BraceMaker

Well simply because if someone else comes and bests him by 1/2 then he has to up his record by 1. No one will care if someone beats him by 1/2 and then he ties it. A record isn't like an event win you have the incentive to put it up anytime anywhere because it raises the bar. It is possible that Nate simply doesn't have the steam 10 years later, maybe an injury maybe not, and maybe busy taking flying lessons or what not. But that all indicates it will be harder for him to pop back on the scene to take down a future challenge. Where as if you are in your prime the incentive to move the chains down the field is always there.

Until someone spells out the terms of silver spray sport sponsorship I would also tend to agree. Action MC silver spray SN. Is silver spray really not a boat sponsorship?

Whats 6@41 no continuation? 120 balls right. So you just pull up scores of 120 and then check the event and who was running and then other scores from that event. I would find any score of 116 or 120 to indicate either 6 no continuation or a 0 at the next pass... but it could also be a drop at the dock.

I personally think the in tolerance will be expanded if automated driving removes friendly driving or at least we could trust a wider tolerance as not being favorable. My question about practice scores is based on if the world's best with their friendliest driver. If at their home sites they aren't cranking 4 at 43 then that's an answer to the question of where people can get I think automated driving will actually bring up the sport. To give youth skiers behind their mom on a weekday night the same pull as world class skiers get at a class R from childhood? Every pass automated to be as straight as possible? And then for the guys sitting in a boat on a 90 degrees day for 8 hours back and forth and back and forth running a school? How much less fatigue for the drivers? How about those guys who have a friend that can drive a boat... Ish. Who just cannot go straight down the course at speed while the current crop of skiers may see a shift what will the next generation look like when they've spent their life with every pass being super high quality record class sets every time they ski?

What's the highest practice score observed? You'd assume anyone who has a couple in tournament would have a couple more in practice. Always rumors Andy was going deeper in practice.

Spam him with offers for 10$.

@Kelvin I suppose you could impose a limit on passon over your opener

Some people like pulling their groin. Those people aren't trick skiing.

Has to go up if it's a battery switch. Unless you want the power switch to not cut off the whole boat... maybe? Like always if troubleshooting cranking run jumper cables in parallel to the battery wires. Connect ground , connect hot, connect both. If it doesn't change the start condition its battery or starter I'd it does its a connection. If it's one or the other it's the wire or the crimp. If it needs both to start better it's the condition of the whole system and all the wires should be replaced with the largest tinned marine wire you can justify. As a side note... it's not bad if a boat has say a 2 gauge wire to replace it with large say 0 gauge. Or you can run a second 2 gauge in parallel with the first. Either alone is sufficient and 2 gives you redundancy. No real issue

I'm sure the Michigan thing didn't help convince them.

Is that little angle iron literally the only thing keeping the pylon in place? It doesn't span to the stringers like in a MC?

I'd suggest going onto a MOB and having Mike build the angle in between the boot and the sole plate. More similar to how it's done in alpine too

As a side note Boa is very good at sending free repair bits.

That is true mounds are a double edged sword. Particularly early on, but if you're not irrigating right at the trunk of the trees and keep your irrigation at the perimeter of the root structure trees with stretch their roots out and deeper which as they get taller makes them less prone to uprooting. When the only trees for thousands of yards around are your windblock you have the risk from that too.

@mike_mapple I think both golf and tennis are great examples, as is skeet or trap or sporting clays. In all three of these I can very clearly demonstrate why it is easier to get into any of them than it is to get into waterskiing. But also how they are quite similar and quite different. Equipment costs - in all of these sports they are similar in that you can get started with a base level equipment/gear maybe even used gear that will do what you need all of these sports. Then they all ramp up quite similarly. No one owns one racket or one set of clubs, no one owns one shotgun. They all have "uniforms" be it vests, sneakers, ear protectors almost all require a hat and glasses to get through a day. Costs for a good slalom ski and bindings to get started used 500 bucks? Cost for a used shotgun similar. Top end costs buying a new shotgun or a new slalom ski? Well it can go pretty high but these are all personal costs. Venue. Tennis benefits from public clubs, as does golf, shooting is more similar to waterskiing many of the shooting clubs are fully private. But golf and tennis has that as well. What does it cost to join a Golf Club in a busy suburban area - a swanky private club? I know of a few that have buy ins that cost more than houses. Some of them have tennis courts. But all of these things have something in common. In most areas I can find you a public tennis court with nets, a public golf course with tees and holes, a public shooting range with throwers. Pay for rounds. What is hard in slalom? Public or open to the public waterskiing. There are clearly exceptions but I can go to darned near any city that has lakes and find a place to shoot trap, play tennis, or golf just by googling it. If you want to pick a city and pay good money to get a ski set... well that's also expensive but also probably cannot have it happen. And a golf course is surely more land than a ski lake and has tons more water.

I think outreach to the skiers during the sport to get them signed up to help run events is huge. But also its clear that a handful of skiers from each team are a HUGE center for growth in most regions. I'm sure all of you know 2 or 3 people right out of college that are driving, judging, scoring, and helping to run events. I think that side of the sport is underdeveloped and if half the people who inquired where to ski instead were directed to how to learn to be a tournament judge, or tech, or safety as a way into skiing you'd actually increase retention. But getting people water time means filling time the water isn't used > buying a boat.

Very. College skiing too is so at risk reference what happened to Iowa State's team. I don't have an update on that maybe someone does but college skiing isn't even as strong as it should be. It should be FAR stronger. If you're big into skiing and want it to grow sit down and pretend you know nothing about waterskiing and figure out how you'd get a set locally based on google. No insider knowledge see if you could find out how to go waterskiing in your town with out getting a member of ball of spray to DM you a cell number to text. Or send messages from a new email address to all the listed waterski clubs on USA Waterski's contact directory and see how many emails you get back. Hint it will probably be either zero, a bad email address, or sorry we're a private club. I do have a few solutions to brainstorm and they are from easiest to hardest to implement. Post-collegiate retention through an "alumni league" where people who were members of a ski team or even just went to a university could enter into a fantasy ski league. To make it fair for different states where seasons and events are different you can only use official scores and you would be limited to say 2 or 3 entries per skier a season but then use that in some way with the collegiate ski team to get some sort of award or points for the team even if its just promotional like a ski donated to the team that wins brought to you by Syndicate. This is easy because its basically a fantasy league but would give those collegiate team members a reason to attend a handful of tournaments. And the reason again to only allow 2 or 3 is that you don't want these skiers to be discouraged like oh well why would I bother I can only go to 2 events this summer. And then maybe you just take the top 5 of those entries and you make it like a ski bracket. This could also encourage post collegiate participation in trick and jump? Involve the local dealership network more heavily in promoting ski days at clubs. Even weekday events but have events for skiers who haven't participated in more than X events a season. Host these along with boat promo or ski demo days. This means that you get newer skiers to ski in a sanctioned event like a class F but you can support it in other ways by doing it along with maybe Radar Nation or Goode Demo day, its a reason to get skiers to come out to take a set but you also make it a tournament and sanction it to get those new skiers to "ski a tournament" this is harder because it asks for involvement but do it during the summer and maybe use it to fund raise for a collegiate team and staff the tournament with college skiers? Hold safety/technical/driving clinic during the event - get more of those collegiate skiers signed up. Clubs need to evaluate their down time and consider having a "uber of waterskiing" maybe Uber is wrong, airbnb of waterskiing. For this demographic of skiers and I've maybe aged out of it to the point where its more clear how I can have debt and own a truck an lake house and a boat (but then again that doesn't get me to tournaments) what about clubs evaluate how much time their lake doesn't work and use it to generate revenue for the club. This is harder I assume it involves some form of insurance and detail. But I drive past quite a few ski lakes that don't have a single person using them for good bits of the day. Fractional ownership, limited memberships, pay as you go options with restrictions. Somehow provide a clear path to participation on that water when its not in use? Finally open water course permitting. I don't know how many times I can say this but as someone who owns 2 ski boats, has a family on a lake, owns a complete ski course and cannot get a permit to put it in even for the day. How the heck does somewhat participate in the sport. I've illegally used my ski course 3 times on the lake in the 12 years I've owned it. its not due to lack of ability to launch it or water to use it or desire its just how willing am I to get in trouble for it. We need real actual lobbying to be put forth to get access for the course. Maybe this is where the wake surfers who are being targeted need to start reaching out to us and saying we'll support you if you support us.

Correct or some sort of Alumni tournament points? Graduates of a college of any age can score points for their school at non-collegiate events?

@Woodybc62 what we as a sport need is a really clear way for those collegiate skiers to stay in the sport for the 5-10 years after college, because atleast historically most of them stop skiing until they are around 40.

The good news is you could very easily put some helicoil threads or a timesert in there.

It's like everything related to trees the best time to plant them. 10 years ago. Second best? Today. Height isnt all that necessary to drastically change wind. A dense row of shrubs even a few feet high provides an astonishingly far wind effect. You can also cheat trees can be planted on mounds to give them artificial height and kick start the efforts. Closer to the lake is better but higher is also better. The wind starts dropping over the trees so your peak protection is closer in.

Not saying you have to do this but a great way to start the move is to ski around on something like an HO hovercraft instead of on your normal proper slalom ski. Go out to a lake and just spend a few hours cruising with an RTP then it won't feel so weird when you go for it.

The windmill I am tilting at is that as a sport it sure feels like the event is owned by Nautique and not an independent event brought to you by Nautique. There have certainly been instances of "high tempers" during events previously that didn't generate disqualification from future events. Headlights and rerides at a Big Dawg event comes to mind and if I recall the history this generated long delays in the event and no disqualifications from future events. Or another question I suppose is for you @dave2ball how many examples are there of a skier being disqualified in the history of the sport? Maybe this is just a sport where it is extremely rare for people to have a temper whatsoever at the judges.... but off hand I'm not sure there is a precedent for this.

@sailworks not to out you but I believe I know some people who trained under you. So your comments in regards to arm function are probably extremely valid.

Or limited membership. A ski club where you can ski from 630PM to 830PM daily guaranteed should be 8500 bucks. If you pop in after work at at 7PM there are 20 people waiting around and you sit there till sunset to get your set or have to leave or have to ski during business hours to use the club. Well then you're kinda screwed huh.