Jared

Saw this Eric Lindros on a hockey card site. https://img.comc.com/i/Hockey/1992-93/Pinnacle---Base/236/Eric-Lindros.jpg?id=7fde1e20-aaa2-48cb-bd78-8b74e7e53413&size=original&side=back

I've suspected core strength is a big separator, between guys getting down to purple lines and the rest of us. As Joel's eating up the slack, he's using his core to drive the bottom of the ski down into the water. I think he is transferring so much energy to the ski in spite of the slack For me in a similar situation, I would keep my ski down course a bit and burn width/time to lessen the hit, or I would tail out using my body weight instead of my core strength to take the hit but giving away ski surface area that can generate speed, or I would buckle at the waist giving all that energy back to the boat.

No our red balls are at 37.5'/11.5M, it's our yellow balls at ~30' (1 pvc pole short of the tournament balls). We didn't really use them for ~10 years, but have some guys getting older who have started using them again, and a bunch of 3rd generation kids at our lake getting to ~10 years old that will hopefully be using them soon. @lpskier, We're on a big lake and I've ran the yellows a couple of times when the lake is a little too rough to push things. It's probably not good for form, but it's kind of fun to run down to the end of the rope. I'm certainly not going to be getting the end of the rope on the red balls anytime soon.

what is typical for a recreation course width? We have ours at the start of the last pipe, I think ~30' wide,

Certainly worth it for us. We have a group of 5 families that have kept a floating course on a big public lake since 1997. The Lake is 17 KM log, a few hundred boats on the water during summer weekends. We have a bay at the end of the lake with a steep hill to the west and fishermen who clog up the entrance of the bay. Surfboats are definitely making it harder to ski, we have to get out earlier and earlier, and even dusk seems be lost to the surf wakes, where 15 years ago it was just us and the fishermen after dinner. Course goes in mid May, and comes out Mid Sept. We scrub everything, poles, balls, bungies, cable with steel wool as it comes out of the water. In 25 years we've had to replace,1 pole section, 1 mainline, 4 full sets of balls, 8 full sets of bungies, and we lose about 2 balls additional balls every year (we usually just use our old faded balls to replace them). 1 hour to put the course in, with 3 people in 1 boat.1 hour to take it out, with 6 people in two boatsand I spend ~2 hours every year before putting it in making sure all of the clips, bungies.... are good before putting it in. I think if you want to keep it going, you need buddies who are going to work with you to help you take care of it. It's probably going costs us $200 year.

I was running 28@36 about 10 year ago, skiing 3-4 days / week, 4-5 months / year. Had kids, my course is 2 hours out of town, dropped to averaging 1 ski day/week 3-4 month/year. got stuck around 4 ball at 22 off almost every pass, only getting 10-15 days / year in the course wasn't enough. Last year told the wife and kids that I am probably close to slowing down to 34, and I'd like to see how far I can make it before I do. So we went harder, I think I got about 40-45 days in the course, probably averaged 3 days/week. by July ran 28 off almost every set, by august made it through 32. We've had a pretty brutal spring in Alberta so far (it snowed again on Monday night this week), so I haven't really gotten going yet. I was planning to go hard again this year, hoping to get through 32 consistently and make some progress on 35.

Left Write, Eat, Ski, Boarding Right Hockey, Batting, Bowling, Throwing any ball really Darts/Rackets I'm Ambi, but really I'm just bad with both hands

We're on a public lake, and don't have a turn island so we use ~2200'. Run out a little further before dropping, so that we can pull out straight towards the course, the boat only turns around at an idle. I've skied a private lake (really a pond) as short as 1600' where you have to pullout perpendicular to the course and turn sharp as soon as you are out of the water.

I'm also thinking about 2 things. 1) Getting high enough up on the boat every turn that I'm not being pulled down course at the top of my turn. It's something I do inconsistently, which makes some turns and some passes feel rushed, while the next set the same turns, same passes can feel easy. 2) keeping my core very tight and still in my pull. I don't think I'm too bad at this, but it's something I want to be thinking about doing really well in practice. I think being really consistently strong there will help me approach every turn with the same speed.

I skied on a 62" Connelly Attack from ~11yo to 13 or 14, then jumped to a 67" when I hit my growth spurt. I don't have a strong opinion, but I have a 9 year old and 7 year old. I'm hoping I can get them both into single starts within the next two years. I was probably planning on putting them on the same 62" for 1 year. Then jumping them to a newer / lighter weight ski, I think my dad has a 66" S1 in his garage, that I might be able to co-opt for pre-teens. My thoughts are the first season or two are mostly about learning how to stand on the ski, so that it's touching the water as much as possible while you move around. And for the most part you can get away with a pretty big size range as long as you are teaching that.

Basically what I have come up with in thinking about cold water, it always feels faster to me. Your reaction time is slower, making it feel like things are happening faster. The water returns less energy to your ski making you cross more slowly, possibly making it feel slow to some? Crossing slower leaves you later for turns, shortening the time you have to do everything you need to do in a turn, making it feel rushed and faster. You are more likely to run out of speed before turning in, which should make it feel slower, but really it makes the boat start to pull you when you should be coasting without line tension, making it feel faster because you are getting pulled down course early when you aren't ready for it.

Surfing obviously you don't effect the speed of the boat at all, you don't have any way of putting load onto the boat. But consistent speed/steering can have a big impact on performance, by changing the shape/size of the wave, especially if you are not behind a $150K+ boat. I probably only surf 2-3 times /year, but do it behind the a response loaded with 8 people, and you need the driver to steer the wave into you a little bit.

I did come up with a question for Chris, I think on the worlds Youtube feed, I heard Tony say that Thomas Degasperi is on an asymmetrical ski, maybe it was someone else? I get why someone would want the skis to corner differently on each side, but as a product designer do you have an opinion about what that will do to feel or rhythm, is there a future for selling left or right foot specific skis that preform differently offside vs onside? What would you be looking for that's different on each side?

Thanks for the podcast. I think I looked about 4 or 5 years ago and didn't find much for waterskiers. Stumbled over SprayMakers in mid July this year, and binged the whole back catalogue a little too fast to take everything in. I'm going to revisit a few of the episodes in the spring for sure. But for now I can't really remember what you haven't covered about skiing, therefore my questions aren't really about skiing (for now). Anything you can share from your offseason plans? I know both of you have said you like to get your heads out of the sport for a month or two. Have you guys considered running your podcast through an ad service? I don't think I have heard ads attached your episodes, compared to some of the podcasts I listen to you certainly deserve to get paid for what you are putting out there. Not sure how others feel, but your giving up a lot of time almost exclusively for our benefit, and I really don't mind when people what to get paid for it. I've never really understood the complaining about ads. Not a question, but a bit of positive feedback. My skiing came a long way this year. I had skied 0@32 years ago (the 3 or 4 times I had ran 28, I was narrow on ball 1 at '32), and I've mostly meandered at 22off for the past decade. This year I ran '28 most weekends, and 1@35 a couple of times. Aside from better preparing myself mentally for the season and knowing I wanted to put the time in to get past 22 consistently, your advice to stop trying to get my hands low and instead try to get my body higher up above the handle seemed to be a real turning point for me, almost instantly I was gliding better into my turns and coming out of them more smoothly, I think the small change in position has me generating speed in a shorter distance and maintaining the speed better afterwards.

I don't understand the don't have to go through the standard rope lengths argument. Most of these guys skipped 3 of the standard rope lenghts in the same tournament, as the sport progresses we'll start to see people starting at '35 off. He ran 2 full passes, in any tournament that would exempt him from needing to post all of the earlier scores. In terms of tournament scores post it however you want 2@41 + a 1st place in runoff, that's fine in terms of tournament ceding that is where he landed, that's the way the show which place he landed in. If you were to start up a waterskidb website with all of all the scores all the skiers have posted, I'd think you'd have an option to sort the skiers by all time personal bests, and Dane's should show that he has ran 41.