eleeski

I struggled with my first hardshells on a slalom ski. Starts, performance, buoy count - everything but comfort. So I abandoned the hardshell idea (for slalom). I demoed a ski with Fogman hardshells and loved it. The boots had been ground so there was easy fore aft movement. So I tried my slalom hardshells again with no pins and some grinding to allow more forward movement and loved the hardshells after that. Look carefully at your shells to see whether you can adjust or modify them to allow more forward flex. For the rear shell, a lot of people have removed the top cuff completely and there are factory offerings like that. On another note, after hip surgery, I could barely get up. I was profoundly weak for a surprisingly long time. After an injury, you lose strength. Once you recover, too often you dial back the physical therapy. It takes a long time to rebuild strength. Get back with a physical therapist and follow the rehab program religiously. Getting up is actually very difficult and demanding of strength. Eric

Much has changed in the tricking world in 20 years. Ski design, materials, bindings, the non stretch ropes, the boats we ski behind, the tricks we do, the coaching - almost everything. The new equipment IS better. Go all in with a new ski and hardshell. Regarding size, 43" is certainly not too big for you. I'm lighter than you and ski a 45" ski FWIW. Hardshell boots allow more edge control and more fore aft control. This allows you to manage a bigger ski and faster speeds. Plus they are comfortable for the hour long sets tricking needs. And they have reasonably safe release characteristics (note that if you are doing flips you might not want any release). Also note that trickers often prefer boots that are stiffer than a slalom hardshell. You may need a different shell than your slalom setup. The speed is determined by the tricks you want to do and the boat you will ski behind in a tournament. Flips like the harder wakes that more speed offers (don't go too much faster than 20mph as the trick course will only accommodate 23mph). The table is variable with speed and boat (with the ballast figured out). The wakes of the current boats you will get in a tournament seem better at slightly higher speeds. The ski designs reflect this and work well at the higher speeds. Any speed adjustments need a corresponding rope length adjustment (usually longer for faster speeds). Note that different boats call for different rope lengths - make sure you get time behind the tournament boat before the tournament! All the new skis ski well. Demo as many as you can and pick the one you like best. Eric

Very cool Marcus! I missed you at Palisades yesterday but I did get a glimpse of your latest project. I saw Scott Gaffney riding Shane McConkey's Stinger jump skis with alpine bindings in the powder. Waterski crossover to other sports - great fun! Eric

Note that this ski predates my use of boron fibers so it won’t hold up for flips. Eric

Zippy, are you giving up tricking? Make sure the ski goes to a good home and creates a top skier! Eric

Here are the technical reasons for new equipment: Ski dimension rules changed from prehistoric times. Modern skis can be wider. So they have less drag and catch edges less. They are also more stable. Lots of positives for modern equipment. Wider skis might be harder to edge to attack the wake. Edging can be engineered into the ski but that kind of defeats the advantage of the width - it’s a balance of characteristics (which is why I don’t like the first Radars - they edged wonderfully for the experts but were too catchy for developing skiers. They changed the design to a more beginner friendly feel and now get my enthusiastic recommendation.). Instead of messing with the ski design, hardshell bindings allow a skier to edge much more effectively. Hardshells on a trick ski are totally different from a slalom setup - so don’t let your slalom experience prejudice a trick choice. Wiley bindings might support and edge as well and be more durable and cheaper but they are heavier, harder to release and way less comfortable than hardshells. There’s a reason almost all the skiers at Nationals are using hardshells. The bindings @RT1 referenced are reasonable beginner bindings. SDSU and UCLA use them for the team trick skis and develop lots of quality skiers. With proper bungee tension they are fairly safe, comfortable and fit well. Eventually you’ll need a hardshell but this is a decent slalom binding as well. Tricking is a lot more fun with good equipment - and safer. Eric

Forget all this nonsense. Get her a modern ski (D3 Custom X, Quantum, new Radar or KD) with a hardshell. These skis are available used or on sale (do be careful, the early Radars catch edges so don’t cheap out too much). Old rubber boots have some dangerous properties for tricking. Her health is more important than saving a couple bucks (and cheaper in the long run). Tricking is fun - if you aren’t taking painful falls. The modern equipment really is better. And a better deal. Eric

Big project! Absolutely worthy. Enjoy the build. Are you going to add ZO? Some things did improve with time. Old boats with ZO are magic. Do you have a link to the RCB build? Eric

@BKistler I’m hoping to see you and @Horton in Spain! Eric

You still are a tricker. I believe you have qualified for Master’s Men tricks. A couple standup L tournament performances and you probably could qualify for Senior Worlds in trick. Maybe you need me to coach you. Enjoy tricking! Eric

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

Read @Broussard ‘s link. A new prop was part of the project. The boat has a LOT of use (abuse?) since the experiment. Eric

It’s called the “canoe paddle “. And it rocks! Eric

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

The bubbler. It worked well to soften the slalom wake.

Extreme edge modification.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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