Saturday, September 22, 2007

Slalom Waterskiing with a Bad Hip


I was very sad when I thought I had to stop waterskiing because getting up on one ski with my bad hip hurt too much. Then I decided to use a light children's ski to drop. We modified the binding so that it was very easy to get out. Then, we attached a little buoy to the binding (called a drop ski buoy) because it was sometimes hard to find the drop ski in the water. Actually, we lost a couple of skis - either taken by s.o. or caught somewhere in the river. We painted, the ski, even put our Tel. # on it. With a little practice, I became an expert "drop ski person" in my late sixties. So now I can enjoy the sport again and even try to go through a slalom course.
By the way, this is not really an original idea. In the fifties, when ski boats were quite underpowered, even competitive slalom skiers had to use a drop ski.
Presently, I ski about 3 times a week, I even joined an amateur slalom ski league called INT. Thanks to a little ingenuity, I continue to have a lot of fun waterskiing at my age.

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