Mar 31, 2011

Lake Trout Carry Out

It seems that Manhattan Style has no clue what a modern picture of waterskiing should look like. The above picture is from an article about Assistant DA Jonathan Streeter skiing on the Hudson before going to work. We could say several humorous things about this pic and its inclusion in this article but this is the CRB and we are nothing if not always very serious.
"while the yabbies?? are cooking on the BBQ, are you sure you're not an" interstate city wanker" yourself ? Cherabin maybe, no yabbies!"
Yea, I'll second what he said. Somehow that was a response to this story about a guy in northern Australia getting in trouble for pulling his kid skiing behind a helicopter.

The ODBF predicted another rough year for boat dealers around the country due to increasing gas prices and the falling prices in the home markets, but he is not an economist so instead we will take this writer for the Cedar Vally Business Monthly Online's opinion.

Here is some proof that the ODBF knows all. Last week he said that cable parks would continue to pop up all over the place. And BOOSH BITCHEZ!!!

On that note...this park in Santee CA is not going to open...I blame the hippies.

Seriously, every article we found this week about wakeboarding involved cable parks, like this one about cable parks in Thailand. Kind of annoying really, I mean where were the pics of stupid hot chicks fawning all over douche bags in boats that daddy bought.

Namibian sports websites seem to know how to get their stories way up the google rankings. It seems everytime we get our search on for waterski newz we find stuff about ski tournys in Namibia, even though this was their biggest event yet and it had 52 entrants, 18 of which were wakeboarders. We have decided it is time we move the CRB head quarters over there, as we could actually compete and maybe qualify for nationals.

Mar 28, 2011

Vid Day Monday

Not really tearing up big waves here but its some long distance surfing thats for sure. Its like wake surfing behind your boat...without the fumes...and your boat is bigger then a football field. Same thing.

This reminds us of the Barefoot Machine which looks pretty fun as well. Who does not want to barefoot in a shipping container?

Vid Day Monday

Ken Block was just out for a leisurely Sunday drive when this happened:



So, Youtube hates us.

Vid Day Monday

Goode as a company is pretty adept at using the youtubes to get out cheap advertising for their company. Normally the vids annoy me due to the way they stab you in the face with their name over and over again, but this vid is a good example of how to make a good advertising vid without getting on your intended markets nerves at the same time. Now it is 10 mins long and I only watched the first 2 1/2 mins because they started some nonsense interview that I could not give less of a shit about. But the first 2 mins are sweet! The new GoPro cameras are awesome and have opened up a whole new way to video skiing. The first person view of skiing makes sitting at my desk and looking at the miserable crap weather outside seem just a little bit easier...or it makes me hate all of you out there that live in warm climates all that much more...either or.

Vid Day Monday

A day in the life of Rusty Malinowski. If this is a standard day in Rusty's life then I hate him with the power of 10,000 suns.

Mar 24, 2011

Cutting Edge CRB

According to a bunch of charts our interns made* we need to make the CRB more mobile phone friendly. According to this chart by 2014 there will be more people accessing the interblag-o-sphere via mobile devices. HELLA PORN ON THE GO!!! WOOOOHOOOOO

*Morgan Stanley


And apperantly there are 4.5 billion people in the world using mobile phones and less then 2 billion using the interwebz from puters and lappys. That means the CRB is now avalable to 2.5 billion more people. Or about 3 more monthly viewers!! And if all 3 of those viewers click on our advertising links we could make at least 15 cents more a year.


So with that said, the CRB is proud to announce the CRB now has a mobile website!! This took us over a year* of planning and development** and finally today it is up and running. So whip out your phone and take a look!

*just checked a box
**drinking and sleeping

Mar 22, 2011

Cable Parks All The Rage

With gas prices going through the roof again and talk of those prices going over $4 or even $5 we could be on the verge of seeing another painful year for the boat industry. Nautique has been working on an electric boat but it is pretty unlikely we will see that boat anytime soon. Mastercraft seems to be going for the even higher end market where gas prices don't raise as many concerns.

The boat industry is sadly unprepared for the new gas price realities, but there is a sector in the water sports world that will benefit from these gas pains. We have mentioned a few times in the Lake Trout Carry Out that cable skiing and wakeboarding has been growing all around the world. New cable sites seem to be popping up every other week. While the boat industry went through massive layoffs and even shut downs more and more money was being invested into new cable parks. As a three event skier its painful to watch wakeboarding dominate all of these parks and once we here at at the CRB quit wasting our millions on domed lakes and midget hookers we will look into putting a cable system up, but until that happens we have to hope that maybe the big ski schools will see the benefit of a 3 event cable park. Europe has had 3 event cable skiing for years but it has not caught on here yet.



Kansas City Watersports was one of the early parks to open up in the US. The park has been bought by the founder of Liquid Force wakeboards and an investment group that defintly sees the possibilities that cable parks open up. These parks are opening wakeboarding up to a whole new market. With the extreme prices in the boat markets and the move to private lakes of recent years waterskiing and wakeboarding has become truly a rich kids sport. Many of the skiers I met on college ski teams have been forced to quit skiing or join show ski teams to get any time on the water at all. It is sad to see so many people that college skiing was able to bring into the sport driven away by the inaccessability of decent ski lakes and the insane prices of the boats.

Tony Finn, founder of Liquid Force, and his investment group have an ambitious goal of opening 20 cable parks in the next 5 years and 50 parks in the next 10 years. With any luck they will open a park somewhere up here in the frozen north, of course that is a pipe dream as its tough to make a profit with 17 days of above freezing temps a year.

With any hope USAWS or another organization will see the benefit of working with some of these parks to get slalom courses and jumps set up and then grow a competative league of events.



I am in no way arguing that cable is better or even equal to boat pulled water skiing, but if we want our sport to grow or at least stem the bleeding we need to be open to new avenues to bring in new blood. Bringing the barriers to entry down to a more attenable level can not hurt.

Mar 21, 2011

Vid Day Monday

To make up for the point that the closest to waterski related we got today was a car crashing into a lagoon, we bring you some solid cable park wakeboarding.

Still not water skiing you say? GET YOUR OWN DAMN SITE THEN!!

Jeez, everyone trying to tell us how to do our jobs, I don't roll into your work and tell you how to do...whatever it is working people do. We are way to rich to have to belittle ourselves by joining the dirty masses.

/quick minimizes browser so boss man does not see it.


Vid Day Monday

This has to be in the top 5 (if not number 1) of most expensive single car crashes ever. The guy has a good sense of humor about it which means he has to much money so we are on our way to go steal all of his stuff and then beat him with a pipe wrench for being a dip shit.



Now just to be fair if you go frame by frame through the vid you can see him hitting a Pelican and then he drives off the road. He said in an interview that he hit the bird and dropped his phone, then crashed trying to pick up the phone. Sounds like a good enough reason to toss 1.5 million bucks in a lagoon.

Vid Day Monday

Not sure this truck would be street legal, but...

/dominates the road

Mar 19, 2011

CRB Brings the Sexy

Yes...and...Yes. The CRB has already robbed 17 banks getting the money together to buy these houses. I mean look at the girls that come with the homes!!




What do you mean the girls don't come with the houses? Oh boy...we have some explaining to do...

Mar 17, 2011

Tie Those Skis Together

Little kids rocking the boom! Hellz yea

Teaching little kids to ski can be a lot of fun as long as you don't get stuck with the whiny little fat kids that just want to play video games all day while getting diabetes. Those kids could ruin a day at any ski school when you get stuck with one of them, you just want to drown the little bitches. But back to happy time, teaching little kids...hell yea, they get all excited and their faces light up. Its kind of like the feeling us older skiers get when we knock off that difficult pass or stomp some new trick, except they are not all jaded by life.

Coaching skiing is probably the best job you can ever have, thats why I sit at a desk and stare at numbers all day. Oh...no thats cuz this job pays money instead of room and board. But fuck it, if you get the chance to go you better get your ass to a ski school and coach, I coached for 4 years and man that ruled. And don't be like some instructors who only do it to get to ski tons on good lakes, take pride in the fact that this person views you and the face of water skiing and give it your all, unless of course its some fat whiny kid, just tell them to fuck off they are annoying anyways.

Mar 14, 2011

Vid Day Monday

Direct TV came and asked us if they could film a day in our lives, and this ad is what they ended up with. We are a little disappointed as they totally cut out the parts about our private lake with the retractable roof and midgets with chips and salsa in sombreros. But I guess they wanted to keep it from making the CRB lifestyle look to out of reach for the little people. Whatever! Why should we care about the peons?

Vid Day Monday

Now that we are all depressed from watching the carnage from Japan, how about a motocross front flip 360? Hella bad ass!

Vid Day Monday

Instead of looking for fun waterski vids this morning we have been looking at photos of the disaster in Japan. Here is a video that shows just how powerful water is, some scary shit. If you want to help out text "Redcross" to 90999 to donate $10.

Mar 10, 2011

Just Sailing and Dranking

It was announced recently, March 10th to be exact, which would make it really really recent, that US Sailing has signed a sponsorship with Old Pulteney. Old Pulteny is a single-malt scotch that has a boat on its bottles, so, this partnership is a natural. Lace up my top-siders Trade Only Today
The sponsorship agreement includes direct financial support for the organization, including support for select US Sailing Adult National Championships and Speaker Series events. Old Pulteney will be present for onshore social events and cocktail receptions during these programs.

"We are excited to have Old Pulteney on board with US Sailing," executive director Jack Gierhart said in a statement. "Their support will help us expand our Speaker Series, strengthen our adult championships and enhance the social aspect of these events."
*adjusts monocle* I do say chap, this scotch and ice-cube concoction is wonderful, speaking of which, did you see Anderson Von Hammerdriver's team win the rowing match, good sport!

Speaking of Top-Siders, you will happy to know that US Sailing does have a sponsorship deal with Sperry Top-Siders, and just a word of caution, if you click this link, Sperry, to go to their website, its basically a Gap commercial on boats. 

Not that this is a bad thing, mind you, but, if its street cred you are looking for this may not be the route you want to take.  If you come rolling up to your street ball game sporting the SON-R Ping Buckle style Sperrys, you best have mad game son, or you will be clowned.  Ya feel me, its yo boy fo sheezey, damn son yo lookin mad dumb in yo kicks.

Frank, however, still prefers to drink his whiskey in his favorite mode of transportation.

LOL, just drinkin and copterin

Mar 9, 2011

Lake Trout Carry Out

Lake Trout Carry Out is the CRB's version of a link dump. Bunch of articles that we could write about but are to lazy to so we throw them all at you at the same time. Deal with it.

We jumped on the Erika Lang bandwagon early on in her rise to fame and her score at the Junior Moomba Masters shows we were right to do so. She outscored 2nd place by over 3600 pts or by about 36 of the CRB minions trick runs.

Speaking of the Moomba Masters you can follow them on Twitter here, or check out all of the infos at their website here.

Regina Jaquess has been named a AAU James E Sullivan award finalist. I have never paid attention to the Sullivan awards before, but Ive never paid attention to your mom either.
The other four finalists are: Evan Lysacek, figure skating; Tahnee Robinson, basketball; DJ Williams, football; and Karrissa Wimberley, baton twirling.
...baton twirling...errrr

This article about a guy barefooting at 153 mph behind a helicopter. And we are just slightly more impressed by this as we are by freestyle barefooting on super fly highs and jacked up booms, that is to say ***YAWN***. Have you ever used a boom to barefoot? Its not that tough right, so when you jack the boom way up and just skim your feet on the water, all you have to do is hang on as its virtually impossible to fall. We are way more impressed by the helicopter pilot flying that low to the water and holding it level like that. Its like being the best guy on your block at riding a bike with training wheels.



Ok, it is pretty cool that he was going 153 mph and it had to be kinda scary to be under a helicopter while going that fast. So we are about 500 times more impressed by this then we are by that lame ass freestyle barefoot bs.

Hella dead fish in a harbor in California. I used to ski on a lake that had a big fish kill, it was some nasty shit. Had to shovel the fish off the beach and the smell was enough to make you puke. Ahh, good memories.

This may be the worst edited story in the history of news...The show ski team in Loves Park IL, The Ski Broncs, have been given $3000 by the city tourism office to help get the team back up and running after they had to take some time off due to low numbers and financial difficulties. Its good to see that at least some cities see value in water skiers hitting up their local waterways. Of course it could have something to do with the fact that The Ski Broncs host the Show Ski Nationals ever few years or so, and that brings boat loads of money into the local economy. Get it...boat loads...
/shows self out

Daytona Winner, Trevor Bayne, is a good wakeboarder. He used to snowboard in Gatlinburg then moved to North Carolina and decided to pick up wakeboarding. Claims he has 5 inverts so far. Good stuff.

Mar 7, 2011

Vid Day SNOW!!!!

This is would be the opposite of awesome if you were in this car. But we are not in that car so HAHAHA SUCKS TO BE YOU!!!

Oh and so as not to offend Horton's delicate ears we will warn that this vid has some NSFW language.


More Ski Videos

Vid Day Monday

This cool vid comes from the boys at Trophy Lakes in South Carolina. They have a very sweet set up down there. I am a big fan of the new small cameras that have opened up a whole new set of video possibilities. This is Leif Able strapping on the camera and getting his yump on.

Mar 5, 2011

CRB Brings the Sexy

We have missed a few months of CRB Brings the Sexy and for that we deeply apologize. And then lay full blame on Hosni Mubarak. Its got to be his fault...and the unions, its their fault as well. To make up for that we bring you Lauryn Eagle and her Australian ski racing hotness.



Mar 2, 2011

Bypassing the SkiMasterBu

One of our ongoing jokes around the CRB is that we ski behind the companies SkiMasterBu, which is a mash up of, fairly obviously, a Ski Nautique, Mastercraft and a Malibu, but, this is silly.

No, no, we barely ski...its more of a domination of the water when we strap it on.  It took the best of all three companies to make a boat that could handle our awesome.  Wonder why you haven't ever seen CRB at The Masters or Malibu or Moomba?

Tell the people who put those tournaments together to make a jump that we won't destroy upon impact, or a slalom course that is at least 90 buoys long, at 95 off at 50 MPH and then maybe.  Otherwise, we will ski in our minds.

Never mind that, it doesn't matter, a decent NEW ski boat is now so expensive that most people don't even bother anymore pretending to think they can afford one, buy one, enjoy one, or support them.  And, YO, we want to!!  We have poured over our waterski magazine new boat tester issue like crazy, we love to debate the boats, what we want, what we would get if we win the lottery (odbf = a bottle of 75 year old scotch, dig dug = a jump shot, life jacket = pants, minion = heroin), but...it feels out of our reach.

There is no hard feelings, its just facts.  We don't have the money, or ability, or foolishness?? to drop that much money on a boat we get to use only 13 months out of the year, and would cost us the ability to afford a vehicle to actually tow it.

At the CRB offices today we were chatting about Harley Davidson motorcycles, and the battle they face in gaining traction in the current market.  People view them as either 1) loud ass motorcycle gang bikes or 2) loud ass motorcycle gang bikes with that are trapped in the 80s .

Both seem to be valid, i.e, no ABS, no traction control, no toys to play with while driving, etc etc, and they are god damn expensive.


Thats the mindset right?  Admit it, when you think of Harley you think of either Sons of Anarcy (bad ass) or the god damn bikes that are so fucking loud when they drive by you think the guy driving has a negative sized dick.  Its awful.  These things are loud, have a reputation as being unrealiable, are loud as hell and are expensive.  Not a good combo.

Yet, here we are with the ski boat market where they have all the technology in the world, they ride like cadillacs or sensitive lover (your mom) and yet, they are so expensive that it doesn't matter.

Point being, our outside view points of a market are X and reality maybe Y, but, something got us to think X, which makes Y moot.  Meaning, Y may be correct, but, X is our reality.  Boats and Harleys are expensive and no matter if we get "value" out of them, that initial cost is so great, it eliminates any conceivable assumed value.

For boats, a good ride, a nice wake, a bitchen stereo, a cool look..etc..great, but, its 65,000 for a Response or a prostar or whatever nautique is calling their boats (syndicate??).

So yeah, all that stuff piled in the boat is great, but, for twice what we pay for our cars, it better come with free drinks and oral sex on demand or its not worth it.  For Harleys, the look, the image, the ride, the respect, it doesnt matter.  Its 15-20 grand for something that is not a daily driver, you better offer more or else we will just...well...we will just bypass you.  Thats your conundrum.

Yet, there is reason for optimism, at least thats William Sisson in tradeonlytoday.com says in a recent column.  Its a top-10 thing as to why sales of boats will improve, and we don't think that market wise it technicaly is about ski boats, more about bigger lake/ocean type boats, yachts, etc, but, we think the generalities apply to our market, as our boats are about as expensive now anyways. Here is the top ten part.
So here are the 10 indicators Dammrich says point to better new-boat sales this year.
1. Improving consumer confidence. 
2. Consumer spending up most of the last 18 month 
3. Light-vehicle sales strong and growing 
4. RV sales growing. 
5. GDP has grown the last six quarters. Projections for 2011 GDP growth range from 3 to 4 percent. Fantastic. New-boat and engine sales do well when GDP is growing at 3 percent or above. 
6. Dealer inventories perhaps at the lowest level ever. 
7. Used-boat inventory drying up. 
8. Used-boat prices rising (as a result of No. 7), making new boats more attractive. 
9. Late-model used boats won't be available in the preowned market. Why? We didn't build them. We only built 80,000 boats in 2009 and 130,000 in 2010. 
10. Manufacturers are introducing new models with new features and accessories, and these aren't available in the preowned market. 
"We should be turning soon," says Dammrich, who believes recovery is going to come sooner and stronger in 2011 than people think. "Hope I am right." 
So do we.
From our perspective, the only two on this list that really make sense are the 4th and 5th bullet points, RV sales are growing, meaning people are putting their money into LARGE toys and if the 3% rule applies that means good things as well.

However, the rest of the points are straight conjecture at best, and foolish at worst.

Consumer confidence, has nothing to do with the boating industry, its based on the economy and personal feelings.  Beaten dogs can be taken in, fed, loved, but, will cower when a hand is raised.  Confidence may be going up, but, the threat is there and money will be tight.  No need for a quad-tower wake-board boat yet.

Same with spending, you tighten up you're wallet, when you feel you can ease back a bit, you buy a new fridge, or repave the driveway or put a new roof on, things you skimp on for so long you can fix...not get a boat.



6,7,8,9 are all the same.  Less used boats, higher prices, prices rising, late-model boats not available.  Our economic issues have not happened yesterday, its been going on for years.  The reason there are not more boats is boat companies couldn't make them, people didn't buy them and if they did you know damn well they are keeping them.  Not about to trade in a 07 Supra for a new one, when your upside down on your payments, the boats are obnoxious expensive and nothing really has changed that much...right?

and 10 is simply false.  New features are coming every year, it makes no difference if it was switching from carbs to injection in the 90's, or cassette to cd to mp3 to sataliite/ipod integration now...new things are constant.  Thats what aftermarket companies are for, to fix up your stuff when you cant afford the new.

Look, we like to bag on boat companies for the prices of their boats, but, its not in anger, its just in realization.  We are, the CRB, not the target market.  We are just avid skiers who love to get out and get wet, tear shit up and have a good time.  Obscenely brand loyal and easy marks for companies to help spread love.  But, we only are middle-class folks, you know, the ones that democrats believe are all gone and republicans dont believe exist?  Yeah, thats us.  (cmon, that was a pretty good sentence!!)

Maybe we were spoiled by our parents who bought these boats back in the day so we could go drink and float and fornicate all day long and now realize it takes work to get that money, or maybe the escalating price of boats outstripped our earning power?

Guess what though, it doesnt matter anymore!!

We have moved beyond that realm of thinking.  We have decided, as a CRB collective, that we will do something about it.  We won't be trying to save our pennies anymore in hopes to find a 92 prostar with rotten floors, no no, we are going to change the damn paradigm, shift it!  Put a bluetooth earpiece thing in its douchy ear and crank up our subs at the gas station...

You:  "but how will you pull off this whatever it is you are doing oh powerful CRB??"
CRB: "haha"
CRB: /brandishes samurai sword
CRB: /eats many shrimp cocktails.  heavy on the cock
CRB: /wait..what?
CRB: "check this shit out....../opens website"

BOOM!!!!  Missouri boat builder up for sale

Thats right people!  CRB is getting into the boat building business!!  You think your POS ski boat can handle our brand of crazy! Your wrong!

Ever seen a ski boat with a diesel motor and a gatling gun trained directly at the skier?  DOUBTFUL!!!

Ever seen a ski boat with a tri-hull and seven 50 horsepower motors?? DOUBTFUL!!!

Ever seen a ski boat with tracking fins, on the drivers seat??? DOUBTFUL!!!!

Ever seen a ski boat with not only a built in cooler but, that is ONLY a cooler?  DOUBTFUL!!!!!

Ever seen a ski boat that explodes when you do a whirlybird?? DOUBTFUL!!!!!!!

Ever seen a ski boat that folds up into the shape of a gay dragon??  DOUBTFUL!!!

Ever seen a ski boat that can also be used as a warming lubrication for sex???  NOW YOU HAVE!!!

THE CRB SKI BOAT!

Yes, you want the perfect double up?  done.  Best slalom wake ever?  Done.  Explosive power for your jump set?  be honest, you don't need it.  You aren't Freddy.  Can float for hours on end so you can drink and it won't sink!?!?!  MAYBE!!!

This is a win-win-lose-win for us all.  WIN = affordable, WIN = Skiable, Lose = your inhibitions, WIN = unexplained pregnancies!!

The time has come people to step out from the shadows, to stand up for what is right and good in this world, you need to make your voice heard, you need to become part of the movement.

Its time.   CRB Ski Boat.  THE CRB 209.  YOU NOW HAVE 20 SECONDS TO COMPLY!!

RAGE

Back in the day there was a team I hung out with once in awhile that would play "Killing in the name of" by Rage Against the Machine. Man it was awesome, bashing around and breaking stuff...then going skiing. That was the life.

This is the George Mason pep band rocking out. Sure would have been cool if my college had been good at sports.

Its to Dang Cold!

Enjoy this weather you hot piece of ass! Dispatch from the CRB weather desk Guess what???  ITS COLDER THEN A WELL DIGGERS ASS OUT THERE KIDS...