It says "content not available" If my memory serves me, you can't post pictures under the Questions/Comments section. Try posting it under The Beach or another section.
I have a friend that has a ski shop. He probably sells one tube for each wakeboard that he sells, at least. He sold about 12-14 skis all together last year. If that many. There is a video with new HO products and the first 20-30 products are inflateables. I am all for seeing people out on the water having fun, but inflateables require little or no skill, kind of like a jet ski. Chad
Now back to topic, I had a great summer of skiing with very little tubing. He're a few things I did over the summer to keep there interest. Purchased different types of equipment,trick skis, parabolic pairs, dbl booted slalom, all bought on Ebay for around $150 including shipping The tubes I got (3 single Connelly Voyager) are pretty small and involves some strength to stay on. 3 years ago when all the kids wanted was to tube and if I would have said No, I think they might have lost interest in water sports. I just would not let them go around and around, we had rules, for every lap of skiing they got a bonus lap of tubing Rob
It was about 1953 when I first got on a 2' wide x 5' long piece of plywood that had the rope fron the boat attached directly to the board. I don't know where the idea came from but my older brother built this board. We had a small 15' wooden boat with a 25 hp engine. If you fell off this board it often would go straight to the bottom because of the angle of being tied to the boat. The board would sometimes get stuck in the mud and never come up - just had to cut the rope. A few years later we got a pair of skies and at age 12 it took me three tries before getting up on a long line. The only other options to ride behind the boat were old inner tubes or home made plywood contraptions. Over the next fifty years I have participated in and observed the level of skiing become very popular to other contraptions taking over. If you were a slalom skier you were the elite on the river. And if you than had a "ski boat" you were at the top of the elite heap. The hydroslide was the beginnning of the downfall of teaching your kids to ski. They were fun and exciting. For a brief few years "barefooters" took the top spot of the skiing crowd. Hard falls, burnt and blistered feet, eyes dislocated, etc. quickly made it a short lived most popular. Hydrodynes and booms make footing a little easier to pratice now days. To cut this off now skiing is almost a lost art on the rivers I have skiied for sixty years. Every boat has a big tube tied down for the kids and adults also. Ocassionally you we see a person on a pair of skiis. You seldon see a recreational slalom skier. I few of us older adults still ski our course. When someone wants to learn to ski they usually ask me to help. They know my 20' Hydrodyne and 200 hp with a boom will be the best and quickest way to learn. Yes I do carry a tube deflated under the rear seat if absolutly needed to get a kid interested in being towed across the water. My granddaughter started in a tube but with a little patience she has been encourged to start on the boom and is now skiing
