DW

As for Ferrari - you gotta support that F1 team and your $50M/yr driver somehow and if all those tifosi are willing, well why not. It's a bummer that pro slalom doesn't have the following of F1 or perhaps 1 billion people cheering for the guy (Zhoe) that finished 14th in the last race.

Why would or should either the boat manufacturers, dealers or individuals reduce their price when the market is willing to pay? Looking at market trends over the decades in a general sense, our purchases today are bloated versions of what we or our parents purchased decades ago - ie: compare the average size of a home, the amenities in the vehicles we drive, the cool stuff we get to ride behind the boat, etc. There is a component of inflation & product cost that is totally buyer driven not supplier pushed.

If one talks major sport Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari, although sadly pro skiing just slightly misses justifying a $50 million / year contract.

Didn’t Aussie Malibu announce a waterski OZ support thru 2030 for the TXI?

Another effective noise abatement tool is the Silent Rider muffler. The 2 MC's on our lake with them are noticeably quieter than the inline twins.

@jpwhit - if you jumped on a plane today, you could also catch the MotoGP race at COTA, probably one of the best motorsports events to soak up:-) Friends, Texas BBQ, racing and skiing, what else do you need.

Why stop there when you could go for an even 1000: https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2021/oct/1020-crate.html

No need for a list, just get this one:-)

Kudos to Malibu (and any mfg.) that puts in the effort & $ to improve a slalom tug, it’s such a small market we should be thankful for this. Perhaps down under & Europe there is still a decent ski market particularly with much higher fuel costs, and more interested in the physically demanding challenge of slalom v surf.

Great ambassador for the sport period. Congrats.

https://apnews.com/article/olympics-safesport-abuse-ted-stevens-act-cb4398af5c3f50e94ce35fb3d21509bd

Here is the product label: https://www.sepro.com/documents/Sonar-H4C_Label.pdf

@eleeski - In some corners of this site you have been missed 😆. Horton may not agree & the newbies have no idea why but the out of the box discussions were always fun, insightful, maybe even frightening but never boring.

Congratulations on your purchase. Not specific to the model and generic to all ski boats, a key weak point can be the raw water impeller which is a maintenance item. There are some good maintenance video's available, SKIDIM (Discount Inboard Marine) is a good source for them.

@Nautique99 - I relate it more to AA sessions.

Mine is usually "I got this" shortly followed by "s**t" at ball 5 or 6.

Be careful what you ask for, it sounds great on the surface - but - please give a clear definition of what exactly ‘wake sport mode’ means. I could see it stretching from nebulous with no enforcement to clamping down on the whole swath of water sports.

When Sr. divisions / separate events are created one would not expect that most or best (Regina) competitors on the planet would be eligible. Perhaps just indicates slalom is a sport where age is not the same delineator as other sports. That said, quite the list of excellent skiers.

As a radius or bent handle skier, one of my curiosities would be the reverse angle effect with the one hand handle hold on elbow pain (my reason for the bent handle). On the plus side, effect is not while in loaded condition so perhaps moot.

Gives new meaning to OTF:-)

That little technical detail that ZO is required by AWSA is a cost driver for the tourney skier. A quick scan of tournament ski boats in use by the population of slalom skiers may easily still lean to more boats with PP speed control than ZO. Not saying the population of skiers that compete in tournaments, just the entire population of ski boats. I see a lot of PP equipped ski boats on lifts (ie; not new ones). As I read the rule - ... any previously approved boat equipped with ZO. Does that mean any converted boat is legal or is it OEM equipped only? Wording leaves a lot of leeway. When the sport needs to scrounge for boats, the rules reverse the trend of using 'new' promo boats and cast a wider umbrella maybe more restrictions will fall by the wayside going forward, time will tell. This is just an observation, nothing more.

And always mark your settings so you can go back to what worked or a starting baseline. Pencil scribe on fin & ski works well, along with keeping good records.

@buechsr - that would depend on their mission. A few options could be: continue along the current course, expand a marketing program to increase visibility to attract additional membership, look at the key focus of the organization and see if it is still appealing (ie: tournament format, etc). My point was simply that the comment regarding the state of the sport comes from a manufacturer and not just passionate participants.

Rob Corum’s comments are much more telling than the news that Malibu is keeping the ability to build the TXI. I hope the AWSA is reading and absorbing the release. What it says about the sport would hopefully generate action from the organizing body.

The high cost argument as the low volume reason carries a very significant flaw - Wake / surf boats. Acquisition, operating, storage, towing cost are multiples higher than the costs of a new ski boat. Add that the actual participation time (running under load per participant) skews the cost even more Its all about participant interest or lack thereof (sadly). On my lake, there used to be several ski boats, not so much today. The wake / slalom boat market ratios would be interesting to compare across continents / country's.