mlusa

Wow, there are some crazy comments and this whole thread seems so crazy. It's like everyone has uncovered some crazy conspiracy. My son Ryan, a freshman at University of Alabama, wanted to start his own company for some experience. He is studying business. He has worked at ML in the past, but is interning as the photographer for Nick Saben and the University of Alabama football team and spending much of the summer up at school. Not sure if anyone else that has kids has had a hard time trying to help their child find a job, but they don't want to work for "Dad" so you all may be luckier than me. He had some ideas and has some good knowledge about skiing and wanted to start a small rope company which he plans to add some other products. He asked if he could buy rope and other raw materials from us. We sell to many people and companies raw materials or finished products. We've made 1000's of ropes for O'Brien in years past. We've also done ropes for all sorts of companies from Rod's ropes, Knotty Girl, all the way up to big companies like O'Brien, Kidder, KD, Goode, Wake Tech and lots more. Similar to how most of the ski companies work. Check out how many slalom skis you are riding that come out of the Connelly factory. Anyway, for some reason the sleuths have come out to "uncover" Zline. Everyone is upset that for some reason he is selling a "no frills" rope for less money with no overhead and while it's ok for S lines. The products are quality products, but are not ML products. Same as the KD ski is not a Connelly ski. Ryan wants to build something while in school to have some experience and gain much needed credit etc from a relationship with vendors so he can do something when he gets out of college. Not sure if anyone else's kids have had trouble getting just a credit card, but those things are tough now. My daughter just bought a house and it was hard for her to show credit. It take time and to start early. He will find out all about pricing and what all goes into building a company with this project. He is doing all of his own rope and playing with different things. His ropes are not old ML products. Try one and see. The quality is a good product and he has come up with a USA long lead line to his mainline. This brand isn't meant to compete against ML. Banana Republic, Gap and Old Navy are all companies owned by the same company to appeal to different markets. S Line will also appeal to some people. ML does a ton to support the sport. Today alone I shipped out sponsorship deals to support different events including the Adaptive Nationals. There is a lot that goes into a small water ski company. For those that think the margins are huge, I would certainly entertain selling you a feat company. There is much that goes into all of it that he will learn and he will have to find out if he can manage that price structure. We are getting 5% increases in yarn costs for the 3rd or 4th time this year. Rubber and Polypropylene are all petroleum based products. It's crazy. Labor is bad enough to deal with and shipping and lead times are making it almost impossible to keep all the parts moving. I got my start buying rope from Freestyler ropes and building ropes. We developed a business and grew it to the point we are today. It's taken a long time to get here. Many times I've questioned why, but we stuck with it. We have been through some rough times and it looks like times are getting bumpy again. All companies will need everyone's support to survive these coming times. There are many people that are still clueless to the difficulties that many in our industry are starting to face. I hope this answers some of the questions on here. Russell

@ISP6ball Sorry, but I think it's only fair to compare the right products. Our 10.75m mainline is the comparable product to the S-line. It retails for $80. The S-line has tried to copy much of what ML has done, including the exact pattern and color way of the Youth ropes. To compare their rope to our top of the line ropes and pricing isn't a correct comparison. Our 10.75M line will be slightly stiffer than the R3. For comparison, the R3 seems to fall in softer than the Slide Loop.

Masterline does make a 10.75m mainline without sleeves with MSRP $80. Combine that with a handle or gloves etc and you can get free shipping. We will event wind it up neatly and it comes with a rope holder. The 10.75m will be stiffer than the R3 rope. From what I've heard from some of the skiers that have tried the ropes, the R3 is softer than the ML Optimized. The 10.75m will ski more like the ML Pro mainline. If you want a "no frills" rope, this is a good rope. I've looked at the ropes and the ropes are not comparing Apples to Apples. Proof will be in the performance in tournaments. As summer heats up, soft ropes with feel really soft. Our Optimized was originally a softer rope, but we had to make changes. If felt great in the winter, but not as good in August.

Masterline is happy to provide both ropes. We provided both ropes the last 2 years. I think there is just a misunderstanding somewhere. We also offered the kids ropes as well.

@Jody_Seal we are making all of our Eagle wetsuits and vests in Houston. We have a pretty good factory for that stuff now, but no way can we make gloves and compete. You might be able to make a pair of gloves in your upholstery factory, but making a profit is another story. You have to make them cheap enough for people to afford them. I’d love to make the gloves in Houston and perhaps someday there may be the possibility or need. Right now we are doing everything we can to continue to make our products here and survive. We do make our bags and gloves overseas, but that’s only about 10% of our business. It is very difficult and at this time we have a lot of employees to keep paying to keep it moving instead of just being a warehouse stocking product. We are trying to do what we do best for now and do our part to make great products here. Our industry is going through some tough times right now. Boat companies, dealers and manufacturers will look different if this takes very much longer to clear up. If companies miss there peak sales season it will be tough for survival.

@jenksski Just be aware those are all made in China. Try Masterline, which is Made in USA. All our raw materials for our ropes are also sourced in the US. We are offering some spring sales. All the other major brand ropes are Made in China. Please support local. We have all types of ropes at comparable pricing to the Radar 8 section.

Masterline is also Made In USA. All of our ropes utilize yarn made in the USA. We are still manufacturing now and shipping. Retail is closed at this time, but curbside pickup is available. Thanks for your support.

@Stevie Boy Neilly is one of the best skiers and has been doing the program for a little while now. She looks stronger than ever skiing. Pato is also doing the program and skied amazing at Pan Ams. He is making everything look easy. The program is more a stability, flexibility and fixing problems that are common in skiers. I don't look at it as designed to replace your workout. It's designed specifically for skiers. Many of the best skiers in the world are going to Bojan and seeing results.

@Bruce_Butterfield is correct in suggesting to hold the back position. Also to work on your back wraps outside the wake starting in SS and then slowing going to the back as you cut outside the wake will pull him to the full back position and help him learn to hold the back wrap. Rope length is way to long. I would shorten the rope a few feet. Start with 2-3' His side slide's are perfect technique. He initiates the turn with his hips and his body stays over the ski well. All tricks should start the same way and he should build from his SS's. When he proceeds to the O and wrap backs he initiates the turns with his head and shoulders. Another drill is to hold SS and learn to turn to the back from the SS. Also SS and then turn the 360. I would stop doing the reverse 360 the way he is doing it now until he learns to start the trick the same as the RSS. He will develop bad habits continuing to practice the RO starting it on edge with his head and shoulders. I'm not a big proponent of 360's until they learn more basics. For the back wrap, he has the handle way to the side which prevents him from turning. He is fighting the turn with the pull of the handle to the side wanting to pull him back to the front. Start like the SS initiating the turn with the hips and just continue slowly to the back with the handle staying in the same position. Next learn WF, WB, BB, RBB, BB over the wake and RBB over the wake, then work on air.

Start is just slightly hard, but very good. From 09-10 secs you are in perfect shape. From 10-11 you "plant" your shoulders and your feet accelerate ahead of your shoulders which have stopped moving toward the wake. If you can keep your shoulders moving with your feet, you will be able to stay over the front foot. At the completion of the turn, you are on your front foot and your shoulders are driving to the wake which is perfect. Maybe you have loaded everything just a little early. Your main attention should be on just keeping right shoulder going with your front foot longer. Concentrate on this and you will stick it very soon. If you can take the turn just a little easier, your legs won't collapse as much as you are cutting to the wake. The taller you are the more lift you will get off the top of the wake. Your handle position is perfect throughout the trick. I like how your elbows stay down and the handle doesn't go over your head. Despite your choice of ski, you should land this trick very soon (lol). Just concentrate on keeping your should moving with your front foot to the wake.

The Miranda's put on a superb Jr. World Championships. The skiing was incredible. Unfortunately, the event was marred by poor judging, which is out of their control. These judges are picked based more on politics and not enough on merit. The host should have some more control over the choice of judges as it reflects back onto them as a host organizer. This selection process needs to change for the future. I think it deters people from hosting an event if they can't have some control over the judges that will run the event. @klindy Here is my perspective on the what happened in Boys tricks. First, the decision to hold each skier for the previous skiers' score was a disaster, putting undue stress on each skier as they had to hold for sometimes 10 minutes and up to almost 20 min in one instance, without warning as to when they would have to go. Of course there was no provision in the rules for how long they had, once notified of the score, to be in the water; so it was immediate. Most stood on the dock with their ski on waiting. I 'm not sure why this was done, but I was told that some of the countries actually requested that they do this and the officials voted for this. I can't imagine how this helped any of the skiers. Until we have a more efficient way to come up with scoring this should never be done again. It was also not announced as provisional scores, which they are until they are reviewed. This put pressure on the judges to rush to get scores out. Some of the judges were changed out after girls tricks, which went off smoothly, for a couple of new judges for the boys. Pato and Lindsey both skied well, but had issues. Pato fell slightly early at the end of his toe pass and Lindsey didn't get over the rope on a SLBB. From my perspective, I thought that their were several tricks of Linsey's that looked to be questionable and I thought that he would most likely lose credit on some of his tricks. In the end, he only received a NC on SLBB for not getting over the rope. Pato lost credit on a SL5, which I thought was fine from my view. Originally, Pato was announced the winner, which seemed correct from what I saw. Upon inspection of the sheets, the French team noticed that the SLBB was called NC, but felt that he should have been credited a WBB. The judges made the mistake of calling SLBB NC and not determining wether on not it was a credit or no credit WBB. Just because you don't get over the rope on SLBB doesn't mean you automatically did a credit WBB. Initially, the first request by the French team was to change the NC SlBB to a WBB. This is a judgement call and should not have been allowed. If the judges felt he had done a wbb, it should have been written that way. The judges changed the trick from slbb to wbb and then returned the sheets to the French team for review. Another error was then discovered that the judges shorthand had not been transcribed into the scorers tally and Lindsey was not credited a flip that he had actually done on the water. They then requested to have this corrected. By this time, it was around 9:30 and the chief judge requested for everyone to go home and they would finish up in the morning. The Mexican team filed a complaint in the morning that the slbb should never have been allowed to be reviewed because it was a judgement call that was missed. Same as Pato not receiving credit on SL5. Pato wasn't allowed to have the judges review his tricks, but Lindsey was given that option. The Mexican team requested that since Lindsey was given the option to have his trick reviewed, Pato should have the same. This was granted. In most instances, if the originally judging was good, the trick would again come back as no credit. The SL5 was reviewed and the original call was overturned. This is pretty incredible and the trick would have had to have been very good to have the original call overturned, which means that the judging was pretty poor to have taken a trick that was good under further review. The entire thing was a mess created by poor judges and poor decisions. Had they called the runs properly, the outcome would have been the same and Pato would have won based on the what he did on the water. The situation put the kids, family and teams in a very awkward situation, but I think they made the best of it. Had they run the trick event like normal without the scoring delays between skiers, they would have been able to finish earlier and resolve the issue on the same day. @Jody_Seal As far as Brooke's slalom, the judge made a huge mistake. Unfortunately, the judge's initial response that "it happens" and not humility, remorse or apologetic made the the acceptance of the result much harder. I did hear that she did finally apologize. Unfortunately, mistakes are going to happen, but most often it's the attitude of the judge that makes the situations better or worse. It's much easier to forgive when you see the person isn't so cold about the result and their mistake. I was at Jack's when Jon had a tech issue for Will Asher running 41 and his response was unforgettable. It was obvious immediately that he was devastated and very sorry for Will. The response of this judge contrasted so much to Jon's response, that it reminded me immediately of Jon and Will. The boat judge calls in the color and line length to verify. Why she wasn't looking at the loop on the pylon while confirming with the tower is the problem. It is the finals of the World Championships with the top seed on the water for the "money" pass and everything should be triple checked.

There are many good ski schools in the Orlando area. Like someone said, it may depend on your personality. I've had much experience with Jack's, Brooks Wilson and Drew Ross. All are excellent for different reasons and offer great coaching. Jack's offers a camp experience, housing/boarding great food, excellent coaching by Jon, Chris, Jack and Natalia and a very good site. The Wilson's are also excellent coaches and super nice guys. If you don't need housing or transportation, I find it hard to beat the experience of skiing at Drew's. Excellent slalom and trick coach (most don't realize how good a trick coach he is) and the nicest ski site in Florida and great location.

Short answer Made in USA, quality materials, handmade, liability insurance and tournament supporter. Just listen to SL's own words in video posted by @Mastercraft81SnS: http://www.slsports.com/ski-lecombo.html and specifically at :25 where he says "instead of cutting and measuring and stretching again, it's just constructed so it's not tournament rated." Wow, I can't imagine making any product without measuring. The size of this rope also measures out to the size rope of our Junior Mid Rope. We don't guess at the line lengths when making our ropes. I'll give more detail on our construction later. Review @jayski review of their supposed top end tournament ropes that are supposedly measured and stretched which were all out of tolerance by a large margin. @TallSkinnyGuy we make all price points of ropes and handles. Give us a call at 1-800-889-9883 and we can help you find the right rope and handle for you at your price point and it will even be measured.

@ToddL I'm 150lbs and on a 42" ski and go 19.1mph. Boat speed is dependent on size and ability. You should definitely try to raising the speed slowly. Over time, try to get your speed up at least 1 mph. I am on a 43" ski for hands and I'm at 19.3mph. Again, speed is based on size and ability. Just because you are bigger, doesn't necessarily mean you will be able to handle a faster speed. These are guidelines to work up towards. Do it slowly. You can't just go up 2 miles/hr. A third factor of speed is rope length. The longer the rope, the slower the boat feels.

@mopedmedicks, @gsm_peter Many of today's best trickers are separating their feet for hands for more stability and leverage. It's similar to wakeboarding and why Harley Clifford rides with such a wide stance. You can create more leverage and have less tip and tail movement. You should get the right plate and experiment. The plate has lots of adjustment holes to allow for experimentation. Modified plates can also void the warranties of many companies. The holes on the Quantum plate are spread apart at 7.5".

The best way to get comfortable is to do toes. Ride in the toe hold and do as many TB & TF's as you can. The key is learning the correct position. Ride along as comfortable as you can. Your goal should be to stand up as much as possible without being to stiff so that your hips are up. You want to be as natural as possible. Don't pay to much attention to bending your knees and forget about your ankles. The more you bend your leg, the more muscle strength plays a part. Watch Anna Gay and Neilly Ross do toes. They are two of the best right now and you will see they stand tall in a natural position that is not to stiff, but also not using an overly bent knee in the ski leg. Instead, concentrate In the front position that your toe leg knee should be high and your thigh almost parallel to the water and leg bent at not quite 90 degrees. The problem for most skiers is that they let their toe leg fall to low and let their leg out to much. Your toe foot should never drop below the height of your ski leg knee. Keeping your toe leg knee high is the secret to effortless spinning on toe tricks. Starting in this position allows for you to pivot without letting your leg way out to pull. The more your leg goes out, the more most people will compensate by breaking at their waist. The goal is to stay tall and keep the hips up so they are always over your binding, not behind. Dropping your hips back creates drag and much more work. Staying tall over the ski makes riding along more effortless and efficient. Experiment with standing taller vs bending your knee when just riding along and see how much easier it is just to ride along in the taller position and pay attention to whether your weight shifts back on the ski as you bend your knee. You will find that bending your knee to much will cause you to fatigue very quickly. If you are feeling any fatigue in your quad of your ski leg, then you aren't standing up enough. As you ski, you will bend some to absorb, but return to your standing position. As you become more comfortable riding on the ski in a taller stance and develop good leg strength in your toe leg, you will see your toes improve. Most people plateau and don't see much improvement do to poor posture on the ski. Every trick will be a totally new experience rather than just an extension of what you already know. I would definitely suggest a 44" ski for your size and level. The bigger ski will reduce the amount of effort to do everything. You need as little drag as possible to improve your stance on the ski. The more drag, the more you will compensate by breaking at your waist to try and create more leverage for you pulling, which will create even more drag. Toes can be very frustrating, but also can be a great challenge and can turn into the most enjoyable part of skiing for some skiers. Russell Gay www.Quantumskis.com

Call Masterline and order just the plate. You can mount your rubber binding to the plate. Trying to make your own plate is way to much work and you won't have the right adjustments. The plate isn't expensive.

All of the Masterline slalom lines have large 15" loops to make handle changing easier. It's much better to build a large loop on the rope to accommodate all of the different handle configurations. Loop on the handle section is standard, but is easily attached to our ropes. Just put the large loop through the small loop on handle and then put handle through the big loop. I see many dock starters attaching the handle the wrong way and fighting to get the handle through the little loop and not utilizing the large loop of the rope. We are now set up to do almost the entire process in our factory. We can customize these handles any way you would like. We don't have them on our website yet, but you can call us to order you customized handle. We will also have a few samples to display at Nationals and can fill orders as soon as we are back home from Nationals.

Masterline can customize anything you want. We are the only company that makes it's own raw rope and handles. We have our own blend of Poly-propylene called PolyProMAX. We braid it in house on our own braiding machines. We have total control over every step of the manufacturing process of our ropes and handles. We do sell our rope to other companies, but US Gear will no longer have any rope from Masterline in their products. So you won't find the same quality rope as in the past. For customization we have 8 different diameters to choose from in 10", 11", 12", 13" and 15" lengths or any other length you want. The rubber on our bars is far superior to anything else on the market. We have even changed our blend of rubber for 2014 and the grip and wear is incredible. We can braid the handles our way or any way you want, even anti-roll. If you want handle with curved ends like the ones you are having trouble getting, give us a call, we will even answer the phone or call you right back: 1- 800-889-9883. Check with @brewski for a protector to add to your handle.

@tfriess It sounds like you tried the Quantum and liked it. Why would you go with a Radar? The Quantum is the best performing trick ski on the market. Just look at the results of Alexei Z, Anna Gay, Neilly Ross, Pato and Diego Font and others. At the Masters 3 of the 4 winners were on Quantum. Most importantly, you have skied it and liked it. I would definitely recommend a hard edge ski. They are far superior to rubber edge skis, for both hands and toes. You would use a 43" ski. I would go with a hardshell boot if you can. @ntx "the rubber edge is geared for the upper level toes." I think the hard edge is as good or better for toes if designed properly. Look at the 3 of the 4 skiers who have tricked over 12,000 points. 3 of the 4 were on hard edge toe skis. Ace and I had the highest point toe passes of the Masters, both on hard edge skis. Anna has tricked as high as any women this year on toe pass - 4,380 on a hard edge ski. Neilly Ross is also on a hard edge ski for toes and is one of the best women toe trickers in the world. I've put some older skiers on the hard edge skis and watched them improve their reverse toes and to wrap ins. The ski has much less drag and makes for much less work to perform the same tricks. Efficiency leads to improved performance. Give a hard edge ski a try for toes, the results speak for themselves.

$60,000+ for a new boat, $2,000 slalom ski, $1,000 boots (hard-shells) $100 rope. Want to build a rope to save money? Savings to build comparable rope to a ML rope, none. You can buy hardware rope to make a cheap yellow slalom line, that's comparable to a cheap Chinese rope of some brands. To find high quality poly-propylene of today's top slalom lines in all colors, almost impossible unless you make the raw rope yourself. Jigs, tools and time you will come out way behind. Could be a fun project if you have nothing better to do. It's a great way to appreciate the price of a new rope. Restringing your own handles if you are really wanting to do something might prove more worthwhile. Especially if you are willing to put up with some crooked handles. In the 70's and 80's people would make their own ropes. That's back when ski rope was the same as hardware rope and lasted about a dozen sets for guys like the Lapoints. Masterline does sell rope, caps, handles etc. if you are needing parts for your project. Tip: It takes a while to figure out the jig to build a slalom rope. You can't just use the tape measure. Each time you add a loop and back braid, it shortens the rope. Every knot you add allows for more stretch when rope is tightened. You have to account for the amount of stretch that the rope will grow once skied on.

As a manufacturer for Zup I got one of the first boards made and thought the kids would be bored within a few days. They love it. They play on it all the time pulling each other and friends behind the Sea Doo. They really like how the handle hooks to the board for the hands free riding. Great board to have around for first timers behind the boat. Much easier than trying to get combos and teach someone to ski for the first time. You can lay, kneel, sit, stand. They ride double with friends most of the time. Masterline makes the rope and handles for Zup. Zup was started by some guys from Williamsburg, VA. Chris Durham (Wake Tech Fame) is in charge of the manufacturing and sales for them. Overton's was one of the first Retailer's of the boards.

As a manufacturer for Zup I got one of the first boards made and thought the kids would be bored within a few days. They love it. They play on it all the time pulling each other and friends behind the Sea Doo. They really like how the handle hooks to the board for the hands free riding. Great board to have around for first timers behind the boat. Much easier than trying to get combos and teach someone to ski for the first time. You can lay, kneel, sit, stand. They ride double with friends most of the time. Masterline makes the rope and handles for Zup. Zup was started by some guys from Williamsburg, VA. Chris Durham (Wake Tech Fame) is in charge of the manufacturing and sales for them. Overton's was one of the first Retailer's of the boards.

As a manufacturer for Zup I got one of the first boards made and thought the kids would be bored within a few days. They love it. They play on it all the time pulling each other and friends behind the Sea Doo. They really like how the handle hooks to the board for the hands free riding. Great board to have around for first timers behind the boat. Much easier than trying to get combos and teach someone to ski for the first time. You can lay, kneel, sit, stand. They ride double with friends most of the time. Masterline makes the rope and handles for Zup. Zup was started by some guys from Williamsburg, VA. Chris Durham (Wake Tech Fame) is in charge of the manufacturing and sales for them. Overton's was one of the first Retailer's of the boards.

As a manufacturer for Zup I got one of the first boards made and thought the kids would be bored within a few days. They love it. They play on it all the time pulling each other and friends behind the Sea Doo. They really like how the handle hooks to the board for the hands free riding. Great board to have around for first timers behind the boat. Much easier than trying to get combos and teach someone to ski for the first time. You can lay, kneel, sit, stand. They ride double with friends most of the time. Masterline makes the rope and handles for Zup. Zup was started by some guys from Williamsburg, VA. Chris Durham (Wake Tech Fame) is in charge of the manufacturing and sales for them. Overton's was one of the first Retailer's of the boards.