wilecoyote

@ThePantsManCan, If you're going to pull up the floor, you really should go to the supra forumshttp://www.supraboats.com/bbs/forumdisplay.php?6-Service-Repair and look at all the photos and read all the posts. (unless you already have). Everyone has their own ideas on rotten stringers, and there are many ways to skin a cat, but I for one would prefer to just fix the rotten areas, replace the floor and dig out the wet foam. I haven't done any of this on my own boat as I only have access to it on weekends and as long as I can ski behind it I'd rather do that than take it off line to work on it. I'm doing small projects to improve it but nothing like pulling up the floor yet. I don't want to be a killjoy, but I wouldn't be so confident that your stringers are good. If the floor was solid, I'd be with you, but pretty much all of these older boats have stringer rot to some degree or other. I personally don't think it's a big deal to have some stringer rot under the floor as long as the floor is solid and of course the stringers under the motor must be solid or one good bump and the motor drops and breaks the hull at the shaft log. That will sink your boat. I'm with DW. You may want to look at putting a bit of weight in the bow to change the trim and see how she skis. I had 5 people in the Rider once this summer, and I noticed no difference in the wake (I'm skiing at 30mph). All the extra people weight was forward of the CG. Playing with the CG is much easier than loosing weight and just may get better results any ways.

I'm a Supra owner as well, but in my case it's the Rider. First open bow ski boat ever made. I know from everything I've heard, the comp is a great boat. If it was me, I'd be putting PP on it and just doing a bit here and there. I'm a new 15 offer and haven't even completed a full pass yet so obviously my experience isn't of a lot of use here, but, I ski behind a mid 2000s 196 at the club, and my boat when I'm at the cottage. I honestly don't prefer either boat, (other than mine is a lot noisier) as far as wakes go. Maybe when I'm getting into 22 at 34 I'll change my mind. IF the main reason you're doing this is to get a better slalom tug, I wonder if it's worth the money to upgrade to the Nautique. Obviously it's a better boat, and the older Supras do have stringer rot issues, but I would think if you just put PP on it and made sure the stringers under the motor were good you'd be in pretty good shape. Disregard all above advice, I just re read your post a few back and you've already skied behind a boat similar to what you're buying. My bad for posting a few days after reading the thread.

I did mine windsurfing, it was a stupid injury, I was adjusting my gear in the shore break and got it pinched. That was 3 years ago, and the finger still has limited mobility but is slowly improving. I did continue to windsurf (I wasn't skiing at all at that time) while it was in the splint, but once the pin went in, I couldn't really use my hand for 6 weeks. BTW for anyone who ends up with the pin sticking out the end of the finger in case they don't tell you. (they didnt' tell me) you can rotate the pin. On mine they bent the pin into a hook and left it facing up. Had I known it would spin I could have pointed it down, and that 6 weeks would have been a lot easier.

The reason I ask is that I was removing my finger from the splint and moving it, which apparently was a big no no. That's how it ended up healing all wrong. Good luck. BTW it's only a finger so I'm not too pissed about how things turned out, but if you can do all the right things in the first place and get a good finger out of the deal, what ever the effort or sacrifice, I think it's worth it.

Welcome to the club. I broke the same finger in the same place a couple of years ago. Mine got surgery, and the finger tip doesn't move any more, (even though the surgeon said it would) Are you in a splint?

@Klindy, somehow I kind of figured that was the case.

I've been watching the Diablo Shores event, and Freddy is an awesome commentator. From what I've heard, he'd be an awesome slalom coach too. Who knew?

I voted for ankle, but I've been out for nearly 6 weeks due to a knee injury. My buddy will never ski again after shattering his knee.

@Horton, which part, looking down the rope, or getting flashed on a PB? Seriously though, I'm fighting so hard to simply keep position and this was the most definite improvement I've had in my skiing so far. I may only need to do it for a while until my position becomes natural or for the rest of my ski life, I have no idea. From other sports that I'm actually good at, I know for a fact that where you look always has large effect on posture. In this case for me at least, looking where I was going (usually good advice) was pointing my hips in the wrong direction and causing me to stick my but out. I think @ShaneH summed it up nicely. I'll report back after Saturday's sets.

@KcSwerver, I'm still not making 4 ball so I'm very near where your buddy is. I see you saw my post in http://www.ballofspray.com/forum#/discussion/8716/who-said-look-down-the-rope. I know everbody has a different key piece of advice that breaks things open for them and I can only say that this one was huge for me. Hopefully it will stick.

I'd probably just stuff the tip.

@Skoot1123, I can't say I actually noticed anything other than it just felt "right". I've also been having a hard time with slack on my offside (who doesn't? but big time for me) and that went away as well. There's still a zillion things left to do right, but the really big one, proper position, is now within reach. When Ted was offering his advice, the next thing he got me to do was keep the tip down through the finish of the turn. HOLY CRAP! I knew that I was supposed to do that, drivers and coaches kept telling me to, but I just couldn't do it. Ted explained that if I could keep my hips up through the turn (I was coming into the turn in reasonably good shape and then loosing my form as the turn progressed) and keep the tip engaged then I wouldn't end up reaching for the handle, and thus the handle would come to me. Wow was he right on. I stuffed the tip and lean locked and did all kinds of bad things, but when I did it right, the ski really came around and I was able to exit the turn with much better position. My last pass really came together, and I'm chomping at the bit to get back behind the boat ASAP. Saturday will be my next chance and I can't wait. That's not the post I was looking for, thanks for finding it though. Even more info there. I wasn't even trying to look down the line at the apex I'll try to add that on Saturday. It was in another thread somewhere, but no matter, it worked. It was something like "look at the rope or the boat or the pylon, just don't look at the wakes" The other bit of advice that came from this list was posted by @gregy in the maintaining speed through the wakes at longer lines thread where he advocated only pulling to the first wake and not trying to pull hard all the way to the second wake. That seemed to help too. I finally feel like running all six by the end of the summer is a real possibility.

So no matter how hard I've tried, and how many different ways people have told me, I just couldn't get my hips up and was constantly breaking at the waist. Today, I did my first pass and sucked, and then one of the coaches whom I've never met at the club before offered a new perspective, and, I remembered someone here saying "look at the boat or down the rope" and suddenly everything improved, big time. As soon as I thought about looking down the rope, the hips came up and I felt really stacked behind the boat. Then pass after pass, Ted just kept telling me to do things and somehow I was able to (sort of) do them. What a great day.

I think if you've got the skills, the time and the inclination, why not? I love owning quality stuff that I have built myself. Sometimes it's not just about the time+money+PIA equation.

Check the slow mo again, he almost landed a front flip, crikey!

@mwetskier, thankyou so much for that link. Holy crap! For the analysis minded skier, what an eye opener! There's a lot of reading there and I read it start to finish. Being someone who's bad habits are all grouped in the "bad form" category, this info has come for me at the right time. I haven't yet established any habitual lines through the course as I'm still trying to get to 4 ball, so I now have a solid direction that makes sense to me.

I don't know how many times I've watched that, but it never gets old!

Me too! I'm just happy right now that I can stay stacked (well stacked for me at least) until I turn 1 ball and then it all goes to hell.

@ToddL, I tried your timing thing last night, I know I've still got tonnes of position issues, even though I'm felling pretty strong, but I turned 3 several times and even got a look at 4 once so I'm pretty happy. I'm still starting by pulling out on the 1 ball side so I'm not even doing gates yet, but as per your advice I started turning much sooner at 1 ball and the pass started to get better just by doing that. I'm still having a hard time keeping the line tight on the 135 side (RFF) but my onside is good, so if I can get the offside form a bit more like the onside then I think I'll do a lot better. Water was glass last night, so it was a really nice set to ski regardless of how well I did in the course.

Thanks @ToddL. I'll try that tonight. This weekend I was behind my boat (for the first time, lovin' it) and we don't have a course so I was working on position as above, and easing in to the pull slower rather than cranking it on too soon. Hopefully 3 ball will be mine tonight!

I just tried the above advice (@ ToddL summary) last night, and while I only got a look at 3 ball (where I've been before) everything felt much more in control. I'm still learning everything, so I think another problem is I'm turning way past the ball. If I can keep working on position, when I get my timing for the turn right I think things will come together. This is a great discussion for us beginners, I'm feeling progress on virtually every pass thanks to you guys.

I couldn't have asked for a better topic, I'm just struggling to get to 3 ball@28mph so all this applies to me as well. Glad to have all the help. I'll be doing another lesson with my instructor in the very near future, and he keeps telling me to bend that ankle. Should be easy, but it's not.

@matthewbrown, I'm curious. You're pretty adamant that no one can turn 3, why? I'm way out of my depth to have any proper appreciation of how hard this is, other than watching these guys go for it, but, I would think that if they can turn 2, then theoretically they should be able to turn all 6 no?

I was going to say you've got the wrong foot forward. I've been doing the same thing, I keep a handle tied to the wall in my lab at work, but I've got a block set up so my feet can be on an angle closer to what it would be on the ski. I am a bit paranoid about having the rope break or the wall anchor let go and whacking my head. It would make a good news item when they find the body though. My plan is to practice beside my boat this summer as I don't have a course, and then try to apply it on my days at the ski club. I can't say how much the dry land can help, but I've pinned my hopes on it. When you consider you are only ever in that position for max 2 seconds at a time when you're running the course, it doesn't give one a lot of time to work on position. And when you consider I can't make it past 3 ball, that's only 6 seconds of practice per pass.

@crazy180. Find a ski school and get instruction! I've been free skiing for 40 years (only a few passes/year for the last 20 so it's not really all that much). And when I did my first lesson, I thought they'd just start tweaking my style, yeah right! I was doing everything wrong! I haven't made a full pass either, but I'm really hoping to do it early in the year. The downside of going to a ski school is that you will get your first ride behind a proper boat, and you'll start shopping for a replacement for your Sea Ray within a week.