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eleeski

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eleeski last won the day on March 2

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  • Preferred boat
    MC or 79 American Skier
  • Home Ski Site
    The Shrimp Farm or Ski Mecca
  • Real Name
    Eric Lee
  • Ski
    Leeski
  • State
    CA

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  1. eleeski

    MC mods

    The Prostar 197 was a victim of a PR campaign against its slalom wake - despite many phenomenal slalom performances and development of slalom skiers behind the boat. It was also the trick boat of choice. I was trying hard to “improve” the slalom wake and preserve the hull for tricks. Inspired by the Malibu wedge I tried another crazy experiment. See attached photo. No complaints about the rust as it’s been sitting in the mud for several years. The welds were always ugly but they held together. This mod massively improved the slow speed wake. It was a plate set deeper in the water below the back of the hull. The idea was to lift the back of the boat and flatten the wake. It did that! Except at 34 or 36mph it lifted the rooster tail right into the skier’s path - at those speeds it was unskiable. By this time, Mastercraft was developing the new hull so designing and building the needed mechanism to easily add or remove this tab (plate or wedge) was probably going to be in vain. So this mod failed. Eric
  2. eleeski

    MC mods

    Read @Broussard ‘s link. A new prop was part of the project. The boat has a LOT of use (abuse?) since the experiment. Eric
  3. It’s called the “canoe paddle “. And it rocks! Eric
  4. eleeski

    MC mods

    The hole allows air to be sucked into the prop. This affects the prop wash and rooster tail. Offshore boat racers use the surface piercing Arneson drive to aerate the prop and improve the efficiency and speed. This was the inspiration for the mod. I used the boat for a few years with the mod. I can’t remember what was wrong with the front hole (it’s plugged) but the back hole noticeably softened the slalom wake. So I kept it in service. When I got my new boat, we gave the boat to the UCLA ski team to use. They used it for a few years - with the bubbler. I’m not sure what happened to the prop but the engine died (cracked block from freezing). Waiting for the time and money to convert it to electric. Will probably leave the bubbler in. Eric
  5. eleeski

    MC mods

    The bubbler. It worked well to soften the slalom wake.
  6. I'll get pictures. I was surprised how well it worked. And the PP indicated better efficiency. Didn't work well enough to keep MC from changing the hull (and obsoleting one of the best trick wakes). Sometimes tinkering does work. Eric
  7. Absolutely real. 2004 MC Prostar with a wake that Nautique skiers complained about. I drilled a hole near the prop with a tube extending above the waterline. Softened up the propwash noticeably. The picky skiers loved it. The boat would cavitate a little on high power starts but the skier didn't notice. PP Classic mode showed an improvement in efficiency (faster times with the "Bubbler" open vs capped). We ran it for a few years with the Bubbler. I'll get a picture next time I get to the lake. The holes in the ski were real too - they didn't work so no pictures of skis. Eric
  8. Since I have infinite Pandas, I am allowed to drill holes. The hole drilled in the back of my slalom ski just put up an annoying stream of spray, the ones in the front did nothing and there wasn't enough room for holes in the binding area. I don't put holes in my ski now. The hole I drilled in the bottom of the boat was quite successful at softening the slalom wake of the old Mastercraft but it sucked air into the propwash - so a different effect. Eric
  9. My wife had ACL surgery after a snow ski fluke injury. Cadaver tendon. After 1 year she was 100% (waterskiing including toe tricks on the repaired toe leg, tennis and bump snow skiing). Still going strong. Don't be afraid of the surgery. And do the PT. Eric
  10. UCLA is an incredibly overachieving team. There is zero official support (the Quidditch team gets more money from the school than the waterski team). Their practice site is well over an hour away from school (if the LA traffic isn't bad - but LA traffic is always bad). Their primary lake has been dry for years. Their boat is very old and high hours (it did get used enough to get high hours - and qualify teams for Nationals). UCLA is one of the most difficult schools to get into with a 9% acceptance rate - worse than any other public university - so the talented skiers at UCLA are a tiny fraction of the waterski community. Add the rigors of a high pressure academic load and it's a wonder they learn and perform as well as they do. Most of the team has never competed before college - yet develop and achieve at a high level during and after school. The UCLA team is a worthy and valuable part of the waterski world. Eric
  11. I'll disagree with the thought that "low end" trick values are logical. Unless you are trying to discourage normal progressions of trick learnng. Too many developing skiers ignore the basics and just do flips. Especially in college skiing (collegiate skiing is the growth sector of our sport). Adjusting the points (up) for the basics (and toes) will encourage a more comprehensive skill set. A good thing for the sport. While I'm not a fan of 2 ski tricks (because they hurt!), they are massively underrated relative to their technical difficulty. So we ARE willing to dither values. Trick point values are very subjective and can feel arbitrary. I work on the high value tricks to optimize my run. Nah, I go for the flash. The WO with a grab at Nationals was entertaining. But it did lead me to a unique WLO variant that helped my score. Above all, adjust the point values and tricks to keep the fun in the sport. Eric
  12. Cutting up skis to modify them to your tastes is fun! Maybe expensive and a bit risky but you will learn a lot. Both about ski design and making your skills improve. Do consider modifications to the top edge. Just to make your experiment more complex, edges can be quite different from front to back to optimize performance. FWIW, I build and modify my own skis. Have fun! Eric
  13. What do we want to see? Raise the points for those tricks. Difficulty is relative and fluid and it is hard to make realistic and durable assessments of which tricks are more difficult than others. I guess tyhe point values suggest that we want to see flips - which are honestly pretty cool. But the advanced toes are pretty impressive as well - maybe we need to raise toe points to make sure that we get to see those cool tricks. At the lower levels, raising toe values will assure that people try toes. I'm seeing too many people do two passes of hands and ignore the toes. Only old people do line tricks. Up the points and get the kids trying line tricks. They are actually fun to perform and look cool. To make it fun, add points for things like grabs and double wake tricks. This could especially help beginners. 2000 points for a toe flip! Eric
  14. No doubt, these are awesome tricks. The skills required are phenomonal. They look cool as well. The reverse front flip to front (RFFLF) is a unique and a spectacular trick. The ski line flips look exactly like the flip that doesn't (?) go over the rope. The ski on both tricks is way over the rope. It's a pretty technical difference to land in front of vs behind the handle but not visually obvious. I've seen a couple in the wild and judged a few but have not been able to recognize the difference. While the judging might be a problem, I worry a bit about the spectator appeal. If a senior judge has a hard time seeing differences with a couple video looks, how can a spectator on shore get a good feel for the competitive differences? Of course, trick judging is far from transparent so maybe it's just part of the sport. I hope I don't screw a skier out of the points because I'm so impressed by any full twisting or 540 flip that I miss the ski line part. Congratulations to those skiers in the video! Eric
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