Boats used in E/L/R

[The_MS]

From the meeting minutes.

I was at a few tourneys this summer where this happened. I know a few of the pros were not happy. Change the rule or keep it as is? What do you think?

 

5. Choice of Boats

 

This item had been introduced by Bob. Pro skiers were taking their own boats to competitions and letting them be used for the tournament. Some of the Pro skiers had contracts with their boat sponsor which prohibited them skiing behind another boat in non-cash prize events. It was understood this practice was happening at between 10 – 20 tournaments per year. Those Some TC members had been unaware of this practice until this summer.

 

The spirit of the sport in the rules states all athletes should use the same tournament supplied equipment.

 

This is not something the TC wishes to see happen and certainly it is not happening outside of the PanAm Confederation.

 

After discussion it was agreed that a different boat could be used in each round of the competition, but not different boats within one round.

 

Rule 10.01 I already stated this rule, which must now be enforced.

 

 

[MattP]

Some of the Pro skiers had contracts with their boat sponsor which prohibited them skiing behind another boat in non-cash prize events.

I dont think this is exactly true, but most of them "can't" set a record behind another boat.

I agree with the enforcement of this rule and if they want to bring a different boat to an event they should have their sponsor pay to sanction another round if they want their skier to use their boat if the tournament organizer is not wanting to have another round ect..

[animal]

Does that mean if they are not skiing behind their sponsor's boat, the will sand bag the opportunity to set a new record? That seems a bit counter productive.

[auskier]

world records have been set behind other boats than the skiers sponsors in recent years. freddy's WR at the masters is the last I can think of.. was karina sponsored by nautique when she got hers?

 

This issue has obviously come to a head following wills 2 at 43. The swapping of boats makes it an issue for drivers and officials as well - aside from the spirit of competition aspect. My understanding is that nate and JT skied, then the boat crew changed boats to tow will. Expecting a driver to get in cold from a 200 to a TXI and tow a skier the calibre of will is a big ask. So will gets into 43, the first set behind the wheel and unfortunately the path isnt up to scratch and a world record denied. So a skier and driver lose out. I think it would be fair to assume the boat path would have been better with a 200, as the driver would be dialed in, and Will had an equal opportunity to get through 41 like the others before him.

 

im glad this has been stopped.

[The_MS]

It just sucks for the kids and slow speed skiers that ski the round behind the MC and then a sponsored pro gets to have the TXI for his turn in the round.

[MattP]

@auskier I do not think Karina was sponsored by any boat company when she got her record. She was on "team goode" but did not sign a contract with Nautique until 2011. As for Freddys jump that is a little different that slalom I would think. I am no jumper by any means, but controlling distance on each jump might be pretty hard. I don't think that "WR clause" is in all skiers contacts though possibly just the ones that have the "potential" to set a WR. I don't believe it say that you can't, but there is a WR bonus for sure.

[Wish]

What @MS said times a million. Daughter got first round behind 200. Set a PB and new she could do even better. 2nd 3rd got a MC. Worst scores. Well said @MS

[RichardDoane]

@wish - a good lesson for your daughter, she can ski just as well behind any boat, just needs to focus, and not think about the bad-mouthing she hears from the adults on the starting dock

[Wish]

When it happened, she's the one that brought up the differance. Kinda obvious to her with a 6 buoy diff. Trust me, all the talking up I did to unwind what she just learned made no differance. An even if it did, still sucks for the kids.

[RichardDoane]

I agree, and hope the 2014 MC solves this issue

[Jody_Seal]

The problem we have in our sport is that the ideology of the sport to some degree has changed. As for weekend class-c/REL tournaments the vast number of skiers are no longer skiing against each other but rather against their own personal score or trying to up their rankings score or for the elite trying to set records, our current set of rules that we operate by are based on man to man competition. However this newer ideology does not pertain to championship and money tournaments.

As a chief official it has been very hard to juggle these contract athletes and their tow boat requirements. lets be real as a tournament host we like having these high caliber athletes attending our tournaments and we try our best to fit their needs. Their are ways of fitting them in and juggling their preferred or required boat for them. Example: at our last tournament I had CP in the running order. In order to facilitate him and his boat needs I asked the whole open men division if they preferred to ski behind the TXI or the 200 in rd 1 at which point they responded it did not make any difference except for CP, had they request the TXI CP agreed to ski in the men 2 division which will allow for world record performance . In reality here in Florida and southern region we have been doing this as long as I can remember with contract open skiers, the problem we have now is that we have elite jumpers and slalom skiers that have now aged into the senior divisions yet still are on contracts with sponsor's and that makes it difficult to juggle them into L and R level events to facilitate them.

 

Now lets look at big picture!

The number of elite skiers required by contract (or claim to be) to utilize their sponsor boats in non prize tournaments are about a dozen here in the USA (maybe a few more but not much). For the sake of throwing a number out their. There are better than 4000 tournament skiers in the USA. Is it a good idea as whole to allow these dozen or so elite skiers to utilize the boat of their choice in " today's idea" of weekend competition? they pay the same amount of entry fees as the rest of the competitors, If so then why should not all the rest of the age groupings have a choice also?

I think either we change the way we conduct tournaments that allows for today's skier ideology and adjust with rule change's that will allow for all competitors to have the choice or the rule's stay as they are and the sponsored skiers then make adjustments either at the tournament or go back to their sponsor's to allow them to ski behind other products.

Remember we are only talking about a dozen effected in a membership of over 4000.

[The_MS]

I did not mean to start a MC bashing but I needed a good example that has happened in the past. I will ski behind them all. It would be great if we could all choose the boat we wanted to ski behind. When I was a promo guy for CC, I would love to have skied behind my own boat all 3 rounds. Here in Minn, all the kids know which boats have the best wakes and it is self taught. When Malibu finely came out with a good slow speed wake(TXI), it only took a few tourneys for the kids to figure it out.

[dave2ball]

Lots of good conversation about this. I do believe that everybody should ski behind the boat that drew the division. As for the Pro's will maybe all three MFG should place 10K each into a pot and who ever breaks the record gets the cash. Myself and my buddy have talked about this many times. If something like that occurs then the skier and the ski company get the press and the boat company also get the press. Looking back every boat company involved especially the big 3 have all had world records behind them. they are all world records tow boats.

or option # 2 run all divisions by boat. all Malibu skiers then MC skiers and finally CC skiers. You have to learn to ski behind all boats. If you don't like skiing behind a 200 will get over it because everybody else has the same wake driver and boat so focus and do your best. Next time you may get your favorite and others may feel at a disadvantage..