Tag: Water Skiing

Behind the Record

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Well, my humble little blog about water skiing has officially gone world wide. One of the organizers of the recent world record for number of skiers behind one boat has thanked me for the coverage of their many attempts and finally of their record.

David Bennett, one of the organizers of the event grew up in a family without a boat, but his family did join a local family based ski club and learned to ski and now will ski on just about anything… trampolines (on skis), ladders, milk crates on disks, bench seats and even computer keyboards and laptops. He’s taught nearly 1000 people how to ski.

For those of you that have built the show ski pyramids in the states, here’s something you may find interesting, They used an awful lot of ropes for that record…

That be a whole lot of ropes that they had to get the same length. Put that together with the engineering to devise something to pull that many people from a deep water start and you have quite the record.

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Lots of Skiers [an update]

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January 30, 2010 – 110 skiers up, 99 made it 1 nautical mile

Over in Tasmania, they are still trying to break the record for most skiers behind a boat. On January 30, 2010, they managed to get 110 skiers (of 120) up on plane from a deep water start, but only 99 skiers made it the nautical mile required for it to be a record.

They plan to try again and soon. Be sure to check out their website for more details, pictures and videos.

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Did You Hear the One About the Water Skiing Elephant?

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So I know a lot of people have heard the tale of the water skiing elephant. I think Rykert and his dog Nola or the keyboardists over at the CRB mentioned the impressive pachyderm at some point, but I’ve actually managed to have my automated Google-bots track down the source of this legen- wait for it, and I hope you’re not lactose-intolerant because the second half of this word is -dary story.

My Google-bots sent a link to a YouTube video uploaded by JPizzle1122. Who is JPizzle? Well, he is Jonny Paula, “the host of YouTube’s only interactive movie review show.” (That doesn’t mean anything to me either.)  In his January 13th episode he decided to review the Final Destination (not the original one that was OK, but the one from 2009 that was in 3D) and Honky Tonk Freeway. What is Honky Tonk Freeway you ask? I haven’t heard of that movie you’re saying. Well not many people have. It was a 1981 box office BOMB staring Beau Bridges and Beverly D’Angelo (before either of them were stars) and some others that you’d probably recognize from other great 80’s movies.
The movie even warranted a Razzie award nomination back in 1982 for Worst Original Song (“You’re Crazy But I Like You” by two people you haven’t heard of). It also featured such memorable quotes as “Yep…goin’ to the Super Bowl. Gonna sell me some cocaine.” Needless to say, this little gem pulled in about $2 million total in box office revenue back in the day. With all the “soon” to be stars in this movie, it’s probably worth watching in the way that you have to look at a car accident. You can even get it on Netflix.
Now I know you’re asking yourself how does a water skiing elephant fit into the movie Honky Tonk Freeway? Well, the premise of the movie is a small Florida town is going to get by-passed by a freeway. And by by-passed, we mean by-passed. Not even an on-off ramp. People won’t even have the option to stop. In an effort to “stop” the freeway, the small town mayor and the business decide to come up with tourist traps (for lack of a better description) that’ll make people want to stop. One of those tourist traps is Bubbles the Water Skiing Elephant.
Bubbles the Water Skiing Elephant
By now I know you’re itching to see the movie review that inspired me to write this bit of useless droll. So without further ado, here is Episode 10 of Movie Night – Water Skiing Elephant Killed in Bizarre Swimming Pool Accident… enjoy…
And now you know… the story behind the pachydrm that is proficient on pink pyramid boards. Wedge Out!
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The Crazy People in Tasmania Are At It Again

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The Horsehead Water Ski Club in Strahan, Tasmania is going to try and break the world record for number of water skiers behind one boat again. The attempt is set for January 30, 2010. They’ve been trying the last couple of years, but have encountered some engineering difficulties that prevented them from succeeding.

The current record is 100 skiers from Oct 18, 1986. Here’s the picture of everyone up on skis…

And if you want to see some video of it, here it is…

In 2008, they tried to break the record with 121 skiers. What will they try this year?
For more details, be sure to look around their website.
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Naked Water Skiing

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Who knew that hangovers + nudity + waterskiing + near hypothermia = community event to boost business. Yeah, that’s right, it’s a community event to boost the communities business. They first tried the Bun Run (that’s what they call it on) out on New Year’s Eve, but that didn’t work so well (put a dent in the supper business), so now they do it on New Year’s Day and it’s been working well for 30 years now. Granted it’s happening in California, so the water is a “balmy” 46 degrees, but that’s still cold.

You can read the full story here.
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15 Percent Concentrated Power of Will

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That is what it took to write this post… not really, but it has been along time coming.  Here’s a look back at some the best pictures from 2008. My photo blogging took a bit of nose dive last year after June 1st due to the lakes closing in Madison.  When you drive 45 minutes to practice and don’t get home till 10pm or so, you just don’t have that much spare time.  The camera was still busy, so here’s a look back.
As those that follow the site know, my ski season started early in 2008.  January 26th to be exact. I went south to get some skiing in, but not very far.  Just a mere 30 minutes.  The ski site looked like this…
And the water was cold…
But it wasa fun…
The the skiing too a hiatus for a few months.  It took till the beginning of May before we back on the water…
But it has to complain when your nights on the water end like this…
A week later, the Best Dam Barefoot Race took place.  It was a little cooler this year, but still a whole lot of fun.
As May wound down, we had some very nice weather, which we made good use of…


Then, the rain hit, and it hit hard…
Leaving us with this…
And this….
So Mad-City headed about 45 minutes north, to Lake Wisco, to practice.  One of the nice things about that is we had nights that looked like this at the end of the night…
And this…
And resulted in fun practices like this…


My boat also made a few trips to Lake Wisconsin too. One of the better trips was on July 4th.  It took phone calls until 1am the night before to finalize the plans, but they were finalized and we skied on some nice water in some great scenary.


When State arrived, the rain made another cameo appearance…
But it didn’t stick around too long…
And it was still a whole lot of fun…
And we put on one hell of a good show…
Resulting in this…
The following week we did a road show in Portage, so I had a chance to do doubles again…
And then the next week we did yet another road show, this time on Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, there were 4 foot rollers there to great us…

Finally, Nationals arrived.  After a season of driving, late practices and little sleep, our Nationals show went very well…

And after our show, we hit “The Bar”…

Our efforts were rewarded…

After Nationals, the Madison lakes slowly reopened, so then we just had some fun….
And more fun…
And occasionally, we needed supplies delivered…
So the nights would end like this…
But then we’d go out again the next night…
I did get to hit the ramp a little…
And the water…
Finally, fall arrived, and the last trip out on the lake…
Then winter arrived and more nights would end like this…
So that’s the 2008 in pictures.
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