Trainer Skis speed

[Kvon]

Hey all,

I just bought some trainer skis for my little girls. The oldest is 7 so they are the smallest ones I could buy.

I was just wondering what speed I should go with her? I don't want to scare her to the point to where she won't want to do it again. I was thinking like 15mph, but not sure.


Any help or ideas is greatly appreciated.

Take care,
Kvon

[bmoorewiz]

You should teach her to wakeboard instead She will love you for it later!

[c_hotshot]

Great question KVon! I havent put my little girl on them just yet for that exact reason - she's just now getting used to being behind the boat on the tube and those have been enjoyable moments for her.

Depending on her age and weight - I would think that 15 is too fast - you might be able to get her up at something like 12 or 13.

Curious what others share in this this space and what's worked for 40lb little ones!

Thanks,
Chris

[WakerideN]

Hey all,

I just bought some trainer skis for my little girls. The oldest is 7 so they are the smallest ones I could buy.

I was just wondering what speed I should go with her? I don't want to scare her to the point to where she won't want to do it again. I was thinking like 15mph, but not sure.


Any help or ideas is greatly appreciated.

Take care,
Kvon

had my kids boarding by 7... at 19-20mph... kids are simple. they are as scared as you are. so if you show and teach them they will thrive off the confidence you teach and preach. that applies across the board. what you have to teach them is falls on a wakeboard\ski are like falls on a bike... they happen... you hurt for a few minutes and life goes on... you take the water out of it.... its the event. not the waters fault. just like concrete. they still ride or skateboard right? they just learn I dont do that or it hurts.

I think as a side note... my sons biggest fear at that age was his arms where going to be pulled off by the boat like a lego character.. so our perception of what scares them is different than theirs as well.

[lalijaca]

My twin girls are aged 11 now and started skiing about the age of 7. I am hoping the trainer skis you bought have the fixed brace that joins the tip of the skis as this really helps. As far as speed goes, start off as slow as possible and let them build you up. I would start at about 10mph and a short rope just outside the prop wash.

[Magnumguru]

I just taught my 11 year old girl, 9 year old boy, and 7 year old girl to ski, and we stayed at 15 mph for all of them. They all got up and did just fine, I am sure we could have gone a bit slower for the 7 year old, but she rode it out 100 yards her second attempt.

For the wakeboard,we had the older of the two at 15 MPH as well, and it went really good.

We started with skis that have the solid bar, and then after a few days went to a rope instead, just to keep them from whipping out, but letting them learn to control the skis and move back and forth between the wake.

[Kvon]

Thanks for all of the advice. I hope to have some video of her successful skiing after the week of the 4th.

bmoorewiz- she wants to wakeboard in the worse way, but I was thinking it would be easier behind skies. We shall see. Maybe after this adventure I will have to go out and buy a kids wakeboard next

[bmoorewiz]

Learning to Ski first will make it harder to learn to wakeboard IMO. However, no harm in learning both

You can always also go out and get a hydrofoil and teach her that!

[hallazz]

It's always easier on what you first learn. Trying to get someone to transition to something else once they know how to do something can be difficult.

[Coop]

bmoorewiz- she wants to wakeboard in the worse way, but I was thinking it would be easier behind skies. We shall see. Maybe after this adventure I will have to go out and buy a kids wakeboard next

I've gotten to the point where I think it's easier to teach the little ones to wakeboard rather than ski (even with the training skis). When they're in the water trying to get set, it's so much easier with the wakeboard -- they just float there with the board in front of them, and it's easy for them to keep it in the right position. The skis, on the other hand flop back and forth, and it's much harder for the kids to control them, and they can get frustrated because of that.

Once they're up on the wakeboard, they'll usually just immediately go straight outside the wake on the heel side (usually before it even forms), but that's fine -- they can just be out there and get used to it until they figure out how to turn it toe side. The only hard part is getting them to turn over in the water if they end up floating on their stomach. A lot of them initially can't turn themselves back over in the water with the board on. Until they figure that out, you might need to get them near the swim step and give them a hand with that (assuming you don't already have someone in the water helping them).

As far as speed, the board will float them at pretty low speeds, so you can go as slow as 11-12 mph if you want (or probably even slower). Only problem there is that the wake is huge, and depending on the length of the rope, they can sometimes get caught riding between two big waves on one side. I can remember times where it seemed like those waves were taller than my youngest daughter when she first started.

All good stuff -- some of the best memories on the boat. Have fun.

[whiteflash watersports]

It's alot easier tp get up on a wakeboard. We taught our duaghter when she was 5 at around 12mph. She was up to 19 within a year and now rides at 23.5 at 12 years old. Just keep them in that ball in the water and they will pop right up - getting up on skis is much tougher.