using Training skis

I borrowed some O'brain kids training water skis, and I am wondering about their use. They are the ones with short ropes that keep the tips and tails together, but there is a handle with a short rope currently connected to the front connecter rope, as if you would hook your ski rope directly to the skis and the kids just hold the handle. Seams if they fell this could be an issue.

In addition I found just having the front tie on and the back allowed to be free to help. Once moving even just a little would align the skis. Working off a boom has worked wonders for first timers. I zip tied a handle bridle to the boom with just enough room for the little hands which could grasp better than the boom.

Use the boom if you have one. My daughter got up on the second attempt 1st attempt was drivers fault(me) Today we're going to try the short rope off the boom. (not attached to the skis)

Love the tiny wet suit.

I wish I had a boom...when more money grows on the tree and the boat needs a little less fixing.

I have been using the horse shoe trainer for my 3 year old girl and my 4 year old boy, starting from a beach, and they can ride around as long as we care to pull them. The 7 and 8 year old boys got up on OBrien trainers with the front and back rope tether holding on the rope/handle. I am really not more than a beginning skier myself, but I have gotten several kids and adults this summer without a boom by coaching them in the water with them, which has had the salutary effect of teaching my wife to be a better/more sensitive driver.

We used the attached rope. Of course, my daughter had just turned 4 when we started. When she falls, you let go of the handle. No big deal. Made it very easy for her. She can get up holding the handle now at 5, has done so a few times, and every time she has tried But, she doesn't want to. Not sure if I would change and just start her holding the rope if I had it to do over. At 4 I think she would have been challenged to hold the rope.

On the other hand, now she's decided she doesn't want to ski at all. She got around some dumb--- older kids who were whining that they were afraid and only wanted to go tubing. Now she won't ski. Another example of how tubes screw things up. Oh well, I hope she decides to start skiing again soon.

I bought the tail weights from HO becaus I was too lazy to make them, but they do help quite a bit. I'm pretty sure there are pictures of my daughter on trainers in the get the kids on the water thread.

BKH

GottaSki wrote: I also melted 12 oz of lead sinkers in tuna cans with a propane torch, cut the can and popped them out, then painted and attached them to the tails of the skis. I could just throw the skis in the water, and they would float tips-up without help! Made it very easy for my daughter to get oriented in the water and ski immediately.

Great idea! I was having a really hard time getting my daughters ski tails under her. I'll have to try this.

My girls were not quit mentally ready to conquer the skis this weekend but I did get my 9 year old niece up several times. I have a tube that I so far have denied the girls. I am trying to make it skis or nothing.

GlassSeeker wrote: thats a very pretty ski site you got there

Yes it is. It's our favorite place to ski it's always glass since its down in a valley even if the wind is blowing up a chop you can just go up or down river around a bend and find glass again. Not alot of boat traffic since the lock below closed and up river turns into shallow rapids.

Here's a couple of pics from last November

Jones wrote: GottaSki wrote: I also melted 12 oz of lead sinkers in tuna cans with a propane torch, cut the can and popped them out, then painted and attached them to the tails of the skis. I could just throw the skis in the water, and they would float tips-up without help! Made it very easy for my daughter to get oriented in the water and ski immediately. Great idea! I was having a really hard time getting my daughters ski tails under her. I'll have to try this.

I don't know if that weight thing is a Gotta Ski proprietary innovation, but that's freakin genius! I can only hope I'm smart enough to remember that when my little baby cousins are old enough for uncle Deeno to throw them behind the boat.

Andrew,
That pic looks like North Glade Cove behind Beckmans Pennisula.

Where in the Pittsurgh are you? I'm up by Cranberry.

Hey Paul... yep... you can tell it was last year by the pics of houses in back, I think this year there were a few more 7 bed room milliondollar houses jammed in and never being used back there. LOL

We live in the North Hills right between you and the City.