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.

@fu_man, are you looking for collegiate or AWSA or ....? Collegiate is easiest; it is basically the number of skiers you beat in each event multiplied by 10. You need to ski all three events to be counted as overall. Ties get slightly interesting in that all who tie split the pool of points for all the skiers who tied at that score. If it is a two man tournament between you and me, you beat me in slalom by 1/2 buoy - and you get 10 points more than me. Or you beat in slalom me by 3 passes - you get 10 points more than me. All of collegiate, including overall individual and team points are based on the number of skiers you beat. Think of this as a head-to-head contest. AWSA is more difficult; NOPS points are basically the difference your score is from standard deviation in the event for the gender | age group from the prior year. In this case and in the head-to-head example (assuming same age & gender), if you barely beat me in two of the events but I kick your a$$ in the third, I'll have a better overall score. Find the 'NOPS waterski calculator' via the Google machine to get the Excel file, and play around with the tunable numbers. Or look at the formulas they use to calculated each. Think of this as a ranking score challenge.

@swbca, unusually strong? Don't know that's the case, but it is awkward. I've got a 2004 197 TT like in your signature. When I've taken the doghouse out, I take the doghouse (engine cover), hinges and back center floor panel out as one unit. As follows: 1. Disconnect the lift springs. A flat screwdriver on the top and bottom pivot point can pull away the retaining metal clip. (Mine haven't had these in at least a decade, so from memory.) 2. Find and remove the four screws, two on each side, holding the back center floor panel to the stringers. You very likely cannot see them, because the carpet is matted. I've used a small magnet to find them. I'd expect the back two to be about 2" from the back fiberglass and the front two to be about 4" from the doghouse hinges, but that's a guess. Philips-head stainless steel wood screws, each about 2 1/2" long. 3. Lift the back of the doghouse up. Maybe even by putting some type of wedge (say short 4"x4" near the hinge and under the doghouse cover); something to pry the center floor panel up by using the whole structure as a lever. This will help if the carpet in the seams is a little bit swollen, as you reference. (Note: The center floor panel is aluminum frame with a styrofoam dampening buffer. So can't get too large.) 4. Get at least one and probably three of your buddies to help lift the doghouse and center floor panel out as one unit, get it over the freeboard, and down onto the ground. This is the one step where it is really awkward, since the hinge is freely moveable. In the few times I've done this, it has always been with my wife as my only assistant. First three steps above can be done without help. Last step is a challenge, so go slow on that one. Bongo

@Horton: "Don't worry guys I will never never never never get her a wakeboard." BS. BS. BS. If / when the next step that makes her happy after making big spay on her slalom ski and a break is a wakeboard, she'll be on a wakeboard. And should be. In my view, anything that improves skill at the end of a handle is a good skill to learn. @IGSki: "Totally agree on keeping it fun but you can push them to do more all at the same time. Just have to keep it balanced." Ditto. My basic rule when my kids were younger was that after they did something that involved skill, or skill development, I'd pull them on whatever they wanted. Tubes were fun for a bit, but they and their water friends, eventually became disinterested. And when new excited friends would come to the lake, my DDs would rather sit in the boat and cheer them on rather than partake. Now we've got a long surfboard pulled by the nose that 3 or 4 of them can get on at the same time and that's the best fun they ever have when messing around. What "team" can get to their knees at the same time, all stand up, ride the longest as a group....

I chased the same thing a few years ago on my 2004 MC 197. And I followed the instructions @RichardDoane mentions. After detaching the struts holding up the doghouse (if still there), get a couple of friends to help lift out the doghouse and rear center floor panel as one piece. (I may have had four ss screws holding the center floor panel to the stringers; use a magnet to find them in the matted carpet.) Move to one side or take it all of the way out of the boat. Doghouse & floor panel set is awkward and fairly heavy. If that doesn't yield information, inspect the top of the plastic fuel tank. To get at the top, open the back storage compartment wing doors. Pull up the bottom carpeted floor piece. It pulls up like an inverted 'V'. You'll need to finagle it on one end to get it out. Made of plastic, so it'll bend with some force.

@unksskis, I mostly agree. Near the end, I didn't hear her marketing approach as "taking power away from the boat manufactures" as much as I heard additionally welcoming other (non-slalom specific) sponsors into the sport. The 4th event cooler, the socks company, etc. @Luzz, I enjoy the heck out of your podcasts; this and Water Ski Bits. My 20 yo DD and I typically listen separately (due to schedules), then compare our impressions after we've each listened to each interview. Gives us a great opportunity to talk about something we each love, but from our different perspectives. While there's certainly recency bias, I thought these two parts were spectacular.

Love the basis: "My personal interest in open cell neoprene wetsuits comes from my participation in slalom water skiing. In Massachusetts, where I've lived my whole life, wetsuits are highly desired for the beginning and end of the water ski season." My DD wanted to pursue Materials Engineering so she can either design water ski composition for D3 or shoe soles for Nike. I suggested that may be a little too narrow, both major and specific application in sports. She's now midway through her sophomore year in Mechanical Engineering. Written a couple assignments with water skiing as her core experience; more for writing composition than engineering, but still experiential.

I'll double-down on what @Skoot1123 said. Depending upon skiing style, the A2 will be an awesome ski. I've got two college-aged daughters who generally share a slalom ski. Had an A2 that both skied well on during their teenage years. Younger daughter "needed" to upgrade as she got better, so moved to a D3 ARC. Almost immediately, she got another pass. (Likely more about ski set-up than ski itself and more training, but...). Older daughter had concentrated on her college basketball, but has now come back around to water skiing. She just couldn't make the D3 ARC as set up turn all that well. I suggested that she dust off the A2 and try it; that I recall her turns were better on that ski. She went back to the A2 and feels a lot more comfortable, it turns better and she smiles at the end of every set. Different styles. My younger on the D3 ARC skis strong and with her ankles, knees, waist and chest in a line at almost all times. My older, now on the A2, skis more like she's on a skateboard around the buoys, by moving her hips and there's more of a C; she does hit the wakes at a decent cut and slices through pretty well. She is very happy she is back with her A2.

My youngest daughter, now 20 yrs old, has been there a couple times for a week at a time. A few times I rode in the boat. Cory is a great guy. Funny. Quick witted. A bit more subdued than loud. Seen everything on water. Has the psychology down as much as the technical skills. And I'd say for her skill, was equally good at slalom (consistent 28' off) as he was with trick (~2,000 pts). The drivers are very observant. So while not shouting instructions, they mumbled under their breath their observations to the coach (Cory) which seemed spot on. And while I was disappointed initially when she got a coach other than Cory, each turned out to be great. With a specific shout-out to Dane Mechler.

I endorse what @jayski said about Rodeo. Rodeo mixed with an acquatic friendly surfactant was very effective in our lake. Informally recommended by a wildlife biologist working for a neighboring state. We had lotus plants taking over our lake. They have a similar root system as cattails. I spent the last half of one summer using a pump sprayer on their big leaves with Rodeo over ~4 cycles, each about 3 weeks apart. Then ~3 treatments smaller the next spring. The last couple years, we have been mostly lotus weed free; mixed up a small batch and sprayed a handful of plants around mid-summer just so there wouldn't be an outbreak. Similar lake a mile away, and they are almost better off portaging their canoe across rather than trying to paddle through the lotus weeds. Now, if only I could get the cattails to grow where I want without too much effort...

I've done a few transactions using ski-it-again and have never been burned. It is largely an obscure and I don't feel a scam-worthy destination. I have used a few mental precautions. First, does the deal seem to be a good deal but not an exceptionally great deal. Second, when I asked questions including about the seller's background, did the answers seem legit. Including, a little chit-chat about where you ski / they ski, whether they are out, why selling, etc. Ideally looking for some contact information that matched; name, email, location, area code, etc. All probably intuitively obvious. Nothing special. I've also not bought anything real expensive except where the final transaction was in-person; nothing more than a couple hundred dollars besides what I've done in person. Once bought a ski ramp, but that entailed an in-person meet-up to see the jump, make the payment and hook it up to my '74 Ford F-150. (Ok, made arrangements for transportation.) Bongo