How to Lay Out a Waterskiing Slalom Course

Build your own buoys and anchors, and set them in position for your own slalom course to practice on.

Things You'll Need

  • Elastic Tubes
  • Safety Flags
  • Anchor Ropes
  • Kneeboards
  • Life Vests
  • Ski Boats
  • Slalom Skis
  • Water Ski Ropes
  • Water Skis
  • Waterski Anchors
  • Waterski Buoys
  • Waterski Gloves
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Instructions

    • 1

      Gather materials (22 anchors, 22 bouys, 22 underwater floats, anchor rope and 22 elastic strips), and decide where you will lay out your course.

    • 2

      Use two 75-foot ski ropes tied together as measuring lines. Mark the rope at 9 feet, 33 feet, 75 feet, 90 feet, 135 feet and 150 feet.

    • 3

      Check the water depths with an anchor and rope. Then estimate the length each anchor rope needs to be, and connect each anchor to a float with three-quarter inch polyethylene line four to five feet below the surface. Attach your buoys to your underwater float with four to five feet of elastic tubing. From the ground to the surface, you should have an anchor roped to an underwater float elastic-roped to the buoy, which is floating on the surface. You need 22 of these arrangements.

    • 4

      Lay out the course only in glassy water. Have two swimmers stretch the measuring rope, while the driver idles the boat and gently lowers the buoy anchor at the decided upon buoy spot as measured out by the rope. The anchor should reach the bottom, with the buoy floating on the surface.

    • 5

      Set eight buoys in a straight line, each 135 feet apart (with the exception of the first and last, which are 90 feet from the next buoy). Set another row of buoys parallel to the first, nine feet apart. These are the boat gates.

    • 6

      Set six bouys 33 feet out from the boat gates. Looking down the course from the beginning, the first outside buoy should be 33 feet out from the second boat gate on the right side. The second bouy should be 33 feet out from the third boat gate on the left. The third is on the right, the fourth on the left, and so on, until the sixth buoy at the second-to-the-last boat gate.