Waternut

The specs on that sheet show 2,250lbs with the engine. That's pretty much the same weight as the new carbon pro's. That's freaking awesome!

It's funny because every ski I've ever taken the wing off of will whistle for the first few minutes and then I never hear it again.

Part of my problem with my gate at slower speeds is my ski size. It's a 66" ski designed for 32mph+ and I'm on the upper weight limit skiing at 28-30mph so if I come ripping through the gate and get wide, I'll start to sink by the time I get to the buoy. I should have a better suited ski this weekend but I'll keep those gate tips in mind for sure. I'm trying to teach myself not to ski at the buoys so much and it's tough. So you think moving the boots forward a little will help line my body up a little better?

I would say if the issue comes where you may have to replace perfect pass, you might want to save some coin and run the perfect pass precision star and just put the GPS speedometer in the slot where the stargazer was. My guess is actually the GPS puck could've crapped out but who knows. Maybe PP can email you some guidance on troubleshooting it.

My 28 and 30mph passes are starting to get a little more consistent since another skier started telling me to pull through the second wake instead of letting up in the middle. Once I hit 32mph, I just drift down the course no matter what I do and have never made it past 3 ball. Usually the first time I try 32mph, I can't get any angle behind the boat so I'm guessing something is wrong with the turn or preturn. I know my form isn't perfect and it looks to me like my butt drops way back but the majority of the time I feel like I can't stand up or lean any further away from the boat without going over the front. 28mph 30mph (1st time) 30mph (2nd time) 32mph (utterly pathetic lol)

I used to get property tax notifications for an old jetski I sold. I always just threw them in the trash once a year. My thoughts were; I have the official, signed bill of sale saying I sold it so I don't see how I could be liable in the event of an accident. Would back taxes be an issue for this type of thing and get you in trouble? In my case, it was a jetski worth maybe $1000 so if I do get in trouble 15 years from now, I could cough up a couple hundred to clear my name but if back taxes apply and legal action is taken, an expensive boat would be more serious.

I'm still using my 6" caliper from harbor freight that I bought on sale for $10 5-6 years ago. The 6" caliper isn't ideal for measure fin length but I make a scribe mark at 4" and measure the rest for total distance. The key to that way is ensuring you system is accurate and repeatable. Might help to verify your measurements with someone else's 8" calipers.They sell longer calipers that are just as good but I already had the 6" and it's working well.

I could never figure out how to "get my hips up" so I asked on here and got some things that helped a lot. Guys were telling me to lean tall away from the boat, push my chest out, shoulders back, squeeze my butt cheeks together, elbows on your vest, and few other things. You can't focus on all of those but maybe one or two of them will make sense to her. I think I have that concept down at least better than before and then was told by the guy I ski with that I need to keep pulling past the second wake. I could generate enough speed by the first wake to cast me out wide enough but I kept drifting down the course and was running late by 4 ball. I was also screaming into the buoy which was scaring me. Pulling just a little longer after the second wake slowed me down at the ball and got me there early. If she has the guts to go through the wake at any kind of speed, she's doing better than one of the girls I know who has been skiing for over 15 years. She wants to learn to ski better but I don't have a clue how to teach someone to quit wussing out.

Turning it down is easy. You can just put electrical tape over it and you'll barely hear it.

The guy who built the lake I ski at did the best of all the worlds IMO. He only has an island at one end but I've never experienced a roller on the other side of the lake either. When we spin, we go around the island clockwise but when we drop, we go around halfway counter clockwise as if it was a dogleg. There is approximately 125-150 ft between the island and land at the shortest point. Here is how we approach the island. For the record, I enlarged the 55m and gate buoys for clarity. If you're dead set on an island, maybe this will make everyone happy. http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m607/jfw432/Random/Capture.jpg

Out of curiosity, does anyone leave their boat out in the sun any longer than they use it or do you guys cover it up as soon as it comes out of the water? I ask because I have a lot of experience with hydroturf which is basically the same thing as seadek and the color fading is horrible. I've used yellow, lime green, red, blue, gray, white, and black. So far gray and black are the ones that hold color. All the other fade insanely fast after a few months of 4-5 hours of use a weekend. White obviously doesn't fade but I couldn't keep it clean. Although gray and black hold their color, if they are left in the sun, they will degrade and have to be scrubbed every couple weeks or it will stain a white bathing suit.

My guess is the place you have it mounted is either sealed or semi sealed/not directly accessible under the steering wheel. The beeper is mounted behind the gauge and looks like a little black cylinder. If you can't open up the area behind the gauge easily, maybe you could run a rubber hose over the beeper to an area closer to you. Then the sound would travel through the hose and come out near you instead of bouncing around inside the instrument panel.

Sounds like people are taking offense to the question. No need for that; it's just an opinion... IMO both are fun and I don't feel any less of a man or any less serious for skiing open water. I usually free ski 2-3 times a week and get in the course once or twice a week, if I'm lucky. I voted "TRUE" because, right now, skiing in the course is improving my skill and making my free skiing more enjoyable. It sounds like those who are voting "FALSE" are saying the exact opposite in that free skiing is improving their course skiing.

I'm with @Brodie... It's more like golfing in the dark. You can make clean cuts on ski's all day long or hits golf balls all night long but without visual feedback on what's working and what isn't, it's all a waste or worse could be promoting bad muscle memory. I am able to work on very specific things in open water but for me those are very basic technique issues.

@Stevie Boy That is my ideal way to grip that handle but you have to have decent grip strength to be able to do that and you can't have stubby fingers. There are some people I ski with that physically can't hold the handle in their fingertips...not even to ski straight and not even using a skinny elliptical handle. I can hold the handle in my right hand fingertips but my left hand is a little weaker and unfortunately I have to grip it a little deeper in my palm which causes calluses on one hand only.

You'll be fine but you will get tired much faster behind a comp boat. Your grip will probably be the first thing goes out. On the plus side, the wake will be so much better and will inspire confidence to push your skill further.

Do you have a title for your boat? If not, you will have problems. In GA, we are a title-less state so when you buy a boat, it's not yours until you register it and then the registration card is your title. You need something besides a hand written bill of sale from the last guy saying the boat is yours.

Wow I always thought it was worse going shallow in these boats because you would tear the whole running gear off of these boats if you got too shallow. Apparently they are stronger than I thought. A friend practically ripped an I/O right out of the back doing less.

I've had my fair share of lower back issues and I agree with @justcuz that a pinched nerve and pulled muscles are massively different. If I have a pinched nerve, breathing hard usually hurts me. I will say that I've found two things that help me out considerably with muscle pulls. If it's something I know will pull back muscles or overwork my back, I will ice it immediately afterwards or within 30 minutes and the pain later that evening will be mild and it'll be gone by morning. If I start having chronic problems that linger for days/weeks, I'll do some time on an inversion table. I lock my table so I can't go past about 45° and do a few crunches for up to a minute. Anything past 60° actually hurts my back even more so don't think hanging by your feet is the same thing. Make sure you come up and stop at horizontal to let the blood flow out of your head slowly. It's like traction with an on/off spinal decompression. It won't fix the problem immediately but if the pain doesn't go away this is the best thing I've found that helps me. The other alternative is to lay on the floor on your back with a rolled up towel or small pillow. This helps stretch out my back but it's one of those painful stretches that kinda feels good.

You know what's kinda funny is that I've only skied on one lake that has islands at both ends. The other lakes have had islands at only one end. I've never noticed random rollers at any of the lakes without special circumstances that would be present no matter what you had. As a skier only (not a lake owner) I see pros and cons to both. There are learning curves to driving different lakes and learning to keep rollers down in part of the process no matter what the setup. When there is an island, we typically drop in front of it and get pulled up and go around it. In theory this gives more time to get settled before entering the course but for me it really doesn't because I'm afraid to adjust my shorts or really get settled while accelerating through a narrow path and tight turn. For me, it's just more time that I'm hanging onto the rope (and working hard because I'm sinking due to my ski being a little too small for slower speeds). When there is no island, we just pull out in the middle and drop and the boat comes around us and heads back on the same path. Really easy for the skier since you just sit there and rest while the driver does all the work. You end up going right into the course but I personally don't have any less time doing that than I would going around an island. If we spin on the side without an island, I'm actually more comfortable because I feel like I go to the inside or outside of the wake without worrying about hitting land or getting too shallow.

The guy I ski with keeps telling me that when I get behind that I only make things worse by rushing, scrambling, or pulling harder on the rope. Instead he tells me to focus on getting back in good position behind the boat using the proper form like you would've had you done the turn right in the first place. It's hard for me to think about that after a screw up but if I do, I quickly realize that I'm either in the right place or ahead at the next ball depending on how bad my screw up was. Granted I'm skiing long line and I'm sure a screw up is more severe at short lines but I've watched him really mess up some turns at 32 off and somehow make the next ball with some really good form.

Take all of this with a grain of salt since handles are totally personal preference.... If you have the strength and like to grip the handle in your fingertips, one of the elliptical handles is amazing. Any time I use a round handle whether it's a radius, straight, skinny, or fat, I end up tearing up my hands really bad because I can't grip it in my finger tips very well. Mine is a 0.94 wide elliptical handle and my right hand never has any problems even if I ski 3-4 times a week. My left hand is a little weaker and I have to grip the handle a little deeper so I get calluses below my middle and pinky fingers if I ski a lot. If I use a round handle though, I get calluses and/or blisters under ALL of my fingers in one day because I don't have the strength to grip the round handle in my fingers.

I'd say when you feel like you need something different because that will typically happen first. However, if you feel like the ski might be structurally compromised either by water in the core, hairline cracks, or a bunch of crushed edges then it might be a good idea to replace it to prevent an injury in the event that it may snap in a hard turn.

There are a lot of options out there because everyone has their own preference and grips the handle differently. Do you like to grip the handle deep in your palms or in your finger tips? Do you have any issues with your elbows hurting after skiing? Do you use gloves? If so, what size do you wear? Do you like your hands close together or more spread out (wide vs narrow handle)?

I ski long line and slower speeds and I used to love the wake on my 86 Dixie skier until one day I rode behind a 98 SN. I was instantly disapointed by my wake that I started looking at the possibility of selling my boat and getting something newer/better. I started reading up on wakeplates and various other things as a last resort before selling. I decided to get the Bennett X-18 hydraulic wakeplate. That thing is awesome and I love my boats wake again! Depending on speed and weight in the boat, I can reshape the wake to suit my needs. It was a little pricey at $500 but I bought it from overtons and used the AWSA discount to help out.