RazorRoss3

@BraceMaker, I don't have the date off the top of my head and I'm not even sure if the team has set an exact date for it yet but late June to early July is the right time frame. I'll see if I can figure out the exact date and let you know. @Texas6, that's Iowa in April, if it's not cold then it's really cold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCMUfl7PWBE This was made at our spring tournament at our home site last year. We teamed up with the AV club who needed to do this as a job for a freshman orientation program so it was a win win for us since none of us are this good at editing.

I like the strada boot, however I will agree that they don't always release. I do put mine on really tight though so that could be part of it.

Done, have to help the other college skiers.

@OB, to say I'm jealous is an understatement, you're skiing and I'm up in Iowa where we just got another 2 inches of snow and the lakes won't be thawing for another 3 months.

I think most of the worst falls happen when you hit the first wake however my worst happened half way out to the buoy when I was load locked and the tip of my ski dove under the water.

my guess is they go 36 because that is the pro speed, in order to see if Maple can still hang with or beat pro skiers I think you would have to do it at pro speed. Making the pros slow down doesn't make much sense. Besides that I've heard it is "easier" (by easier I mean slightly less impossible) to run 41 off at 36 because the ski carries speed out to the ball better rather than slowing down and drifting in narrow of the ball.

couldn't do it with those two. It helps to have an Dad who skis into 39' off and singles over 350 on the bench and an uncle who also skis into 39' off and has a Minnesota bench press state record. Thank you @Razorskier1 and @6balls

I'm only twenty so I can't say I've been skiing tournaments forever but 6-7 years is more than 2-3 by a good margin cosidering 7 is over a third of my life and 3 is less than a sixth. Either way I plan on being a lifer, last season I improved from running 1@ 32 off in tournament to running 5@32 off and I'm itching to put that final buoy up and get into the blue line.

Oddly enough I snowboard, it's just one of those things where I was snowboarding before I got into waterskiing and never changed my winter activities to match my summer

you might have to borrow some skier stats from USA waterski and have it available to make it easier for some of us young guys who don't know all the names to get a better idea of who's who before betting.

even if it wasn't freezing outside the Iowa boats have been winterized for nearly two months now. Starting to regret not looking into southern schools when I was applying to colleges two years ago.

So today I woke up and it was 21 degrees outside, all of the puddles from yesterday were frozen over. So the way I see it it's been cold now, some water has frozen over and we've already had to winterize the boats. That sounds like a full winter to me, what about you? So I guess it's time to bring on the spring season right?

solar pannels aren't exactly the cheapest investment either though and imagine having to charge a boat every 6 sets at a tournament. Even class C tournaments usually have 30+ skiers and state, regionals, and nationals have more than I care to count, charging a battery takes a little longer than filling up the tank in my experience and would have to be done more often.

I do consider myself extremely lucky to have had what I had growing up, I've been in the sport for six or seven years and without @razorskier1 and @6balls I would be three rope lengths behind where I am right now

@6balls, it is true that you me and Bob could all go out to NG with the old man and he'd have the same pass count as the other three of us combined but the point is that the increase in gas is the biggest extra cost of adding a skier to your family. In my case I never needed the pro coaching since you and the old man ski into 39 off.

As far as the equipment goes I don't think a 1 event skier is really that different from a lot of other popular highschool sports but where you really rack up the cash is in the additonal gas expense, my Dad had a course and a boat long before I was interested in the sport and already burned through a lot of gas practicing but I've doubled that every year for the past 7 that I've been in the sport, I think the yearly gas probably cost more than any ski I've ever used. Not saying the gear is cheap but I think the real killer on the additional family member using the water is the gas.

@6balls, I don't need consistencey at the blue line, I just need to run it once to put a score at 38 off

I'm sure they can do it, the question is where they put the mark in 38, depending on how deep they get that one might take a few seasons still

they'll have to put up some in 38, any score in 35 might not make it through the season.

for the last 3+ years we didn't have a course on the res because the DNR cut our buoys by mistake and didn't tell us and we couldn't find the course when we dredged for it. The only time we found that we can put a fin in the mud is on the far end since the water is only 4-6 feet deep but in the course and at the starting end the water is excess of 15 feet. @6balls the bench record will be hard to beat but I might be beating the family ski record at 36mph this coming season.

pulling that thing out sucked, it took us two hours in the cold the clouds and the wind

Well, it's going to suck not skiing until march but I'm not going to put off lifting until February, I'd just sit around here getting fat if I did.

Tomorrow the University of Iowa waterski team is winterizing our boats and taking our course out. Talk about depression, the single worst part about living in the norther midwest is the knowlege that winter will come and with it bring ice. I guess my lifting season has officially started since my ski season has come to an end as of tomorrow. I think everyone back in Minnesota will agree with me that this off season can't go fast enough.

I weigh 180 lbs and have skied at 34 and 36mph on a 67" O'brien Elite (seriously thin and low riding ski) and a 68" Razor A flex which rides much higher, my conclusion is that the ski will stay on top of the water and perform well as long as the skier maintains speed both in the pull, glide, and turn. the new Goode ski only comes in one size and it is supposed to be used by skiers from 120lbs through 210 or more under the assumption that through proper fin and binding settings almost all skiers can ride on the same length ski.