MikeT

I didn't have a rope or handle break recently. Has anyone had this happen. I missed 2 fingers on the handle after the turn and the handle popped out of my hand and hit the ski only to find out that it cracked it. I have two cracks about a foot from the top of the ski. Ski is ruined.

Hey @Goodeskier. I'm the "practice" driver man. Than was commenting on how well the ski was turning and I just wanted to take "one" quick look at number one. You gotta a problem with that!! Ha ha. Than's got a new ski and has an opportunity to work with the manufacturer on their new ski project, for himself and to give them some feedback. He could keep it all to himself if he wanted to, but he's trying to help as many people as possible. That's what he does. That's all. Practice precision and safety is of the utmost importance. It's all good buddy

Way to go Chris!!

Way to go Pat!! Looks like you're the man to beat at the NE Slalom Championship

Hey Zman, we spoke a few years ago during our Achilles rehab. I live an hour from Raymond. Who did you ski with up there? if you ever want to ski in the Boston Area look me up. we have a great site in a cove on a public lake 20 miles west of Boston. The mass pike, route 90 goes right through our lake which is Lake Cochituate. There are allot of great ski sites in New England

What ZO setting is most like the original Perfect Pass

I find it takes about 7-8 weeks. Takes time to get those muscles tuned up

What a feat

Had L 4-5 discectomy in 1999. extreme pain a week before operation when I changed positions. Didn't have leg weakness really. Some numbness put pain down the leg and lower back. Had microsurgery. Walked out of hospital with small steps the next day. Snow skied in 6 weeks, easily and waterskied in 6 months. Good luck, man

The people at Goode took care of the repair for me real quick. Out and back across the country in a week and a half. Just wondering was goes into causing such a thing and if the integrity of the ski is affected. I've been told it's ok. Thinking of safety

It's been fixed. it's stored standing up. not water spots. looks like when paint bubbles. My question is what causes the materials to do that and what is going on inside

I didn't mean directly under the binding and on the top of the ski. it's on the bottom of the ski under the binding area. no interest in Flextail really. I'm not shelling out another $2K to Goode. My last 9800 failed as well. This ski was good and I want to get my moneys worth out of it.

My Goode XT just developed a 3 inch section of bubbling and cracking under the front binding. Any thoughts if this is likely cosmetic or is this a sign of internal weakness. Is the ski breaking down? The ski is less than two years old. About 3 weeks before noticing the damage I began complaining that the ski felt slower and wasn't building speed across the wakes. My ski partner can attest to it. I don't make a judgment on a ski over a set or two. I checked the settings, tried 9 degrees from 10 degrees, moved the binding a little and it still feels the same. I got it fixed and it's still the same. Any thoughts or experiences to share

Than and I ski together and there may have been something going around in the Lake Cochituate area last week because after my tournament run last weekend up in New Hampshire, Becky Bartlett noticed while I was swimming in to shore that my Goode XT has some bubbling occurring under the binding. Looked it over and found some tiny stress cracks as well. So I couldn't really continue using that ski because you don't know what is happening in there and so I sent it off to Goode to be fixed. Wouldn't have been so bad to be without a ski for a week or so but Regionals were in 5 days. So had to get the bindings on an old 9800 in the basement and try to get reacquainted with that ski. Wasn't ideal though. As I told Than, there are allot more important things in life than waterski issues. We are both looking forward to getting back out there and get back at it. He just got his ski back from the airlines today and mine is due on Wednesday. What can you do but laugh I guess

I moved it to 29 today. I'll see how it is after a few sets, thanks

I wonder about this idea. My binding was set at 29" last year. I moved to 28 7/8" last fall which is where it is now. 29 is stock It was skiing good with it in this spot until recently so I kept it the same. Typically Binding forward does what?? I'm under the impression that forward puts more ski in the water and should speed it up a bit.

Skiing up here in the Boston area. I've got a Goode NanoXT. Been skiing solid into 38. Over the last couple of weeks it seems like it's taking a little more effort to get the same width as I was getting before. The turn follow through seems slightly restricted. I've got stock setting for sure. My wing is set at 10. On all prior skis in past years my wing was always set at 8 degrees. I started with 9 last year when I got the Nano and then went to 10 towards the middle of the summer. Skied good with 10 into the fall getting to 5@38 on some sets. Any ideas? I don't want to touch the fin settings if I don't have to. Does anyone else commonly make wing changes when the water heats up and slows. I'm wondering about going to 9.5 or 9.0 on the wing. I feel the ski is just not quite as responsive and quick as it was just a few weeks ago.

I am competitive water skier, a competitive golfer and snow ski racer. The latter two sports have it figured out when it comes to providing a format that engages everyone competing against one another. A format that doesn't have one person in a division. A format that is fun and involves "everyone" competing against each other. Golf has it's handicap system and I've been employing that type of system at the New England Slalom Championship for years. We have only 2 divisions. To use a golf term a Gross score division which is a group of the better skiers skiing with no handicap adjustment and a handicap adjusted group or "Net" score group which encompasses the rest of the skiers and they are usually comprise of 2/3rds of the entries. This system works great. I think most people are competitive and enjoy a chance to win or place and win prizes which we provide in the form of gift certificates. Now couple this with an national handicap system like golf and Nastar and you have a system to now have "ABILITY BASED" tournaments and rankings. The one big difference with golf is that all your practice rounds are entered into the handicap system and that's how golfers can compile so many scores towards their handicap. With Nastar all the runs go into the system and the races are timed and sanctioned by Nastar officials. You can only get Nastar scores while in competition but at a Nastar race there is usually time to take up to 6 timed runs so you can accumulate quite of few runs in a season. Much like waterskiing, Nastar takes your top three or lowest times to calculate your handicap and the times must be from 3 completely different races. With waterskiing we only draw from tournaments but maybe some rules could be drawn up to allow for "some" practice runs to be entered for handicapping. Maybe a run or two a week could be scored for handicap. A verification system like the one used in golf where your golf/skiing partners would sign off that the practice run was conducted to a class C standards in order to obtain more scores in the system. Understand the last sentence is very general and don't spend to much time on it. The point is to develop an ability based system with gross and net scoring. With a national handicap system you would be able to state your level with your handicap. Nobody outside waterskiing knows our scoring. Nastar rates everyone that way and it is primary expression of stating the measurement of your ability. The top skiers in the country are under a 5 handicap and it goes all the way up to 60 or so. Golf ranges from the 30's to a negative handicap for the pros. They really have to do it that way because snow ski and golf courses are not the same so it's the best way to summarize or express it. Nastar seems to employ some sort of a NOPS type system as well with regard to age. If you are 10 years older than someone and you scored the same race time the older person will get a lower handicap. So keep that in mind. Golf has a formula. They take the average I believe of the 10 best scores running, average it, multiply it by that golf courses rating which brings it up or down a little then I believe multiplies it by 96% to get your handicap. At the New England Slalom we take the skiers National rank average and multiply it by 95%, then subtract that score from the Men's open rating score and we call that par and the difference is your handicap. In short order your average is say 95 and the open rating is say 105 then your handicap is 10. I've tested it and it works good throughout all handicap levels. The 95% of the handicap reduction makes it work good and equitable. You have to have 3 tournaments to participate in our handicap system. We have skiers with handicaps up to 50 and sometimes more. One thing that waterskiing has going for it to make it's scoring system simpler is that all the courses are the same unlike golf and snow skiing. The speeds are set so the only variables are score and age should you decide to overlay it with NOPS. 36 can ski with 34 mph skiers as well. We give a 36mph skier a +6 buoys start with to even the numbers out. We feel that 6@35/36 for our purposes is equal to 6@38/34 mph and it works pretty good with the +6. Tournaments can have gross and net divisions. Nationals and regionals could be run that way as well but I think you'd have to take a poll on what the majority of skiers would like as far as that goes. I know this has been talked about allot over recent years and there are many tournaments doing their own creative tournament formats. I would like to see a poll taken and would like to see what an ability based handicap system would do for tournament waterskiing. It's a big problem if you think about when you have skiers going to a "competition tournament" and they don't have anyone to ski against. Really?? The system has not moved forward with the times.

@JohnN I agree with the shoulder positioning. my entry into the turn is terrible especially on the offside. I began this year in my open water practice focusing on counter rotating so I'm off to a start with that. We just got the course in this week. I'll get a few sets under my belt and begin to implement the above changes. Thanks for everyone's help and input. I hope to post a improved video soon.

I tore my Achilles after not releasing from the D3 Leverage. I hit the buoy, went forward and stayed in. I wanted to stay with rubber bindings so I went to the D3 T-Factor. It feels very much like the Leverage but it has "elastic" roping to snug your binding in the front. The Leverage is all rubber. Elastic why? Once your tension is set you can get in and out of the binding because the rope stretches to let you in and out and you still have solid support. I've never tested how they release with a bad fall yet and hope I don't have to, but the design is for them to be a little easier to release from.

Thanks for all the feedback. I need to get a practice plan set up and it would be great to get some detailed ski thoughts regarding how I should transform my technique when I'm on the water. I get the gate technique so need take any time on that. I'm going to move the bindings forward 1/4" and see what that does. I have questions about just where it is important to get hips/ankles/knees forward and Bruce suggested I try to do this all the time. I pull a certain way now and do I continue to pull the same way and look to compress from the wake on or if I'm to push my lower body forward I'm going to have to learn how to pull with a slightly compressed stance if I interpret what your saying. Explain as best you can what I need to change in my pull and pre-turn area. Your thoughts

Thank you for tips and any ideas to improve my offside turn as well @mwetskier I'm not saying I don't like the front foot pressure technique. Just trying to think how exactly to do it and make it work. I'm a snow skier so I have an idea what you mean @Bruce_Butterfield I'll move the binding ahead 1/4" My original focus was looking for ways to improve my offside turn because I thought that was my biggest weakness. I now see there is a bigger problem with my weight distribution. So I'll see where that takes me and while doing that I need to work on better counter rotation I believe on the offside turn. Incorporating a different gate approach doesn't seem to hard to try as well

@Mwetskier--Ok It's now understanding how to change and translate it out on the water. I Understand more weight on front foot for sure, but I've been doing this for years. I'll focus on the front foot pressure by pushing little more forward with knees? What? @rico are you talking about the pre turn area? @Bruce_Butterfield - Should I consider moving binding an 1/8" forward Keep it coming.

What else appears to be wrong?

Bruce thanks for the feedback. The ski is set to stock settings. This is a video from last fall and we are just getting going here in Massachusetts. I believe I've always looked this way. I'll double check the bindings again but pretty sure it's correct. Keep the thoughts coming!