Lurdan

YouTube recently changed their Community Guidelines and a lot of channels got wrongfully taken down or demonetized. Unfortunately if the channel doesn't put in a request to be looked into their videos will stay down

I recently bought a 2018 GT on SIA and it looks like the ski was dropped pretty hard on its tail in the shipping process or before it was sent delaminating the sidewall and chipping some of the topsheet off of the tail. Is there anything I can do about this? Accidentally posted this into the wrong subcategory. oops.

@adamhcaldwell Oh! you're putting more pressure on the front of the ski so the tail can more freely smear to point the ski back to the wakes?? Sorry for basically repeating what you say back to you I just want to be sure I fully understand.

@adamhcaldwell do you mind elaborating on the fourth paragraph? I understand yawing more tip while riding flat will turn the ski. You're engaging more rocker against the flow of water, diverting your direction of travel. But it doesn't when the ski is on a knife edge, like rounding a buoy? For instance if the water is breaking behind your front foot and you yaw more tip so the water breaks ahead of your front foot would it not turn the ski in a tighter arc because you are engaging more surface area ahead of that 3 dimensional sweet spot? Along the same lines with pitch. Pitch alone will not turn a ski when riding flat but how does pitching forward on your ski when on your turning edge? I guess my lack of insight with pitching on a turning edge stems from the fact that pitching on an edge, both cutting and turning is completely foreign to me. I can't really visualize the body mechanics of pitching forward on an edge, it just doesn't compute with me.

@ski_dad oh, no! I used to ski on a 2015 radar senate as a college student cost was a big factor and it was cheapest. I just picked up a 2018 67" Connelly GT I was just curious if the change from 69 to 67 would be a really stark change. I have a feeling that the workload will be more intense as the senates tend to ride high in the water, plus the ski is long so it rode even higher. I just want to know as much as I can so I posted the question!

@adamhcaldwell If I understand you properly approaching the ball you have to yaw enough tip in the water to engage enough rocker at the critical moment of the turn to get the ski pointed across the lake. A long ski will obviously resist this attempt to yaw, but it can be overcome by some degree with setup, say having a longer leading edge on the fin? I had to read it through a few times to feel like I understand and I want to be sure I have it correct. And by lift do you mean a ski that is at an angle relative to the flow of water will want to lift out of the water but the fin stops it from shooting "horizontally" out of the water?

Are there significant drawbacks to someone skiing on a 69" ski when they should be on a 66-67 and vice versa?

@bishop8950 I totally understand what you meant! I've recently learned that the cut should be progressive and that the maximum amount of load on your body and max angle of the ski should be at the first wake. I know I was holding the most amount of load about 10' early to the wake and it would pull me out of my stack, slowing me down and making me late and narrow to every bouy. Thanks for taking the time!

@adamhcaldwell I completely see where you are coming from, and the feedback is very appreciated! But I'm coming from a place of no experience. I only seriously started course skiing a few summers ago and my basic skiing strategy was to throw my weight around on the ski and pray I make buoys. I was fortunate enough to be able to cut line off of the rope from pure athleticism but I have no understanding of waterski dynamics and the body mechanics involved in the sport. I guess I would attribute it to giving a car to a kid who hasn't taken a drivers-ed course. Sure they can probably get around but nothing will be smooth and they wouldn't have the knowledge to properly utilize the equipment, and I wholeheartedly believe I can learn more from asking people and trying to implement their tips rather than guessing without having a base of knowledge. I purchased fin whispering and am taking extensive notes on the book because I do want to be able to set my own ski up, and the book is excellent at going over the dynamics of a ski travelling through a course but I'm quite lost on the body mechanics of everything. Even if 90% of the advice in this thread does nothing for me the 10% that does is definitely worth a few hard falls to learn.

@Horton by constrained upper body movement do you mean limiting your upper body movement as much as possible or are you saying that your upper body is stiff and that you want to be more fluid?

Thanks @drewski32 , this gives a fresh perspective from someone much better than me.

I've been interested lately on taking detailed notes on what other skiers focus on while cutting towards the first wake as well as approaching the turn off of the second wake. BallOfSpray has an insane amount of ski level diversity and getting feedback from people at different levels on what they currently focus on in the slalom course can be a great way for me and others to learn something we didn't know previously as well as allow veterans to critique a potentially misguided thought process of someone who may be focusing their efforts into a dead end. To give a perspective between skill and focus please include your PB in your answer.