RazorRoss3

No, cold weather/water just make sure to keep your body “athletic” on top of the ski. It’s realky easy to tense and tighten up and your skiing will suffer for that far more than from the actual temp change

The number of times I split fingers on my 13, I'd wiff the handle completely on a 12.

I agree with @eleeski, a panda worthy offense I know, but qualifying based on what you've proven you can do makes more sense. our D1/D2 really doesn't operate in the same way as it does in most of college athletics. The ability for a team that isn't one of the ULMs of the world to qualify for D1 is serious bragging rights in their own region, shows that they are the elite team(s) in town. I don't think it makes sense to tell 75 of the 80 teams that they can't qualify for D1. Part of what makes collegiate skiing so good is that it's been able to keep the best part of the sport front and center, and the best part of the sport isn't scoring at a tournament, it's being on the lake with a bunch of friends. Adding a bunch of rules telling talented skiers that because they aren't pros they can't play would be a step backwards. Not to say our D1/D2 system is perfect... but I don't think it's broken either.

I have to lean towards leaving some room in D1, the ability to compete among the best isn’t an every day affair and the ability to earn your spot in D1 for teams that student run, managed, coached, etc is pretty cool.

I can attest that I never had trouble convincing a bunch of college kids to go ski and party all weekend. That wins over anything they'd be doing on campus almost 100% of the time. I can also say that while "we place Xth in the region last year" isn't a bad selling point, it's more of a point of pride for last year's members, it can in some ways scare away new recruits who then don't think they're "good enough" to be a collegiate skier. I don't need to do much to convince the good skier to join, they want to ski and they want to compete, I'm offering them both. I need to work much harder to get people who have ridden a ski but don't know if they really need to be on a ski team to stick around. To get them, it's much more about advertising how fun tournaments are, how much fun the group of people is on and off the water, it's your social group, they're your best friends.

Sandbagging your scores to be D2 instead of D1 is cheating, no conversation needed. The Midwest definitely has a big issue here though, at Iowa there was a $40K "club sport budget" and 52 club sports asking for money. Successful clubs had priority and as a former leader on that team we received $500 on a good year. I don't know if we need to split the divisions any farther, certainly a Midwest team isn't competitive with the ULMs of this world, but I think the bigger issue is creating a way for teams who have made it to nationals to show the level of accomplishment that is (especially in the Midwest, what, 9 of 40 teams go) to help them leverage more funding for the accomplishment. Most of the skiers are thrilled to be at nationals... in fact in the Midwest you have to qualify for Regionals so that's pretty exciting in it's own right. The skiers themselves outside the die hards on the team don't care as much about how they place, getting there was the fun part, the road trip was the fun part, going somewhere warm to ski when it's wetsuit weather back home is the fun part. They do need a way to show just what level of an accomplishment getting there was though.

I was going to say that I wouldn’t personally fund a women’s pro event and that if I were to donate to cancer research I would make a pure donation so that 100% of my contribution went to the research. But realizing that a large scale event can make a much greater contribution than I personally can to any given cause I would consider contributing to an event of any format if it was enabling a meaningful contribution to charity.

It’s rhythm based. To early and you take the handle away, too late and you give them slack. Different skiers are going to hit lighter/harder earlier/later so it’s more of an art of knowing where your skier is than i science of any particular measured point.

@usaski1 I could ride your ski for the next 30 years and still not be able to do what you do. You’re an animal on that ski

Modestly entertaining permutation question, Permut(x,x) in Excel makes pretty quick work of it. Modestly interesting meaning more fun than work ;) For the record, the North does Freeze, but it hasn't yet, still a few months to ski. Which is good since my scores have been a scatter gun this year with everything from missing my opener to 5@35...

I agree entirely, “I do less and get more” is extremely counterintuitive. It’s the difference between trying to make the ski go by pulling or letting the boat make the ski go by riding the ski correctly. As skiers, it works better if we handle the steering part and let the boat handle the go part.

@Horton My $0.02 I’m working on the same things this year. Head and shoulder level is super important. Nothing else actually seems to matter if I don’t do that part right. As far as pulling intensity I think it boils down to efficiency not intensity. It is difficult to be efficient on the ski when I pull too hard and I generally create load that I can’t control. When I ski lighter I can stay in the right place on my ski and I think that lets me take more angle in a less loaded way so I’ll be faster and earlier due to more angle and less drag and load. Just my thoughts on it

Have you tried not letting all of those insignificant little things get in your head? You might be snubbing yourself 2-3 buoys just thinking about all that extra stuff ;) In honesty I like to untwist the line. I don't know if you get significant width back but the line feels less stretchy/springy. I do think most of that is just superstitious head games though unless you're playing at the top of the top then maybe it makes a difference. It's like having lucky trunks

short of an off balance turn leading to an awkward connection it is always in my fingers, usually in the second digit and my thumb plays zero role in gripping the handle. My fingers never shred. I use a file to keep the callouses down, I also am in the gym all off season so that keep me from ever having baby hands which might help.

Anything that AWSA has that can be digital, should be digital. I don't look at the regional guide, I go the USA waterski and register for events in my area. I don't read waterski magazine... because secretly I can't actually read. Like most skiers I haven't read the rule book but know what I need to know to maintain my assistant judge and driver ratings.

Thank you @Horton for providing the specific issue in suspect. That makes this feel much less “fake news-y”. It still seems odd that that wouldn’t have been caught by the TC, I’ve never knowlingly skied a 3-7 inch narrow course so I can’t say if the skiers shoukd have realized something was up it not.

The rankings list is a slight detour from topic. Closely related but I think the issues here boil down to the perception by some (with either no evidence or evidence not provided) of some funkiness (either through intention or incompetence) and then the broader idea of whether an event the produces scores at the extremes of expectations warrants a second look as it relates to courses, ropes, etc. I think we all agree that no one should be milking tolerances and that we don’t want there to be any funny business at an event. Where we have some issues is that some of us are frustrated by the accusations being framed without substantial evidence being provided. Some of us are not accepting uncommonly high scores as evidence of funkiness or at least not enough evidence on its own. The rankings list certainly matters at that level but rankings list is a secondary issue to insuring a level playing field and how to handle suspected funkiness.

Innocent until proven guilty. The onus is on people who think something is funky to prove it was, speculation, conspiracy stories, amount to nothing beyond fake news unless someone is going to go out and find real evidence to back it up. This back and forth is just a big circle with no one introducing any new data, just jumping down each other's throats with ever more stubbornly set opinions. If no one is going to introduce something new and of legitimate value then we're just damaging the sport. As it stands this thread has a much better chance of doing damage than resulting in anything positive.

Milking tolerances to boost scores = cheating The things we have control over, we want to be as uniform site-to-site as possible. Ropes, boats, courses, ramps, etc... the tolerance exists because people aren't perfect not so that we can milk them all to the easy side. Doesn't do anything for the things that are harder to control like wind, rollback, sun, rain, the rare turtle-to-ski collision, but that's why those are called things we can't control.

Considering in 2016 I set a new PB by 4.5 in tournament at Lakes of Katy, then repeated it at SMRR, then repeated it again at the BOS cash prize at Aquaplex... Now maybe I just bring my A game to tournaments, after all, of the 7 -35s I ran that year 4 were in tournament and 3 were in practice so I might be outside the norm. Yes, if I were to have another event where my PB gets boosted by 4.5+ I'd be through the moon excited, might have to double check the that the rope was on the correct loop, but short of them telling me they forgot to shorten the line I'd buy it.

100% No. If there is a grounded reason to expect cheating then that specific route should be pursued. If a skier simply had the best tournament of their life they should be given a round of applause from the shoreline and that's it. End of story.

If you’re having trouble at the turn go back to your pull. Be sure that as you come off the second wake that you maintain good body position, keep a tight line, and being the handle with you to the ball. Skiing from the second wake well will consistently set up a good turn.

Class C tournaments are great. It's an inviting event, they don't cost an arm and leg in entry fees and you still get a great pull behind a great boat. The idea of a class C score being worth less sounds like a great way to create an elitist environment that this sport does not need.

Top 2 into 43 Top 4 to or past 5 at 41 Top 5 beyond half way down 41 that's some insane skiing

It would be nice to see the top 3-5 all be in legitimate contention for the #1 spot. I’m honestly equally interested in what happens in the bottom 5 of D1 though, teams that don’t alway make it to D1, first time D1 teams getting seeing how well they can do against the perennial champs. Work down to D2, teams making first ever nats appearances and seeing how they stack up against the crowd. Teams coming in and skiing lights out beating there seeding. Just as entertaining in my eyes.