By Harley Wallace

As of this afternoon we have a narrow course. It would not have gone in without Bill and Sharron Helliwell (who have made every advancement with the adjustable buoys happen), Tom Taurone (who took the day off work), and Chris Blay (USD ski team.) The new narrow course is on all new anchors (old ones were not heavy enough – and were removed and thrown away) and is self adjusting (thanks again to Bill.) It is set on the new USA Water Ski Grassroots program specs – please send me feedback based on how the novice skiers you ski with are doing using it (college skiers especially.) It ended up being a National Geographic Day (a 2ft horn shark would not move from under an anchor – I petted it and then had to pinch it’s tail to get it to swim away, and Tom released 2 octopus living in an old anchor that had been removed and was going to be thrown away.) The Grand Prix Tournament Series has a novice course in the rules and points breakdown – we hope our beginner skiers (especially collegiate) use this narrow course and that it helps them transition from an open water skier to a tournament course skier. These yellow buoys are about 3/4 of the way out to the main buoys – which should provide a challenging yet realistic goal for our beginner tournament skiers. All beginner skiers are encouraged to ski our grand prix tournaments – they can start with the novice course and progress into the wide course and score pooints for both.

Also our 55’s have been rope measured and moved – along with the entire jump course – thanks to a few hours in the water from Kelsie, Ben, Rachel, Jake, and other UCSD and USD skiers. Our goal has been to make both courses within class C tournament specifications as set forth by USA Water Ski. The 55’s were off by 4 feet at one end and 8 at the other – hopefully this helps improve your gate timing! We are trying to perform a more precise survey prior to our class C in June to do any needed fine tune measurements.

Thanks again to the many skiers – especially Bill, Tom, and members of our 3 collegiate teams, who have spent so much time in the water to help make our site the best 3 event public tournament site in the US! It has been a privledge to work with such a dedicated group these past few months. Please send me any suggestions you have to help improve Hidden Anchorage! Attached is one picture of the effort that took place this morning.