Conference vicki::boats

    
    
    	Our adhoc ski team on Province Lake put together a 5-man
    pyramid last Sunday. We (should I say we since I was only driving?)
    managed to do it on the second try. I was pretty impressed as were
    the people on the beach and in other boats.
    
    	It did generate a few questions though (hi Rog). What is the
    secret to falling backwards rather than the ever deadly forward
    fall? Are there tips other than correct rope length? And any
    helpful hints on getting the sixth guy up there?
    
    Rick
    
    All I do is ask questions lately, huh?

    It's not a stunt that most crazies would try, but check out the new
    James Bond movie "License to kill".  Barefoot waterskiing behind a
    floatplane.
    
    bill
    

    re: < Note 441.2 by ENUF::GASSMAN >

    
    	Who would ever think of skiing behind a plane...... :-) :-)
    
    Rick

    Hey Rick, it's about time you guys stopped messing around with "normal"
    skiing activities and started getting into the "weirdo's arena" !!!
    
    Now as for the pyramid, let's use the following convention for the
    discussion.  The pyramid people are numbered as follows:
    
    	Tier #3:		1
    	Tier #2:	      2   3
    	Tier #1:	   4    5    6
    	
    The pyramid is a great stunt, and fairly easy to master once you get
    the building blocks down pat.  What your #5 person (that's me in our
    pyramid) will find is that building the 5-person (3-2) is cake, but the
    sixth person makes it exponentially more difficult.  What you do is get
    #1 person on the shoulders of #5 before anyone else climbs.  Do this by
    having #1 pull up on their rope to ski next to #5, kick off their
    outside ski, cross their leg in front of their ski leg and have #5 cup
    their hand to grab #1's foot.  Then on cue (like 1-2-3-go) #1 climbs
    onto #5 while leaving their other ski behind.  Once #1 is on #5's
    shoulders and stable, you build the 5-person pyramid as you did before,
    the only thing is #1, now sitting on #5's shoulders, has to lift their
    legs so that #2 and #3 and place their feet on #5's shoulders.  Then #2
    and #3 (now standing on the shoulders of tier #1) grab #1 by their
    arms/elbows and "lift" to the standing position on #5's shoulders (do
    you think #5 is getting tired by now ... you damn right! :-) ).  #1
    then proceeds to climb onto #2 and #3, first by stepping on their thighs,
    then finally climbing onto their shoulders, remembering to grab their
    rope once one foot is on the shoulder of one of the tier #2 people. 
    And voila!  You have a 3-2-1 pyramid!  It's a beautiful thing.
    
    My advice to you is to try it all in shallow water, hooking your ropes
    to a tree or other stable attachment point and build it.  This helps
    you get the rope lengths to within a tolerable length (you'll find you
    may need adjustment on the water...and it's a pain!).  Remember that
    the pyramid leans away from the boat.  Experience shows that each
    succesively higher tier must be about a foot longer than the lower
    tier.  But that's just a generalization...you really have to adjust
    them for each person's reach.  Also, the shallow water practice makes
    it easier to find out if your #5 person can handle the building process
    while holding #1 on their shoulders.  #5 must be stable throughout the
    building process.  As a #5 person myself, here are some tips which I
    have made part of the discipline:
    
    	1) Keep your skis together...don't let them get wide
    	2) Keep your back stiff and shoulders back...don't collapse forward
    	3) Look straight ahead...stare right at the tow pylon.  Don't look
    	   up to see if the pyramid is built.  You'll know soon enough
    	   because your #1 person will undoubtedly start shouting
    	   hysterically.  Also, you can just glance ahead of you at the
    	   ropes...when their all tight, the pyramid is built!
    	4) If you feel unstable, call out to the others and fall BACKWARDS! 
    	   The rest will follow (laws of gravity assure this) and NOT
    	   land on skis.  Believe me, you'd rather have the people fall on
	   you than land on the skis.
    
    Good luck, be careful, and enjoy.  It's a great feeling when it finally
    happens.
    
    					...Roger...

    Rog,
      What is the "Other Nifty Stunt (if you survive practice)" that
    you're practicing?  (or are you gonna keep it a secret.)
    
    I finished the ECO work on the guitar. Added bolts to hold the neck
    to the body. I'll try "playin" (on) it tommorrow.
    
    Another thought I had was to maybe try skiing on Snow-skis (with
    adequate flotation, of course) behind the boat. I've done it on
    the lake before, but that was in February behind a snowmobile. :^)
    
    Any other comments of other weird things to try?
    
    Doug

    OK, I'll spill it...  the other night, just before we hit the water to
    do our "regular" 6-person pyramid, one of the other "bottom" guys and I
    were messing around with the ropes (we tie them to a tree, stretch them
    out to verify correct lengths, etc.) and happened to spin around to the
    backwards position (acting like we were footin' backwards).  Then I got
    this brilliant idea...a backwards pyramid!  So we asked my cousin to
    try climbing on us while we stood backwards...it was pretty easy
    (famous last words...it's always easy when you're on land and stable). 
    Anyway, we figured that we can start backwards on jump skis, then the
    third guy will climb up, turn around and the whole thing will be
    backwards.  It's doable, we just gotta try it on the water.  It'll only
    be a 3-person pyramid, but what the hey...
    
    While we're still doing pyramids, the same crew that's thinking about
    this backward pyramid tried a 3-person pyramid-around-the-boat.  I
    think this is doable too, but we couldn't get the timing down with the
    boat driver.  The top guy takes a nasty spill if we (on the bottom)
    get whipping to fast.  We need to figure out some control mechanism for
    this...if we survive!  :-)
    
    Doug, great job on the guitar.  I want video or to be there myself to
    see it... at least you can 'foot and slam it (like Scott Gray in
    Seipel's video) without too much pain... :-)
    
    					...Roger...

    	Well, this isn't really daring or anything, but a stunt
    nonetheless.  We did the kneeboard pyramid.  It's pretty much the same
    as skiing, but it's a little easier, I think.  All you do is kneeboard
    next to whoever you're going to climb on and then lose your kneeboard
    and climb on to the back of the other kneeboard and then proceed to
    climb onto your friend's back.  Of course to put together a five person
    pyramid is tougher because it's a lot harder to keep the kneeboards
    together and stable.
    
    						Steve

    We're thinking of opening our ski show this year with a group of 5
    people behind one boat, all skiing/riding in different ways.  The
    idea came from an ad in Water Ski magazine (I think the ad is for Casad
    wetsuits?) where there's a guy footin', a guy kneeboarding, and a guy
    slaloming all behind one boat (I thought I remembered 4 people in the
    ad but what the 4th person was doing escapes me).  What we're thinking
    of doing is adding a person on jump skis (yes, he'll ride over the
    jump) and someone on trick skis (this could be the tough one,
    especially since the boat has to go at least fast enough to keep the
    footer on his feet.  The kneeboarder will have a heck of a ride too.
    We'll probably set this one up this weekend.  I'll post the results.
    
    					...Roger...

    Rog,
      The fifth person was on a Waverunner.
    Different strokes for different folks...I like it!
    Doug.