Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some useful FAQs about our team and how we work.
We hope these clarify some of your doubts and help you make the final decision of joining!!
Do I need to know how to Ski?
What do you do?
Where do you Ski?
When do you Ski?
How tournaments work?
Do I have to pay?
NO! We are a no experience necessary team. People join who have never seen a waterski before and others have been competing their whole lives. Everyone is welcome, we are happy to help you learn : )
We practice and compete in what is referred to as 3 event skiing. This means we do slalom, trick, and jump. Everyone has the opportunity to learn and try all three.
We practice at Ironwood Ranch, a private ski lake in Arvin, CA (near Bakersfield), this is a 1hr 30min drive from school and we carpool in team member cars. This is also where we have our beautiful team ski boat! We have regular-season tournaments in Arvin as well but frequently travel as a team to Barstow, CA, and Sacramento, CA. Nationals can be held anywhere around the country, recently including Louisiana, Texas, and California!
Weekends!! Almost every weekend someone is out skiing and there are even some weekday trips. There are no required days, we encourage people to go out and ski as much as they can, but more importantly as much as they want. Skiing happens year-round as well, we have team wetsuits for the Winter and some people are around during Summer sessions.
The Team competes in tournaments during the Fall and Spring. Except for Nationals, we have tournaments with the same Western Region teams, which allows us to become very close with people from about 10 different schools. Tournaments are pure fun and should be no pressure. Regardless of ability, everyone gets a chance to ski all 3 events. At tournaments, we all camp together (tents provided) and the hosting team cooks meals for everyone in attendance.
Our dues are structured so that everyone pays a base fare that helps us cover tournament entrance fees, boat maintenance, team gear, team bonding events, and other club expenses. In order to keep dues low the rest of our costs are “pay as you go,” which makes it so that people who ski less often do not pay as much as those who are always at the lake. Dues paid in the Fall and Spring are $200. Each time we go out skiing we split gas which generally is around $10, we also have to contribute a small amount to cover the boat's gas, which is $7 per set (10 minutes approx). Additional costs come up occasionally when we all split gas to get to faraway tournaments or hotel rooms for Nationals.