Bongo

This seems like an awesome resource for high school and collegiate skiers, .... if the skier is reasonably serious. I will talk to my daughter and her teammates this weekend when they ski their first qualifying tournament (GL/GP conference) to see what type of reception they have. That said, my observation is closer to what @jgills88 suggests. 1. Talk up collegiate water skiing. As a parent of a collegiate basketball player and a collegiate water skier, you can guess which of the two has had the better time in her sport. And which looks to be a lifelong sport. 2. Which B/G 4-5 might be interested enough in water skiing to continue in college? And assess who are potential scholarship skiers (not many in the Midwest), who will treat it as semi-serious (some) and who are mostly there for the good time. My #1 promotion at summer tournaments and practices is: You should consider a school with a water ski team. My #2 promotion is: Keep skiing. Which school they ski at is irrelevant to me. 3. How do (MW) collegiate teams convince those water skiers who were at the edge of the podium in AWSA B/G 4-5 Regionals to ski in college? I know of a couple skiers who attend college where they have a collegiate team and aren't skiing. My suspicion is either burnt out, too serious or "been there, done that". One of the skiers would be a CW with nearly a 100' jump, slalom pass at 34mph and decent trick run. Chit, she'd be podium at all tournaments, except potentially nationals. And be the talk of the tournament. 4. How do (MW) collegiate teams avoid a caste hierarchy? Not only who skis A-team / B-team, but who gets "good" water and "good" times during -vs- the left-overs. I'm thankful my daughter is a rated driver, decent'ish coach to less skilled skiers and avoids actual class volunteers to skiers who show up. I hear from others I know at hers and other colleges who expect only the good skiers will get the good times and water. Which alientates a lot of your skiers who didn't grow up competing. Love the idea to get the pipeline growing. Will see what I get for a reaction this weekend for remote coaching.

What @MichaelGoodman said above; get Sure-Path and do it yourself. We initially put our course in with individual anchors through the ice. Decent'ish. Ice-out moved a few. Surveying it a pain in the tail. Got Sure-Path. Now measuring the course, finding missing sub-buoys and even anchors (our deepest is only 12' deep) and adjusting and remeasuring is straightforward.

Mutual Admiration Society, here we come. You vote for me. I vote for you. We split the take.

@Keith_Menard, if you ever look closely at the Fosters sold here in the States you will see they are imported...from Canada. At least they were the last time I had one. I won more than a couple rounds of beer from buddies with the question: I'll bet you a Foster's you can't guess which country this beer was brewed in?

@JayShower : At Michigan, is the water ski team funded by the University? Or are you a sports club or independent student organization that is recognized as affiliated with Michigan, but not (financially) supported by the University? While an imperfect analogy, I think of the situation similar to a college founded by and directly affiliated with a deeply religious foundation. How does the college welcome LGBTQ+ without changing their foundational principles? One way might be to allow independent student organizations of like-minded LGBTQ+ students and supporters that are recognized by the school, but aren't endorsed by or receive any official support. [[Disclaimer: Again, this is an imperfect analogy. I'm not stating a specific position.]]

@BraceMaker : I might be a little disappointed after that game as well. Do the black & gold even have an offense? Punter is the MVP of the team this season...which isn't great. To the best of my knowledge, none of the other ~30 teams who met the same fate as the water ski team are actively fighting this. For two reasons (so far), 1. water ski team season starts right away as soon as fall semester starts (others can wait to see how this turns out), and 2. the water ski team does really pursue a team goal rather than individual performance goals. At least for my kid, the summer AWSA season is way different than collegiate skiing. Summer is for keeping fit. Collegiate season is when you coach up your teammates and individually peak for your team.

I'm familiar with the situation; @ETskier : Yes, NCWSA leadership was engaged in March 2022 when the first hearing with the University and team leadership was held, and NCWSA leadership has been consistently engaged since. Safety was represented, stats were presented and safety requirements for sanctioned practice and tournaments provided, including for how the team met those obligations. Liability insurance as a component of the sanctioning fee was also covered. Much later the team found out the bigger concern is that practice and tournaments are off-campus. @jjackkrash : An affiliation is (now) required by NCWSA rules. The path you describe is one the team pursued. A vote was held by NCWSA Board in August 2022 to grant a 1-year exemption on recognized direct affiliation while the team navigated the process to see if they could become an independent student organization (not yet a thing at IWS), but it failed to pass. This followed Iowa State's clarification that included “8. In no way can your club represent, nor give the appearance of representing, Iowa State University as a club team.” (Iowa State's bolding.) @skiinxs : Agree with the sentiment. But the final last attempt on clarifications and votes came about the day school started. So not much time to transfer. [Note: A driver you trained and tested is getting a lot of time behind the wheel at college tournaments, now that she cannot be a contestant on a recognized team.] Their student newspaper had an article yesterday about the club. A few inaccuracies on timing, but otherwise good and seemed supportive: IWS Daily - Water Ski Club Fights to Save Club

@swbca, I've the same year, model and engine (and color?; navy on white boat) as you. Here's what the PerfectPass cable you are replacing will look like: (two; one still broken) Easy to swap out. And as has been said, only from the brass nut to the servo motor is what you'll change. Or fix; pretty simple. Regarding the plugs on the exhaust manifolds, I had leaks form on a couple of my plugs. I used JB Weld two summers ago to get me to the end of the season. Once Autumn came, I took each exhaust manifold off, ground out each of the old sacrificial plugs (I did all, not only just the ones that leaked), and took the new plugs I had gotten from Bakes to a local welder who welded them in. Got everything back to the garage, used a rattle can to spray on the appropriate colored paint and installed them. If I recall correctly, I probably put $200 total into it and a few hours of labor. Straightforward. Bongo

Hey @Jim62, what @danny sanderford said. I have an '04 197 MCX with 5.7l TBI. Intermittent problems one day then stopped the next. Got a fuel pressure gauge and put it on that schrader valve and it read inconsistent values. If I recall correctly, read decent pressure when the fuel rails were initially primed, but low after that. I swapped out those three relays (RockAuto has them cheap; like $7 each). Quadrupled checked the connections. Then replaced the fuel pump itself with one from an auto parts store; brought in the old one and they looked through a few and found the right one. I think that was around $30. Fired right up and ran well after that. (Note: Airtex E2044 is the pump I installed. Now looks closer to $50.) Note: You'll need to disassemble the cage around the fuel pump after you take the assembly out of the tank. Not difficult by any means, but you'll certainly smell like gas for a day. I suspect I got most of the info I needed to do from the link that @Mastercrafter posted.

On my course, we also use the lobster / crab pot & tray solid buoys for our boat guides. I've found the above to be an easy and cheap way to tie those buoys to the anchor line. About $0.50 each online or large box store. I do use a thick nylon fender washer between the ball and buoy as I thread the bungee cord down the buoy so it doesn't get pulled through. Nothing metal to hit the boat if one gets slightly off-course.

@Deanoski Yes, we use Sure-Path to check course dimensions. Actually, that's our primary purpose. It was either that, or figure out how to hire or use surveying equipment. Sure-Path seemed a lot easier.

@bojans, I received my Sure-Path a few weeks ago and have been using it to set our slalom course. Only bought the Rover; no Base station. In my State (Missouri), I was able to register the device with the Department of Transportation, was assigned a userid/password, and gained free access to the state-wide RTK GPS network. So Yes, didn't need to buy a base station. In my case, no fee.

@BraceMaker, RE: shorter safety chains so tongue doesn't hit the pavement. This is also why I cross my safety chains in an X pattern under the tongue. Actually do it a couple times if I need to pick up a little slack. So the tongue will land on the chains. At least in theory. Also surprised when others don't. I've never had a boat trailer come off, but have had two different snowmobile trailers let loose. In each case, the nut on the bottom of the ball of backed itself off. Once a non-event, but the other was in two-way traffic. Was able to use the electric trailer brake to get the trailer to sit down and stop swaying as I slowly pulled over...

Their Web Site shows $63/set of 6 passes, or a 10 pack of passes for $590.

I am a big fan of FSR from Davis. Available at Amazon and occasionally on the shelf for some of the other usual spots. It is much more gentle on skin, lungs and metals than some of the above mentioned, but I found it to have it to be as or more effective. Wipe it on as a gel. Leave it sit for 5 minutes. Rinse it off. Each year toward the end of our boating season, I'll get up under the boat while it is on the boat lift and clean the running surface with this, since much easier than navigating around the trailer bunks. I once had a glob drop into my eye and it didn't hurt or cause much of a problem.