escmanaze

@Horton I feel another Katana video coming on where you show us the wakes clear down to 24 mph again. Please????? Maybe this time around, HO could send you one of their new Fusion Freerides as that seems to be their comparable competitor to the Katana eh?

@HMan66 Thanks for posting that. Does anybody know if the tower price is lower than it used to be? It seems like it used to cost more than that for a tower.

I changed last year to a curved handle from a straight handle. Also, at the same time I went to a smaller radius, so my fingers would get around it a little more. One of those two has made a big difference for me. My blister issues aren't as bad anymore and my strength and endurance are also significantly higher. I'm sold!!! Now which aspect am I actually sold on? Not sure.

I skied behind a 95 Sunsetter LX a few years ago, but I was at 28, 30, and 32 mph. The wake was definitely not that of a Response, but I still managed to have a good time. If you have to have a bigger boat, and have a budget in the mid-teens I would assume, you may also want to consider a 92-95 prostar 205. It feels a little smaller, but the wakes seem a little nicer. I assume that most Sunsetter LXi boats in any reasonable condition will be out of your price range?

It looks to me like she probably hangs out with a bunch of really advanced skiers who are done pulling and leaning away from the boat really early. At 25 mph, that just doesn't fly. Well, unless you are a really good skier and you are just messing around at 25 mph, then it can fly, but if 25 mph is still your best pass, then there is no way you are loading up enough before the wakes that you can afford to not also still be pulling at least a little bit after the wakes - maybe even a lot bit. But I'm no expert coach, so be careful listening to me.

@skierjp I'm a BIG prostar fan. I got to drive my first one this last saturday. Still love it, even though it isn't a freight train for tracking. Nevertheless, I've just never understood why, across their whole line, they decided to make their boats have the appearance that a big giant I-beam fell on them before leaving the factory. Maybe some day I will get to talk to the artists behind it and see what the thought process was. Even as such though, it's still the 2nd pretties ski boat out there behind only the 200.

That literally looks the exact same. Like somebody with a current prostar could snap a pic from the same angles and show the exact same lines. And, overall, I think that's a good thing.

@brooks thanks tons for the confirmation. I appreciate it very much.

It's not available in a kids version, but the women's fusion freeride is available in a 65" version and it looks like they took the freeride and made it just a little bit more aggressive. So...depending on the speed she is skiing at, and just how high of a ceiling you want the ski to have, it seems very likely that this could be a terrific ski, as it might likely have a lot of the same good characteristics that I have loved about that freeride, but maybe just kind of be the next step over where it is a little more aggressive and raises the ceiling at least just a little bit compared to my freeride. Along those same lines, it seems like a Radar Katana at 65" might likely fit that same bill. Edit: Look at that, the women's fusion freeride is indeed available in a 63" length, so even if she is going faster in speed, you could get that smaller one and still have it be great.

Here are some clips of my kid that is also small for his age, although not drastically so - it seems like he is really similar to your daughter in size, except that now he just turned 11, and it probably a bit more than 70 pounds these days. Here are some videos of his progression. All these videos are on a 63" HO Freeride with the freemax boot up front and the rear toe plate in the rear. I happened to just find a great deal on a 65" TRA with a small vector front binding that I bought and is now in transit. I think it's still a little big and aggressive for where he is at, and I probably didn't need to buy it for another year or so, but the deal was so good that I decided to buy earlier than I needed to. FWIW, that Freeride, in my opinion, is the perfect ski for teaching kids to get up on, and a really perfect amazing ski for when they are first learning and are looking for stability. As they start to get more aggressive, though, I do think it quickly runs out of juice. https://www.facebook.com/escmanaze/videos/10163537012230290

Well, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "adjustable" front binding, but if you mean what I think you mean, like the two pieces of rubber with the little slider adjustment, then I would beg you not to do it. Please, please...don't do it. New bindings are so great and awesome that if she really is Daddy's little ski buddy, then please allow her to slip her foot into something comfy and secure.

@brooks on the senate line we are told that a lyric is a senate but with a softer flex. So is a girls TRA the same as a boys TRA except that it has a softer flex? Or is a girls TRA literally built the exact same as the boys TRA and then it just gets a different paint job? Thanks

I love your video. I love the enthusiasm and the spirit. However, if there is any way you can upgrade that KD7000, I think that would be a big step forward. I had the KD6500 for almost 15 years and loved it. With that being said, though, I really don't think it's the best ski currently available for learning the course. If you don't have the money, then by all means, keep riding what you got and keep loving it. But if you do have a few spare bucks, you could get even a 10 year old used radar theory that I think would be significantly better for learning the course.

I'm looking forward to this review Horton. My son is 11 and is currently skiing like this on a 63" HO Freeride: https://www.facebook.com/escmanaze/videos/10163537012230290 It has been a great first ski for him. However, it seems like it won't be too long before he is either too big for that ski and/or too advanced for that ski. It seems like a 65" TRA might be a good ski to grow into next.

We have a setup that has worked well for us. Particularly with our varying water levels I really like it. I'll get some pics next time I'm out and post them here.

@Horton That's funny. Yeah, apparently different people have different personalities. Our club was missing one of the green balls and I had a new anchor and ball ready to go set down. I'm taking my slalom rope apart to get the section from 22 off to 32 off so that I can get a good measurement of 10 feet. Then I'm also adding on the section from 32 off to 35 off so that I can get a good look at what 13 feet looks like. A couple of guys see me and they're like "You know it's just the mini course right? What in the world are you so worried about. Go out there and eyeball it and be done!!" Little did they know I would have blown a circuit and not slept for days had I tried to just eyeball it.

@Downunder My argument would be that it is fully likely and possible that getting in the course might be exactly what fuels the fire for your kid to want to ski more.

It's funny, I'm so torn between what @Bruce_Butterfield is saying and what @LoopSki is saying. I totally see merit in both sides. I think, though, that right now, I'm in a place with my 10 year old given the equipment we have available etc. that I am totally cool with him running the jr. course. Alternating might be good as well, but right now, he just wants to go faster and faster. I'm certain I'll draw the line at least at 26 mph and tell him he isn't going one touch faster until he is getting the wide balls AND has shortened to at least 15 off. Until then, honestly, I'll probably let him do whatever he wants because I think that his personal stoke will drive him to be a better skier faster than any individual method or technique. As long as he's excited to be on a ski, I'm willing to put up with whatever speed, line length, or buoys he wants to run. Here is his latest. https://www.facebook.com/escmanaze/posts/10163537025620290

@Horton It appears as though there is a lot of real estate between the full course buoys and your mini course buoys. I know that distances such as 10 feet and 13 feet have been discussed here as the two main options of being "official". It seems, at least as much as I can tell from here, that yours might be even greater than 13 feet away. Have you measured them? Do you even care? I would totally understand if not.

@keithh2oskier I used the blast 59 combos from HO and I got the upgraded boots and I bought the official HO ski weights that bolted right on so easy even a caveman could do it. then with the little bar across the front, my kid, that I think had just turned 8 maybe, got up so easy it was ridiculous. I was amazed at how easy he popped right up and stayed up. I think those weights in the back help a lot. How many times have we seen some newbie bobbing in the water and it's all they can do, or even more than they can do just to keep the tips pointed somewhat up. He didn't have that problem at all.

I have to imagine that an old 23 XTI would be the best 23 foot ski boat ever created? It would also fall right in the price range mentioned right?

@twhisper Are you on the same ski throughout the progression of those videos? Also, thanks for doing this. I can easily see this being quite helpful for a lot of folks.

@A_B That's interesting. I was just about to make the comment that it seems unnecessary to focus on speed, as I'm thinking in my mind that speed is an output, not an input. The input is stacked position, and the output is speed. Maybe what you are saying is that stacked position, plus leaning away from the boat equals speed. I guess I have always assumed leaning away from the boat to be integral to the concept of "stacked position" but you seem to be suggesting otherwise.

I agree with @Chef23 that watching a skier of the skill level of horton run the pass is going to be misleading. Below is an email I send to most skiers after about 3 times out trying the slalom course. Frankly, for at least the first 3 times, I think it is best to offer essentially no coaching. I basically just tell them, "go out there, and enjoy getting your butt kicked by the course and see what you can do." Even with no coaching, I think of lot of light bulbs come on in their heads and they make really significant improvement from pass 1 to pass 18. But now, after about 20 passes, most of them have had at least some success at like 26 or 28 mph and long line or 15 off or something like that, and they are probably going to hit a bit of a plateau and they know it, and I know it and so they start kinda looking at me like "dude, are you going to start helping me now or what?" That's when I send them my standard canned email for course newcomers. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QuS3JTBfb1-EiCQ4mchHt3qehtBc8lZv29JjPHzw21g/edit?usp=sharing It has contained in it a great article from @Than_Bogan in which he accuses them of "thinking slalom is all about the turns" and inevitably, they do. And that's the #1 thing they need to get over. They need to stop worrying about doing turns that look like the front of a magazine, and they need to start learning about stacked position. That's literally it. I wouldn't coach a single other thing at this level of skiing other than stacked position, and let the turns take care of themselves. Just focus on stack stack stack. That's all we care about for this level of skier. Once they start to realize that stacked wake crossings are 95% of what is required to run 30 mph -15 and the turns are only 5% of it, then they can start to have a chance at making this pass. Everything else is pretty much irrelevant at this phase of the game.

@skialex Yes I'm sure you are correct that waterskiing is a sport that involves the law of diminishing returns as you get up towards the upper echelons.