maverick

I (at 6'2" and 250#) start with both feet in, and find that when I fail a deep water start by falling off to the same side as your husband, it's almost always because I bury the tip of the ski at some point during the pull out (either standing too early, or letting my upper body weight come forward during the pull out). Big guys doing deep water starts with 2 feet in don't have much margin for error, so tell him not to get too frustrated. We have a boat with a strong hole shot, so what works well for me is to drag (very briefly) at idle speed to get my mass moving forward with the boat in the same line, and then when I hit it, I rock back in the water (bringing my ski tip higher) and concentrate on pinching my shoulder blades together to keep my weight back. If your husband has enough hand and upper body strength, I much prefer a hard, fast hit -- ski comes up on top of the water quickly and doesn't have much opportunity to submerge. If the boat's hole shot is marginal, or he struggles with being able to hang onto the handle, I'd opt for the 1 foot start. (A wild, erratic ski path during a 1 foot pull out may be as simple as having a front boot that is too loose on his foot, not allowing him to control the ski solely with that front foot.)

Thanks for all the feedback. My brother pulled the trigger on the Connelly Carbon V, and is having a ball with it. I haven't been on it yet, but should remedy that this next weekend. I'm interested to see how it skis compared to my "standard" V. Thanks again.

One thing we need to factor in is how well the skis planes during deep water starts. As bigger skiers that often don't have the luxury of skiing behind tournament ski boats, we need a ski that has enough width or surface area to pull out w/o completely wearing us out. The Connelly V seems to give us that magic compromise of deep water starting ease and free ski performance, while deep water starts on the Sixam 2.0 can be sketchy depending on the tow boat. It was hard to tell much on the Radar Senate yesterday because of the boot/binding configuration, but there didn't seem to be much difference on the deep water starting aspect between it and the Sixam. Am wondering if the added width of the S2 makes the deep water starts for a big guy a bit easier, maybe more in line with the Connelly V? Thanks for all the info to date. -- Mark

My familiarity with the S2 is nil -- would you consider it to be a fairly forgiving ski suited for open water skiing?

I've been skiing a Connelly V for the past 3 years, and am enjoying it immensely. I ski open water exclusively, and at 6' 2" and 250#, its combo of size, shape, and soft flex seem to make it an ideal ski for how I ski. My brother (an inch shorter and now 25# lighter) has been skiing a Sixam for the past 3 years, but has slowly outgrown the ski as his weight has climbed, to the point that he skis my Connelly V a helluva lot better than his Sixam. He's looking to purchase something similar in feel and performance to the Connelly V, but would prefer to go with a different ski so between the 2 of us we have two different skis to play with. He skied the Radar Theory last year and wasn't overly impressed, and we both skied the Senate this morning but couldn't get a very good read on that ski because of the binding setup on this ski. Looking for suggestions on what to look at, and am wondering how the Carbon V differs from the standard V, and what advantages one may have over the other as an open water ski. Thoughts?

I'm the same weight, size, age, and (sounds like) skill level, and ski on the Connelly V. I skied the Triumph a bit (2009 model) and didn't care for it all, so narrowed my choices to the Senate and Connelly V. Chose the V based on reviews, and have not been disappointed. I'm intrigued by the carbon version, but chose the non-carbon based on all the open water I ski.

The Connelly will be a challenge in the course for your buddy. I'm assuming you're looking at the Mid S because someone has got one lying around, but it will make the course more of a challenge than it already is. I've skied the Mid S, HO Triumph, and Connelly Outlaw at 275#, and latter two would be much better. If he's just getting the hang of things, the Outlaw would be my suggestion, as it's extremely forgiving and I preferred it to the Triumph when it came to the wake crossings (which surprised me...)

The biggest invasive species problem we have in Idaho is the jet skiers. Fortunately our fish and game department is considering a daily bag limit of 3 as the primary means of control, and they are even weighing the merits of lead shot vs steel shot. (Aggressive, pro-active management is about the only way to address an invasive species.)

BOS -- Where slalom skiers go to grow old, without growing up.

"I say make jetskis a legal game for hunting like duck season." I'd vote for that platform. Hell, I'd volunteer as a campaigner if Horton would go so far as to lift the lead shot ban on jetskis. 5-bag limit (per day).

I think we still have a 63" Jobe from the mid-70's still sitting in my folks storage shed, but my Western Wood from the same has long since disappeared.

Wow, that's some pretty heavy duty pondering for early April... My mental coaching hasn't gone much past "grip it and rip it" yet this season. (But then, we're still snow skiing for another month and I don't expect to even get wet til mid-May.) Seems like it takes 10+ runs at the beginning of each season before things even "slow down" enough for me on the water to evaluate what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, and start tweaking. I'm a bit jealous of those of you that can actually comprehend and visualize this info (much less give it) at this stage of the season. I think I'll bookmark this thread and come back to it... in July (maybe).

I'm a bit bigger (260#) and my brother is about the same size as your son. We found ourselves with the same dilemma when looking for skis last year. We ski open water almost exclusively, and for pure fun both of us preferred the Connelly Outlaw over the HO Triumph. Both of us intend to hit it a bit harder this summer, so I picked up a Connelly V, and he went with an O'Brien Sixam 2.0 (but he's in the midst of a tonnage reduction plan to make that work for him...) You're probably not going to find many good "performance" options for him if he's wanting to ski at speeds less than 30 mph. In the end, I was deciding between the Connelly V and the Radar Senate, but I was also looking at skis knowing that I tend to ski at 33+ mph. Don't know if either ski will work well at 28 mph for a guy that size, but if speed is an important factor, I'd probably go with the Theory over the Senate.