smanski

That was the coolest waterski video I have ever seen. Great job.

It is ridiculous to zero them for a miss on the late side or a no continuation on the early exit. I see that happen here and there when someone overshoots on the pullout or lean locks out of 6. I saw a B3 skier miss the entry gates on the late side at 28 off and still run the pass. None of the judges zeroed his gates. I am a proponent of starting to the left of the 55s and ending to the right of the 55s and scrapping the entry and exit gates.

The 15 is noticeably quieter inside than the 14.

Cobweb brush from Home Depot. More bristles (denser) would be better.

I went through 3 bad pucks on my 2015 and finally the 4th was good. It was a horrific pull with the bad pucks.

I was playing around with the Google Maps and noticed you could see the buoys on our lake. For the heck of it, I used their measurement tool to measure turn buoy to turn buoy. To my surprise, the measurement was 47.05m, which is well within the range of 46.776m and 47.246m. I made a few more measurements and all were within tolerance. It seems you could do a very accurate survey with photos from a drone cam. Has anyone tried it?

In the video, he missed the gates on his 43 off pass. That would be a bummer to get your gates pulled on a record setting pass. He definitely makes you want to try the ski.

While watching the video, I figured out her secret. You use a ski that matches your height. Does anyone have a spare 72" slalom ski?

For the Memphis area tournaments, when you ski at Summers Lake, you are skiing in the Southcentral Region. Hilliard's (Crews) lake is in TN and is in the Southern Region, but Summers Lake is across the state line in MS. We have 2 tournaments before Regionals (late May and late June) and 1 after Nationals at the end of August. Roebuck can give you the exact dates. Cedar Ridge (Jackson, MS) also runs class C tournaments along with most of their record tournaments.

It is nice to see some meaningful comments, positive or negative, rather than just "Shut up and go away".

....or imagining if we quit belly aching about the gates.

I can't wait to see the comments about imagining if we didn't have turn buoys or didn't have to go around them or moved them in 10 feet.

Imagine if the slalom course entrance rules had been written differently and the gates were positioned in a way to allow a much broader choice of paths to 1 ball. Shortline skiers would be taking a path very close to the one they do now, but longer line skiers would typically be crossing the centerline earlier than the they do now with the current gates. Now imagine the arguments you would hear if we tried to implement the current gates. Everyone would be screaming that different line lengths take a different path to ball 1 and it is ludicrous to implement a system that would force everyone to cross at pretty much the same point. I believe nearly 100% of the skiers would argue against implementing our current entrance gate system because it is truly ludicrous.

Let's add gates for jump. In jump, no matter what boat speed or how many cuts, put a set of gate balls at some point before the jump and force everyone to go between them. Who cares if it changes the path the jumper would naturally take, make him go between those freaking buoys. If he is one inch off center to the wrong side and jumps 200+, who cares. It doesn't count because he missed some arbitrary buoy by one inch. Maybe add some exit gates also. Who cares if he rides it out. If he doesn't pass through the exit gates his 200+ jump counts as a big fat zero.

If I have my numbers correct, an 8 buoy course already has this buoy. All that would be required would be to replace the right side yellow boat guide buoy with a red or just paint that sucker.

It is amazing how much more effort goes into judging the gate than the turn buoys. Make the skier pass to the left of the 55s and go whatever direction he wants after that. Disappearing gates at 41 would no longer be a problem.

I shore judged for a couple of rounds this past weekend and couldn't help thinking how stupid it was that I was positioned at one end of the course to focus on the gates, but really couldn't see 4, 5 or 6. Forget the entrance gates and put me in the middle of the course so I can judge 6 buoys instead of the entrance gate plus 1, 2 and 3.

I just saw Blue Bayou on sale at Tractor Supply for $30 a gallon. It is typically $40.

I love the gate article.

Left or Right?

I am all for narrow "0" ball concept. The gates have been driving me crazy for years. There's nothing worse than skiing a pass in a tournament, worrying the whole time that you may have hopped the gate ball.

I am 1 of the 4 with ankle injuries mentioned by Double7s. Mine happened this weekend at our state tournament. Standard buoys. Reflex front with hardshell on back that lets the foot come out. The ski tip caught the ball and the ski lost its grip on the water. When it caught again, there went the front ankle. Back ankle is fine. Both feet released, but I guess there was enough force on the front ankle to do some damage before the release gave way. I tested the release setting on dry ground by throwing my weight forward and in the water by grabbing the tip. I was actually more worried about an early release after my testing. I believe the way the ski catches after that type of buoy hit actually puts more of the force on the back of the ski and is trying to get the toes to come out rather than the heel, plus trying to roll the binders off your feet to the side. Basically, more like you are falling out the back and to the side rather than going out the front. The Reflex release takes upward heel pressure to release normally and I am guessing a lot more if the pressure is coming from a side rotation. In my humble opinion, Bubble Buoys or possibly the Wally Skier buoys would have saved me. On the equipment side, probably only the Fogman setup would have helped. Having heel or toe pressure release mechanisms plus both feet being locked together may have saved my ankle. I got off the Fogmans a few years ago because I didn't like the heavy metal plate plus I didn't like drilling all the extra holes in my skis. I am considering going back after the ankle injury. Saw a carbon plate Fogman setup this weekend, but both H2O and Connelly specs show their Fogman plate as metal. Maybe I can get Mike Erb to duplicate one out of G10. I guess my other option is to only ski at sites with Bubble Buoys or Wally Skier buoys. We are definitely going to one or the other on our lake.

Bananaron, With the binder in the middle hole, the binder measured out at 29.5, which is stock for my 66.5. I was at one hole back which would have been 29 3/8. The magic started for me when I went another hole back, which should be 29.25. My fin is pretty close to stock and the wing is at 9. It may just be my skiing style, but I tended to run back a hole or two on my 63.75 inch Mid also. At the moment, I would have to say I prefer the S2 over my Mid and the best thing is those wonderful little metal inserts. I love those things. Such a novel idea. I much prefer the option to go velcro or screws.

I have been on a 66.5 S2 for about 6 weeks now. I have been running one hole back from stock and the ski was good - about even with my Goode Mid. I went into a 2 day slump and decided to make a change. After reading Horton's comment about liking the binders way back, I decided to move back one more click, which is as far back as the binders (Connelly Enzos) will go. All I can say is wow! I went from running ugly 35's and having to get lucky to go deep 38 to running 35's with ease and knocking out about half my 38's. For whatever reason, I am now earlier into the buoy and the end of the turn is butter smooth. For now, I am loving the binders way back.