escmanaze

That boat looks pretty nice. It seems a bit too expensive, but if you folks are saying that there is a premium for that part of the country then I will trust you. Here is one warning I would have though. My buddy's 97 PS205 had a single axle trailer like that. It worked great for trips under an hour. Once you started taking it on road trips of 2 hours or more, it was notorious for flat tires. Just too much weight for that one little axle. My buddy has since done some serious work to his trailer to make it into a double axle instead and no more flat tire problems. I would be curious to know if I'm the only one on here with such an experience.

I have a 97 SNOB and love it...although I don't often put 5 or more people in it. My buddy has a 96 PS205 and it really is a game of tradeoffs. I cross my wake (at long line lengths and slow speeds, I wouldn't know anything about shortline stuff) much easier than his, but his certainly holds more people with more ease. His boat also has a tower, which gets quite a bit of stuff up and out of the boat, but then also adds weight to the slalom wake.

Thanks again everybody. I do have zbox on my boat, so I should be able to go in 0.5 mph increments without too much trouble. Thanks again for all the input. Scott

wow, thatnks everybody for the input and please keep it coming. I have a couple followup questions then. It seems almost unanimous that everybody hates the 75 foot rope and says to go to a max line length of -15. Why is that? What is so different from 60 to 75 feet. With the verdict being nearly unanimous, I'll probably go that direction regardless of reason, but I definitely am curious as to why. Here is a bit of further explanation on a few of the questions posed. I'm really not sure how dead set I am on doing tournaments. I really enjoy skiing behind my boat on my lake with my peeps, so I may never do a tournament. Would this change your advice to maybe match more closely with @waternut and @gregy such that maybe I should just get to 30 or 32 and start reducing rope length even though I'm only 32 years old? Maybe especially since I'm on a ski that's slightly too large? The ski is indeed currently a bit large. I bought it at a time when I was 185 and not super confident that I wasn't headed straight to 200. I also wasn't skiing well at the time on my old smaller ski, so I wanted something that wasn't going to be dragging like crazy if I could only run the course at 28 and was sitting at 200 pounds. I figure if I can get my weight back down to 160 where it should be and if I'm consistently running 34 mph, maybe that will be my perfect excuse to reward myself with a new smaller, maybe even more aggressive ski. I understand that I'm still in the age group for 36 mph, but honestly, I think I'm over it. I don't really plan on skiing at 36 mph ever again. If that means I have to wait 3 years before participating in tournaments, then so be it. I'll get video up as well for sure. It was just me and him last week, and I don't have a rig for the pylon or anything, but as soon as we can get an observer in the boat, I'll post that as well as a picture is worth a thousand words and a video is worth a million. Thanks also for help with him. He won't be buying his own smaller ski any time soon, I'm sure, but we'll leave him on mine, and shorten his rope, and then have him start shadowing in reverse order like you mentioned. That seems like a decent way to progress from Jr. buoys to real buoys. Thanks again everybody and please keep the suggestions coming.

Hi Guys, Here is my situation: I'm 5'11" 171 pounds. I ride a 97 SNOB and a 2012 Senate 69". I rode Saturday and ran several comfortable passes at 28 mph and full line length. I also ran one last pass at 30 mph and it felt fairly comfortable as well, and then the sun went down and we were out of time. For the next step to progress past where I'm at, should I stay at 30 MPH and take the rope to 15 and then 22 off? Or should I keep moving up to 32 and then 34 mph before shortening the rope at all? Or a mixture of the two? Also same question for my friend. He is riding my same ski, but he is 5'10" and 160 pounds. He ran the course comfortably at 26 mph on the Jr. Buoys. Where should he go from here? Stay at 26 mph and full length and work on getting to the real buoys? Or should he get up to 28 or 30 and then work on moving out to the real buoys? Obviously, neither of us are super pros yet, but we would like to advance and get better and would love your input on which direction to take. thanks Scott

Thanks for the recommendations guys. The shop I got it from mentioned the rear binding. I'll keep skiing it a little longer to see if I can just get used to it first before I go there. Then I'll probably ski it even a little longer than that before I start messing with the fin. I do appreciate the ideas though of what to try if I absolutely just can't get used to it. Thanks

Interesting. I just did my first runs on my Senate, and had the same problem at slower speeds. I'm willing to bet on that theory of me being too far back on the ski. Thanks for the help everybody.

Bunch of Nerdy engineers around here huh? I clicked on sales, but I'm actually half sales half engineer.

Hi Brady, thanks so much for posting this. First, I'm in almost the same position, and second, because you shared the beauty of our lovely UL course #1 with everybody on here. I'm in a very similar position. I used to get 32 mph at full length line consistently, but then a few years of too little skiing and putting on 30 pounds changed that. I just got a bigger ski this year so that I can slow it down to 28, so that was great to hear a few folks say to do that. I'll keep watching this thread and hopefully see you on course #1 soon :)

Well I'm going to be trying to ski this summer behind a 97 SNOB with z-box and it sounds like I now have some extra motivation to get my 185 pounds down to 165 pounds before summer comes :)

Awesome, glad I didn't screw that one up. Thanks.

Well, it's done now. I purchased a 69" Senate with double Vector boot. I got the featherframe boots, hopefully that wasn't a mistake, I didn't really ask about that. I suppose this will be the ski that is, if anything too big. If I lose weight, and/or really start ripping at 34 mph, then that will be the perfect excuse for me to reward myself with a smaller, more aggressive ski. Until then, this should keep my fat butt on top of the water even if I need to slow myself way down just to make it through the course. You are correct Gregy, I definitely could benefit from some sound coaching. The only training I currently have that is at all close to "official" is watching the Wade Cox CDX-1 video from a decade ago and reading the occasional article in Waterski magazine. Lots of room for improvement there. Thanks everybody for your input. I might just throw on the double wetsuit and give it a try real soon here when the water is still super cold.

Sorry, I mean the triumph model.

Gregy are you saying that the size of the ski would hinder my performance above 28 mph or are you saying that the senate model would hinder my performance and suggesting I go straight to the Strada?

Also, Kevin, thanks much for the link to your interviews. That helped a lot to listen to what Marcus Brown and Chris Rossi had to say.

Hey Gregy, Thanks for the reminder about ski-it-again. Maybe go over there and save some dough :) The first ski to catch my eye was this one, but I'm pretty sure that most people would say that a 69 is too big for my 185 even at 28 mph. (How do you know that, I can't find any kind of sizing charts or anything on any of the manufacturer's websites). Anyway, I know all too well the negative effects of skiing on a ski that is to small. When I get down to 28 on my current 67" ski, it is really dragging like cray through the water. What, though, would be the downside to a ski that is too big? http://www.ski-it-again.com/php/skiitagain.php?topic=Search&category=Slalom&postid=21972

Oh gee whiz, how did I forget to go over my current setup. I'm currently on a 99 KD 6500. It came with 2 "comp" bindings - one of them has died and was replaced about 7 years ago with an HO animal binding. That one is now falling apart as well and I'm thinking I'm better off buying a new ski instead of a new binding or two for this current ski. Also, it is a 67" ski. When I bought it, I was 150 pounds and only did freeskiing and did it at about 32 mph, sometimes up to 34 mph. Nowadays, with my extra 35 pounds on my, I do sometimes have to slow the boat down to 28, just to make it through on a full line length, and it feels like the 67" is way too small for 28 mph and 185 pounds. So amid all this, with recommendations of ski, I wouldn't mind recommendations of size of ski as well.

I look forward to hearing how you like this ski. I rode my brother's HO VTC from 95-99 and really liked it. I then bought my own KD in 99, and like you, am realizing that I might just ski better and enjoy it more if I'm not on 15 year old equipment.

Hi Guys, Here's my situation. I'm still skiing on my ski from High School. I'm starting to decide that might be a bad idea. I'm 31 years old, 185 pounds. I make the pass fairly consistently at full line length, 28 mph, less consistently at 30 mph, and rarely at 32 mph. I would love to get myself up to 34 mph, and then start shortening the line from there. Also, on bindings - should I get something like the GOODE power shell with the power plate so that both feet come off at the same time? Or is the HO EXO system better? Or should I stick with bindings that stay on?

Ha ha ha!!! I figured I would get a few negative response on this one. I deserve it, thanks guys. Great idea on the shock tube. I have that on the Christmas list right now, and I could just move it up when wakeboarding instead of putting it away. Good call. Thanks Horton for the reference. I'm guessing Alliance Wake is done by the same folks that do the Alliance magazine, which I consider an insult to my intelligence every time I read an article. I might try wakeworld. It seems in vague memory like they have had more good stuff come up on google searches I've done over the years anyway. With this problem solved though for now, I can put off joining yet another forum for a little while longer. My wife is starting to think I'm addicted to Forums.

Alright, so I can't be the only buoy chaser on here who occasionally like to ride sideways, so I have a two part question for those of you who also occasionally wakeboard or wakeskate. What is your favorite forum for those purposes? I assume there exists something like this forum but for the wake side of me as well. Let me know if you have one you like or don't like. The second part of my question is this: I have a tall pole for my boat. I want a rope guide like this one that barefoot international offers. http://www.bartswatersports.com/catalog.asp?P=15811 However, as you can see in the picture below, my pole is not like their pole in that it doesn't have a swivel on top. Has anybody ever seen a rope guide like this that is more universal that maybe has the swivel built in to it? https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2FAH7ZeKtEIYjdxSWlJWlgwd1k

Well that's not what I wanted to hear. With you saying that, now I'll never want to get a tower :)

I feel like I'm having a similar experience. When I first discovered the course 5 years ago, I was a better skier than I am today, as I just haven't skied enough in the past 5 years. I'm back in, and I can do a 28 at full line length, but not a 30. However, at 28, my ski suddenly feels like a totally different ski, like it's just dragging everywhere. I'm 185 on a 67". 5 years ago, I was 160 on the same 67, that makes a difference as well. Anyway, I'm going to pay attention to this post too as I'm having the same generic problem that the only passes I can make, seem too slow for my ski.

thanks for the thread. I have a 97 SNOB and sometimes I consider putting a tower on it so I really want to see you get to the bottom of this. I agree that for the sake of experimentation, just pull the one bolt out using an allen wrench and leave the mount intact to see if that is actually the problem before you go to all the hassle of putting new gelcoat on the boat. Also, I like your diagram. the course where I ski has a dock in front, so I could take the boards off before running the course. Do you not have somewhere to put the boards while you ski? Still, it's so hard for me to imagine it making THAT much difference.

Alright everybody, here is the maiden voyage, just a quick evening with the pregnant wife, the kid and the Grandma. Probably the only trip we'll get for a few months since it's now getting cold here in UT. Thanks again to everybody for all the help. I'm absolutely in love with the boat so far.