Danny Cropper of DC Waterskis writes;
Boots
Your boots are very easy to keep in good order and you need to do a handful of different things to make sure they stay comfortable and safe for you.
1- Good quality tape. Crappy tape will tend to stay in your boots instead of on your feet.
2- Reduced bio-degradable soap – this will be flushed out of your boots easier than full strength detergent and is much safer because your foot won’t slip out down the first straight from soap being still in there.
3- Rinse the salt, sand and all other crap out of your boots when you’re finished racing. Because come to the next race, if it’s still in there, anything could go wrong.
4- Check all screws, nuts and clips… sometimes they can crack, rust and come loose.
5- Some rubber protectant (Armoural)…DON’T spray it on your ski! Spray it into a cloth and wipe it all over the boots and make them clean & shiny.
Skis
This piece of art cops a lot of damage. You can minimize this in so many ways and again by doing these things you can keep it safe for you to ski on and to last longer.
1- Keep your ski away from
– fuel (petrol / race gas / hot oil)
– extended periods of direct hot sunlight
– hot exhaust pipes in the boat
– silicone of any type or style
2- Your rope or “V” absolutely tears the hell out of either side of the front of your ski. Check your ski constantly or you could get wood rot very quickly because of the lack of clear paint left there. Raw timber will be force filled by the water blasting past it and because the ski then gets put into your ski bag and most times will stay wet for days at a time, it will became rotten very quickly. So the Be-All and end all is …KEEP THE PAINT UP!!
3- A good padded cover is absolutely essential – even one of the new wetsuit covers that you can put on the ski inside the cover is a great idea for the travellers.
4- You MUST first pilot-hole any screws you put into your ski. If you don’t, they can delaminate your ski very easily. You can seal your holes with either vasoline or epoxy and this will reduce the amount of water getting into the ski.
5- Fluro orange tips are a necessity and all skis must have them for your ski to be legal. So keep an eye on them.
6- Fin blocks are the only way you can keep that little bugger of a fin straight and accurate. So get one or make one!
7- I have seen a few skis recently that have broken in half and the common thing I noticed was use and abuse. Some skis can’t take as much as some others!
Finally would you stand in the middle of the freeway on a six inch platform, at peak hour, with a crack or wobbling in it?
NO of course you wouldn’t !!!
Well if you don’t look after your ski and you crash, it’s a very similar result to falling off that platform on the freeway except you probably won’t get any gravel rash!
