a bit tougher, which makes your ' wanna make ' a much smaller step up.

@DW -i always thought it was the other way around -i guess you learn something new every day if you're not careful. in any event, the goal is to scavenge water from the block that is always engine temp regardless of thermostat action.

@BraceMaker -it is self priming. it uses the same eccentric bearing drive plate system as the heatercraft pump but with 5 diaphragms instead of 2.

you can assemble a shower kit for far less than the heatercraft offering. aside from the marine pump all the other parts are simple plumbing components plus an adjustable hose nozzle. the best pump we found is this one on ebay that puts out almost twice the flow of the heatercraft one - marine pump with demand switch You can go to any west marine store and ask to look at the shower kit they sell for a ' free ' lesson on how to put it all together. draw the 12v power straight from your starter solenoid, add an in line fuse, and pull your hot water side off the block down stream from the engine thermostat so it always feeds hot water to your mixing valve.

skip the tank. you don't need it for the shower and you don't want it for the added weight.

@ISP6ball -make that 50 lbs of weight that *floats*. just sayin.

schedule a thorough examination with a skilled physical therapist to determine if you have abnormal Internal and / or external rotation during flexion. maybe you're one of those guys who need to mount your binding in a rotated condition?

somebody get @Edbrazil to post a picture of his finger trap method. use it and never look back.

@Jaypro -obviously you have let frivolous side interests endanger your one true calling of slalom skiing and now you're paying the price. pickle ball? come on man, get your priorities straight here.

@ntx-i can't speak for @zanderballofspray but i love my mother such that money would not be an object in a case like this. hows your mom doing? @spicoli -back when i had one of these in my ski shed the people who used them usually separated them for their deep water starts so the ski was centered in the vee bridle and then locked them together for actual skiing but that was just the people i skied with and i never skied with @zanderballofspray s mom.

a good machine shop could probably rebuild or refurbish the locking mechanism on the handle you already have.

@DaveLemons -the course hasn't been 75 ft wide since the us standard went metric a long time ago. now its 23 meters wide which is just under 75 1/2 ft.

@LeonL -i didn't want to confuse the concept by mentioning fully immersed floats but if you do use a method like yours or ez slaloms you will almost automatically have your bow either top dead center or bottom dead center due to the impossibility of making sealed float tubes that are a perfect balance. thats actually a good thing because as i mentioned above you want your dominant bow to be either up or down, not sideways.

no one has mentioned this -in fact they may not even know it -but there is no such thing as a truly *straight* arm on a floating slalom course. what i mean is every multi piece plastic pipe arm will have a bow in some direction or another which you could easily detect if you could sight straight down the arm. so the secret to getting accurate buoys is not trying to chase the impossible fantasy of a straight arm -the secret is to use the bend in each arm to your advantage. if we call top dead center 0 degrees and bottom dead center is 180 degrees you want the bow to be at one of those two locations. the way to get this is to have a mid arm buoy with a line thats either a little bit too short or a little bit too long. if its too short the arm will bow up toward 0 degrees and if its too long the arm will bow down toward 180 degrees but either way that bow will be the dominant force on the arm. this bow reduces the tendency of the arm to bow in any other direction which results in each skier ball being at or very close to the correct location. note that this bow will require you to adjust your boat guide buoy lines a bit so they float right but just accept the fact theres no such thing as a dead straight flexible cylinder especially one thats over 40 feet long -and address that fact accordingly.

@Mark_Matis -jim salmas was one of the toughest old guy skiers i ever met. when he took a hit off his off side turn (which was often) his entire body would shudder from the force but he would just keep skiing and never miss a beat. he was one tough dude.

@gmut -reach isn't everything. in college i once lost a boxing match to a guy who only came up to my chin. the problem was, he came up too often.

an actual drill press may not be necessary. insert holes at most ski factories are located and drilled using a fixture that has hardened drill guide bushings. the fixture guarantees location perpendicularity and depth control, and the drilling is done with a hand held drill or die grinder. the same results can be accomplished on a home/hobby level using one-hole fixtures available from woodworking supply houses along with some careful handling.

i haven't looked at lake access in az in many years but when i did i found that some places had ' gate key ' memberships for $1000 to $1500 a year. so you show up and launch your boat, ski and go home. don't forget to take your boat with you when you leave.

@Razorskier1 -with all due respect, being rff just standing neutral on my ski if i keep my ' hips square to the direction of travel ' it seems i will be in a constant state of slightly countered for a left hand turn. thats okay in my glide because it keeps me on a bit of out bound edge and that keeps the rope tight. consequently, just letting my hips untwist back to their natural 30 degree angle* is about all i need to initiate my turn in. i get that everybody skis a little different but i've had the best success with making every effort to drive my inside hip forward over my front foot through the turn (either side) and again that is much different from trying to just keep them square to the direction of travel. as i watch some of the skiers that everybody wishes they were, like smith or asher or regina, i see quite a bit of hip twisting involved for them too. on the other hand, you ski at a much higher level than i do so i guess i'm very interested in your thoughts on why keeping your hips always pointed in your direction of travel works so well for you. *30 degrees for natural hip angle is of course a wag.