Least hp to water ski?

[Mark75H]

My brother might hold the record.......


What is the least hp anyone can ski behind?

[1BadAction]

we used to use the tin boat with the 25 horse, but it was hairy gettin up. wake boarding was easy with that

[naughtybynature]

last summer at the cabin i was slalom skiing behind a 16ft tinny with a 15hp! had to dock start on 2 then drop one, but i could do it. i couldn't cut too hard or i would pull the boat off plane...

[P man]

my dad learned to slalom with an 18 evinrude then their dad bought a 40. Thats when they learned to barefoot.lol

[David_L6]

I have managed to get up on 2 behind a 9.9 hp on a 12' aluminum boat. That's about all you can say I did too - get up. It wasn't a lot of fun.

A first cousin and I used to ski behind an 18 hp Evinrude on a 14' aluminum boat regularly. I never intentionally tried to slalom behind this boat though. ;)

[heath brinkley]

40 hp boat. 65 hp PWC.
nowhere close to you guys but thought I'd throw it in.

how come when you try to ski behind a smaller 14-17 ft.boat like a viper or somethingIt'll pull the back of the boat side to side. But when you ski behind a 10' PWC they seem to stay planted better.:confused:

[heath brinkley]

what did your brother do it with ?

[pyro]

my dad learned to ski behind a 9.5, seriously...

[Mark75H]

9.5 is pretty good, but my bro' is still the record holder.

Anyone got pics to back up their claims? :D

[Instigator]

I learned to deep water start on a slalom behind a 13' Whaler w/a 18HP Rude on it:eek: Got good at holding my breath!!
That was also with two in the boat and me on a "real" (short and skinny) slalom ski.
First real ski boat for me was a 14' glass "Traveler" w/a 1954 25HP rude opn it and I slalom skied behind it (deep water start) 3 or 4 times a week for a year before trading "up" to a 4oHP:D
I think there needs to be at least 2 records, maybe 3??
Beach start on two you could do behind a 6 with the right skier (light), boat (flat bottom and light, no observer which is illeagl in this state) , and skis (long and wide).
Deep start on two, and deep start on one.
Chrysler used to have an add back in the '70's of a 6HP on a tin boat with one person, and a guy on two ski's.
One thing for sure behind a weak motor. You learn form or you drownd:D
Gary

[sms]

I think I'll have the record. 14' alumacraft row boat with a 6 hp Johnson seahorse. I learned to ski at 6 years old with dad driving. I bet he has photos somewhere if I need 'em. I still have the boat and motor.

[Barefoot Bob]

And I saw the pics to prove it. But I will let him tell the story.

But, what if your skiing behind something other than a boat??? I went behind a quad before. It was a Yamaha Big Bear 350 and only had enough power to hit 3rd gear. But it did work:)

Now what if I get pulled behind a horse:D Would that be considered one horse power:D :D :D I know I could do it:)

[heath brinkley]

saw that on a commercial, seems like a 7up, sprite, mountain dew. Something with a green can anyway. pretty cool seein' a a horse pulling a skier.

Talk about a super sea horse. Baaaahahahahaha !!!

[Barefoot Bob]

It was Mountain Dew:D And its been my inspiration ever since...LOL

Ron Scarpa did the Barefoot tumble turn in the early 80's Dew comercial and a year later they had the horse pulling a guy slalom. I learned to do the tumble turn as soon as I saw it on TV. Just never tried the horse stunt:D

[heath brinkley]

you gotta know someone with a horse.
I guess you'd need a long stretch of beach though.
that was a cool comercial.

[Capt.Insane-o]

I've skied behind a mark 25 tho, you guys still got me beat.:eek: ;)

[WATERWINGS]

I saw the picture too, so far Sam is still winning, unless anybody has skied using an egg beater!:D

[GP-1]

Damn.. I must be a load.. I can barely get up behind a 50....

[heath brinkley]

a load of what ?:eek: :D :D :D

[GP-1]

That's a very good question.. Seriously, I look (even more) like a dweeb trying to start on two, so a small motor is pretty much out for me.... When I was young, I did see a small kid get up behind one of those old 9.8 Mercs...

[heath brinkley]

I think eveyone is talking about childhood.
I'm pretty sure nothing short of a 200 is gonna snatch my ass out of the water now day's.:o :D :D

[sms]

Bob;
I've body surfed behind a horse. Pretty fun. We have a pond in the woods with a dam about 100 yds long. My wife and herQuarter Horse did the towing.

[Markus]

Skied after a 15 hp Johnson as a kid. Not a lot of fun. A 18 hp Mercury was a lot stronger. A grown man could start from lying in the water on one ski behind that one.

[bulldogdaddy]

well i don't know if this would be considerd hp. but when i was a kid and had to wait for dad to get home so we could ski,my friend had an idea,get 3 guys to pull the rope while 1 skied on the "flying disk" if anyone remebers these! but i'm just hoping bobs 225 will get my fat a$$ up now:D

[GP-1]

Bob's 225??? The one with 46 lbs. of compression in five of the cylinders... and 23 in the sixth??


Yea, I'm sure that'll work fine...

[heath brinkley]

I can pull my kid on a hydroslide, but after a couple hundered ft. I'm suckin'wind and need a beer.

[heath brinkley]

Originally posted by GP-1
Bob's 225??? The one with 46 lbs. of compression in five of the cylinders... and 23 in the sixth??


Yea, I'm sure that'll work fine...


Damn, that wouldn't pull my cat if you duct taped him to a pair of ski's.

[bulldogdaddy]

oh so he let you drive it huh gary,lol

[GP-1]

Probably not, but just for fun let's break out the duct tape....


Now, where's your cat?????

[heath brinkley]

:D :D :D :D

[Barefoot Bob]

Originally posted by sms
Bob;
I've body surfed behind a horse. Pretty fun. We have a pond in the woods with a dam about 100 yds long. My wife and herQuarter Horse did the towing.

Now that sounds like a wild time. You just have to make sure you let go before you hit the shore line. Or you would be dragging through the dirt like a cow boy on TV:D

[stray cat]

:) I've skied behind a 10' tin boat with a 40 yammie and a REAL short rope, in my pond :D We have pictures but no scanner. Way to many beers that day:cool: Also have pictures of my drunk ass bustin it an gettin stuck in tha mud:( Way to many beers.

[OLEGATOR]

BEHIND A 30HP JOHNSON AND A MERC 300. I'M TALKING 1956 JOHNSON AND 1960 35HP MERC. LEARNED TO SKI IN 1955 BEHIND MK 25, 18 HP. THE MERCURY DEALER I STARTED WORKING FOR IN 1958 PULLED HIS SISTER WITH A KE4 MERCURY.

[heath brinkley]

KE4 ???? Isn't that 4 hp. she must've bee anorexic.

[Barefoot Bob]

How fast you going Barefoot?

I thaught I was doing good behind my dads 16 foot Alumacraft with a 70 Merc. The boat goes 40 but draging me barefoot only got it to 34MPH. Thats as slow I can go without sitting on the water.

[Mark75H]

A Merc KE4 was rated 7.5hp and was apparently a lot more than my little brother needed when he was 6 years old, the little runt.


If I remember correctly the start was a modified "dock start"

Any one do it that way?

A dock start is where you sit on the dock and jump into the water as the slack pulls out of the rope. You sink in a little, but it lets the boat get a little running start.

For the start of my brother's run my dad held him and sort of threw him toward the boat when the slack took up.


Barefoot at 34 mph? Bob you are a sand flea

[heath brinkley]

My Dad would always do the dock starts or beach starts so he could do a beach landing and never get his hair wet.

[mercmack]

MANY YEARS AGO MERC HAD A ADD IN THE MAGS THAT SHOWED A 6HP MERC PULLING WATERSHIERS, I THINK THERE WAS TWO IN THE BOAT TO..JUST E-MAILED MY BUDDY IN CAL. HE REMEMBERS EVERY THING, MAY EVEN HAVE THE PICTURE...
I SKIED BEHIND A MERC 200, 20HP MERC 13FT ALUM WITH MY WIFE DIVING AND MY BUDDY AS OBSERVER AND THIS WAS AT ABOUT 1500 FT ELEV..

[Propster]

You would have to define skiing. 2 skis? 1 ski? Deep water start?

I "skied" on a piece of plywood behind my dads 1958 5.5 hp Evinrude on a 12 foot plywood boat. Later on I skied on 2 skis behind my neighbors 9.9 Merc on a Gregor aluminum fishing boat. That was when I was 12 and had to jump off the diving board to start.

[mercmack]

I WAS USING A PAIR OF KIMBLE FIBERGLASS SKIES, THEY HAVE SQUARE BACKS MADE IN SAN REIFEL, CAL BACK IN THE EARLY 60'S:;) ;) ;) ;)

[Rickracer]

....ski behind my grandfather's 14 aluminum boat with an ole Merc 200 20 horse on it, and he weighed 220. 2 skis, and not too fast either. :D

[Alan Power]

I guy I wen't to uni. with skied behind a hobie 18 sail cat. I saw pictures but don't have coppies.
My lowest is 16hp suzuki on a 11' sims - I think it was??? As for weird thing to ski on, we skied on an upside-down plastic patio table. The legs were sealed injection molded things that kept it afloat when you fell off...

[Mark75H]

Considering that a Hobie 18 can get up to something like 80 mph in the right wind, I'd say it is equal to a few horses...........after it gets going.

I don't think you could start out behind one.......I think you'd have to start behind another boat and catch a line from the Hobie and drop the line from the boat you started behind. Did your buddy ever explain how he started?


I've been having second thoughts, with the right wind you probably can start behind a Hobie almost as well as behind an 18 or 20 hp. Might drag your butt a while and to get any speed it would be a rough ride and if your sails weren't new they'd probably be close to ripping. How much reduction does the boom vang have on an 18? There'd be some heavy stress there, too but there is anyway on any high performance big sail rig.

[Barefoot Bob]

Thats a real good point about starting behind something else. A friend of mine would take off from the beach with his Polaris snomobile dragging my ski rope. I would try to grab the rope as I was getting towed behind a boat. The snomobile had to be going at least 38MPH to stay afloat. The timeing was way off with my boat driver so we never managed to pull off the stunt. After the 3rd try we were real close. But the law was on shore waiting to hand out all sorts of warning tickets:eek:

[Gerben]

Not actually me, but a friend skied behind an 8-man rowboat.

How much HP is one big rowing guy ? :D

Gerben

[mercmack]

ITS GETTING A LITTLE DEEP NOW, BUT HAS ANY ONE SEEN MERC OLD PICTURE WHERE THERE PULLING A ELEPHANT ON WATER
SKIES??? IF I REMEMBER RIGHT IT WAS WITH A SINGLE 100 HP MERC:D :D :D

[Barefoot Bob]

I remember the skiing elephant, but I dont remember what they were pulling with. I think that was done a Cyprus

[Mark75H]

.

[Mark75H]

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[Mark75H]

?

[Mark75H]

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[Mark75H]

Besides the people who already know, can anyone else name the boat and motor?

[Backfire]

Probably that plastic see-through boat and an Eska 5.
Personal story-I have skied behind a "B" model DuraCraft 14' with a 10hp 1952 Johnson, dock start one foot on the dock the other in an Alfredo Mendosa slalom. I weighed 165 lbs. We would
run the rope nearly tight off to the left, then turn the boat to run nearly parallel to the dock and open it up. It wasn't so much of a "snap" as it was a "surge" as I would slow the boat speed to the point it had enough- bearly- to keep me on top of the water as I jumped off the dock. My friend and I did this just to see if we could. We would tighten the pilot tube tension screw real tight so we could sit in the middle seat-maintained plane better with no-hands steering. Our regular pull was our service boat, an Arkansas Traveler DUT-15G (the real one from Little Rock), and a 1955 tiller 25hp Johnson. Probably '59,'60,'61? Had to get a 75 Johnson to barefoot, 36mph was ok, 38 was better, 40 and up was easy but the falls was bust-a-u-ass or face. We were in some better shape then, we would take one hour turns and have to "sling" each other off at the end of an hour and rarely fall. Ski belt, double handles-who says they aren't the good old days?
Backfire ;)

[Mark75H]

Less than 5, bigger name brand than Eska.


(But does kinda look like an Eska!)


:) :) :)

[WATERWINGS]

I've seen the answer on the other post, so I won't blert it out..........

......but I have heard of a private lake that had a rope system that would pull the owner and his friends around the lake kinda like the "J" bar lift on a ski slope.

[baddjonny]

Smallest we ever skied with was a old 7.5 hp johnson slap shift it had a big button on top it just had neutrel and foward for revers the engine turned 180` and had the old angle skeg lowerunit to slide over stuf not too good for speed this was on a 8' Fliver to pop a skier up you had to get plenty of slack in the line and get plained off wizz by the skier and pop him up this was with a 140 lb kid and could even salom ski start.
my old memories.
jon b

here's the fliver with more than ten times that hp
PS just found out this engine was originally owned by T2X in 1966

small world 1100 short shaft wish I had it now

[VEGAS-5.7L-I/O]

I this isn't record setting but as a kid I skied behind a 1957 evenrude 7.5 on 12 foot aluminum boat. I had my brother driving. The boat would hold me up on two skies but not on one.:)

[Mark75H]

My brother is skiing behind a clear plastic "Glasshopper" and the motor is a 4 hp McCulloch. The driver is my mother, she probably weighed 110 pounds soaking wet back then.

In the 1950's and early 60's Scott-Atwater and their successor McCulloch (also made chain saws and GoKarts) were the #3 outboard maker behind OMC and Merc


Probably can break this record with a 3.6 Scott, even more likely with a lighter aluminum skiff and a 3.6, but no way can my brother break his own record.........he weighs about 200 now :p :p :p

[Rocket]

http://www.burnettcounty.com/h2ocross/12.jpg