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Excalibur The legendary sword of King Arthur, sometimes also attributed with magical power. AKA, the sword in the stone... if you can wield it you are the once and future king.

@skibug, only if you are a man who skis without a hat.

@escmanaze, I’m going to take your comments as accurate. So.... I just realized that for the last 35+ years I have NOT been a Correct Craft customer... as I’ve purchased my Nautiques used. Actually, I have been a customer of “rich guys.” Therefore, hey, “rich guys,” make better choices in your new boat purchases... seems like half of those who comment here are counting on you.

28 off, cool, puts you the, hmmm, top 10% (?) of those try the slalom course, in a dry suit no less. All the advice, above, is correct. But wow that’s a lot to remember. I’ll suggest @jakecuz23 is on the right track. At your point in development, a rock solid, stacked position, directly behind the boat is the most important fundamental to lock into your skiing. This will improve your width, make you early to the ball, everything will feel easier... by trying harder. So, how to do this? Everyone can probably come up with suggestions that have worked of them. Here’s some that have worked for me... Video (you already have this covered) When working on your stacked position, don’t chase balls, turn when it feels right. (Oh, and 6 stacks and turns missing balls, is better than making 3, when practicing.) At 28 off (or maybe 22 off if it feels safer), how far outside the buoy-line can you get? (2’, 4’?) How to feel stacked? Dry land, tie the handle to something, and practice. Repeat (directly) behind the boat (carefully).

Please re-educate me, what is the hull difference between 97-01 and 02-09 Ski Nautique? (Slalom at 30, 32, 34 mph) Thanks.

A few more thoughts. Sounds like you might be in the SLC valley... then check out the lake a Daybreak. I’ve heard it doesn’t hold water and has increased POA dues significantly. All the math you are doing seems right on. With respect to the community boat... I’m going to so not PC here... a family that buys a $150,000 wakeboard boat in Utah (“the second driest state”) might be lacking in the math skills you need them to have to see your common sense. As you have read in other posts, the country side is littered with failed / marginally successful ski communities. Your homework, thoughtfulness, due diligence, are all steps in the right direction. And I bet marketing will be everything.

As BraceMaker noted, you have designed two tournament quality (3-event) quality ski lakes. If a 3-event ski family found your development, they would immediately recognize the lakes. At the same time, I suspect a family that enjoys the water sports you noted would not see the lakes as desirable. That is, a big boat needs a big lake. I used to live in a water ski community much like your design. Wake sport families did not buy. Instead families looking for a peaceful water setting and/or fishing moved in. Then their first objective was to change the C&R to end the use of power boats. This was in the Midwest. Maybe, Utah families will have a different perspective. Seems like marketing will be everything. Oh, and I think there was a community recently developed in Texas... maybe near Woodlands? That had a goal similar to yours.

@klindy more Camelot fun facts. Going north to south, slalom skiers went around both turn islands, a scenic journey. The 55’s were only a few feet past the second island, so if you liked to pull out early... you would follow the shoreline about 15 feet from the water’s edge (no long line). Then there was a point sticking out about 20 feet past the gates; at 15off it seemed like you were going to hit land before turning in. Camelot is a former gravel pit, the water level varies up to five feet in a during the season. When the islands were too shallow, we had an 8-ball course running to opposite corners from the 6-ball. Therefore, cables crossed. Underwater, there were come-a-longs at the anchors... tighten and loosen to float and submerge as needed. And for winter fun, the cliff opposite Smith’s house was at least 100 feet high. Maybe, during a significant snow storm, someone skied that double black diamond.

Here's two. First Spring. Time to float the course. Dry-suits on. Me and my buddy got in the kayak. There were lots of weeds, so we needed to pull the cable off the bottom first. He said "drop me off at the south anchor; then you paddle down and start at the other end... we'll meet in the middle." I ended up with the hook to find the cable. About half down, I looked back to see how he was doing. All I see are two feet sticking out of the water, kicking franticly with the bottom third of his dry-suit full of air. He had tried to dive down to grab the cable. Well, this was an actual Darwin moment. Could he right himself as I couldn't paddle back in time. Some how, he got his head above water. When I got to him the look of terror on his face... well, I remember it to this day. Second Spring again. Another buddy wanted to ski over lunch hour. So, I met him at his dock. We ski. I went first. He went second. His house is right behind the turn island. So, he said, "when I'm done... I'll just drop at my dock... I've got to get right back to work." OK. He waves as he let's go and skis up to his dock. Perfect. Except one thing, he has his dry-suit on, and no one is home. No way to unzip it. Turns out, if you can get the zipper strap caught on the door knob, you can turn just right to unzip. The keyword here being door knob... as there are two in this story.

@andjules - ditto

So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a slalom coach at a course over a the base of the Himalayas. A slalom coach, you know, a short-line expert, a coach, a Horton. So, I tell them I’m a pro coach, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald… striking. So, I’m on the start dock with him. I give him my Denali. He hauls off and runs 38-off – big puller, the Lama – strong, crazy counter, preturns like Nate, right into 39-off. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga… gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the set and he’s gonna stiff me. And I say, “Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.” And he says, “Oh, uh, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.” So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.

Xpropman notes that 1 out of 18 wants to go 32mph. (Just a thought - isn’t the customer always right?) The reason to go 32mph is to align with the World. But how many in AWSA, at that age, ski in the World, as opposed only the USA? Maybe the 1 above? Help me out here, why was the speed increased? Anyway, I think this takes us to what Icarnes wrote... that is pushing skiers away. Oh, and click Icarnes “this piece.” Very well written for both the skier and those skiing with. On the hopeful side of “those skiing with”... Before I skied in tournaments, when I was M2 age, and learning the course, I skied at 34mph, and got endless grief, even when I would say M3 will be soon enough and I’ll be ready. Now I’m skiing 32mph way before I get to the age group, and no one has said anything other than, did you just make that pass!? So, there’s some “those skiing with” progress.

Justin C maybe don’t “whip them good,” but turn gently off the centerline of the course about 30 degrees (+/-) as shore allows, bring the boat to idle and let the skier resist to advance along side the boat. Also, when starting, if you accelerate straight on the centerline of the course, you will send bow rollers down the course. So, if you have room, starting with the boat at about a 30 degree angle off the CL, sends the bow rollers towards shore. You only need to advance the boat maybe 20-30 feet before slowly turning to CL to keep the water calm in the course.

So, if -38 is shortline; then way back when Connelly made the Shortline ski... only about 10 skiers could ski it.

@dnewton you are way ahead of the learning curve with your progress in just two years. @killer and Fam man have given you some key advice. Especially with respect to body position. So, how do you work on body position? Here are some ideas. 1 Improving your stance behind the boat is more important than anything else. So, don’t worry about the gates... you’ll have your whole ski career to figure out the gates... and that’s about how long it will take. Therefore, continue to use your pullout keys, then once you’re out there turn for 1-ball when everything feels right. Don’t worry about going through the gates. Most important, right now, is to get as many repeats of good body position as possible. Worrying about the gates can ruin working on body position for the next six pulls. Heck, I would even skip a turn ball from time to time, just to make sure I could get into a perfect pull position. In other words, it not always about chasing buoys. 2 since you are leaning back sometimes, since you have most of your weight your back foot sometimes... from the moment you get up on the water, 95% of your weight goes on your front foot. Now once in the course, you won’t be able to maintain 95%, but trying to will help get you more evenly balanced on both feet. Now, the warning that goes with this is be aware of your balance... we don’t want you to go flying out the front. 3 Don’t worry about turns right now. Just reach, turn, and get into your stacked position. 4 I hear you about liking -28 more than -22 and -15. But at the longer rope lengths you have more time in each wake crossing to work on position. One sure way to force yourself to stack better is to ski -15 and -22 12 to 8 feet outside the turn balls. That is don’t ski to the ball, ski out and around the ball. The only way to do this is to improve your position crossing the wake. 5 The ski thought... hips up to the handle seems to work well when trying to learn the stacked position. Notice the theme? If you develop and ingrain your stacked position now, you will go along way up the line. I’ve watched a few skiers over years get stuck at -32 and -35 because they never built the most important building block of skiing... that is their position directly behind the boat.