This is a multi-page article that goes over many tips and hints that I have discovered and been taught in my 20+ years driving, coaching, and competing in the water ski industry. Some of these may seem a little obvious, but remember, there was a time you got in the driver’s seat for the first time too, and I’m sure there will be something here you may not know or have considered yet. The more you know early, the sooner you will be a safe and desirable driver to bring out to the lake.
The first tips here start out relatively simple, but the further you move through the list, the more advanced the tips and ideas will become. Everything in this article will be useful for anyone from total beginner boat drivers, up to advanced recreational drivers that aren’t going to be driving for competitive skiers.
To see driving tips for competition skiing, check the boat driving category on my website. Tips for event-specific driving are on my list to produce in the near future.
Tip 1. – Raise Your Seat Position
Getting yourself into a good position cannot be understated. A lot of people feel that the seats in more modern ski boats sit you really low down to the ground. To raise up your seat height, most boats have a seat section that will fold up to double the seat thickness.
When you are higher up, you get a much better view of what is directly in front of you. If the boat is at low speed, then there is the chance that the front of the boat will be angled up quite high, cutting your vision to everything at water level.
Having 360 views will likely give an immediate relaxing effect as the more you can see, the less uncertainty you should feel.
Tip 2. – Keep An Eye On Your Gauges
At the very least, you should check your gauges as you put the boat in the water, and as you take the boat back out.
Knowing your boat is good to go when you start is important when you want to spend the day on the water.
Checking as you take the boat out of the water will let you know if the boat needs to be looked over before you go back out again in the future.
Tip 3. – Always, Always Check The Bilge Pump Before Launching The Boat
The vast majority of bilge pumps in boats will have a float switch that only turns on when the water level gets high enough, though newer boats use sensors instead. Often the switch on the dash is to toggle between auto and manual, but with the newer boats, things are not always so straight forward. If you are leaving your boat in the water for any length of time, you need to make sure you know what the settings are.
A best practice is to flip the switch to manual as you are backing the boat down the launch ramp on the trailer.
Tip 4. – Get A Big Mirror
Larger mirrors have become more and more common in recent years, and with good reason. If your boat has a rather small mirror, then you can easily buy one that clips directly onto the windshield.
Get a mirror that is 12+ inches wide, and 6+ inches tall. The field of vision with a mirror this size is huge. Without moving your head, you should be able to see the skier 90% of the time, depending on how wide of the boat they ski.
While having that level of visual might sound distracting, it actually lets you keep more time looking forwards. Without needing to turn your head, you can flick your eyes to the mirror and get a vast field of vision with little effort.
Provided you don’t get overly focused on the skier or view behind you, it should help awareness and overall comfort levels.
Tip 5. – Learn To Watch Through The Mirror
This will take a little bit to get used to. While looking through the mirror, everything is opposite, as I’m sure you know. So when the skier is making their left turn, it appears to be a right turn in the mirror.
You don’t want to watch the skier for their full turn and crossing the wakes, you want your eyes to predominantly be looking ahead of the boat.
When you do pay attention to the skier, often out the corner of your eye, it is to see when they will finish crossing the wakes and when they are finishing their turn.
You want to know when they finish crossing the wakes because they are about to stop pulling on the rope, which will mean you need to stop counter-steering, to keep the boat straight while they lean.
Knowing when the skier is turning helps you anticipate the pull coming back on. Because the skier is outside the wakes, they pull the boat away from driving a straight line.
By being careful with when you watch the skier, you can make sure that you are keeping the boat straight through the pull while spending the majority of your time looking ahead.
Tip 6. – Trust The Observer
Make sure the observer you have in the boat is paying attention and not just playing on their phone. While having the big mirror can help a lot, giving the driver a greater field of vision, the observer is ultimately responsible for conveying messages from the skier to the boat driver.
Don’t be both driver and observer, the mirror is great, but your job is to drive, almost 90% of skiing and boating accidents are caused by the driver.
Tip 7. – Pre Plan The Outing
If you are not going to be staging from the shore r a dock somewhere, then you really need to make sure that you have your plan sorted and all the gear you need organized, to avoid making return trips and wasting gas.
Here are a few things you may want to plan out when you are heading out to ski.
Tip 8. – Talk To The Skier
Pretty simple, but can make all the difference. How does the skier like to be pulled for their start? What does the skier want to get out of this ski set? As the driver, do you have an idea where you want to go and can let the skier know? It only takes a few moments to make sure the skier and driver are on the same page before the skier gets in the water.
Tip 9. – Know And Use The Same Command Words
You probably know not to use the words No, Go, Slow, as instructions while getting ready to go. But make sure that whatever words you are going to use are known and not going to be mistaken for another potential command. Wide variety of words are used by different groups, In Gear, Ready, and Stop, are some that work well together.
Tip 10. – Be Careful In New Areas
Do some research, talk to a few people and have as much info as you can so you can avoid silly mistakes. Silly mistakes suck in a $100k+ piece of machinery.
Tip 11. – Know The local Rules And Laws
Due to the rise in recreational boat ownership, and the rise in boating accidents, different States and areas can have different laws to know about. I was a little surprised when I headed to the US and found out some states required you to have a flag up when the skier falls.
Tip 12. – Checked The Weather Forecast
Sure, you want the nicest day possible to head out for a ski, but there are a couple other considerations when it comes to weather.
Sun direction, in relation to the ski area. You don’t want to be driving directly into the sun if you can help it. So when picking where to ski on a lake, you may use different areas when it is sunny compared to overcast. Skiing into the sun sucks too, no-one wants to hit anything in the water because they can’t keep their eyes open.
Where is the wind coming from? Side or crosswinds are not easy to drive or ski in, so knowing where the winds are going to come from for the day will help you plan where you want to be to make the most of the conditions.
Tip 13. – Ask Locals About The Area
Most locals will be happy to let you know the layout of the lake and where to ski. If everyone is on the same page with how things run, then it makes life smoother for everyone. Locals should always be open to giving people new to the area a heads up as it will reduce the chances of getting in people’s way and upsetting the other locals.
Tip 14. – Check Google Maps
Rivers and lakes often have lots of hidden spots to go explore and ski, checking on google maps will give you a good indication of what is out there.
Often you will see off-shoots on rivers and lakes; the thing is, you have no idea what is up there, and you could be heading for trouble. With the ease of access to such information, you should never be making a mistake like this. The off-shoot could be private, get narrow or shallow suddenly, or even open out to a whole new area that many people never have the chance to explore.
Online maps are such a quick and straightforward solution that can help you prevent major issues with your day. Potentially even opening up amazing opportunities on the water, simply by checking before you commit to taking a look.
Tip 15. – Why Would You Do That There?
Always a good goal to keep in mind is to avoid doing anything that will have another boater wondering to themselves what on earth are you thinking.
A lot of the actions that come under this heading are common sense and courtesy. Don’t do circles with a tube near anyone else, are you checking for other boats before turning, is there a huge open space on the other side of the lake no-one else is using right now? Put yourself in the driver’s seat of that other boat and assess what you are doing, or in the shoes of the people relaxing on the shore.
Tip 16. – Pay Attention To The Other Boats, They May Be Driving Predictably, Or Stupidly
If you see skiers training, please give them some space. When training, competitive skiers are extremely limited in where they can go. Slalomers need a slalom course, and having boat wakes go down the course will force them to stop and wait for them to dissipate, as hitting wakes at slalom speeds is dangerous.
Jump training requires the jump ramp and calm conditions, or they risk major injuries. I once saw wakes from a rowing team disrupt a jumper and cause him to crash, resulting in a broken femur.
When jumpers train in the open, they need a long straight line, so they will simply go back and forth in the same spot, easy for you to predict and avoid their path. The same is the case for most trick skiers and wakeboarders.
Tip 17. – Docking Or Beaching The Boat
Beaching the boat will do some damage to the hull over time, getting a thin rubber protector that sticks to the V of the hull can avoid this. Outboard boats are easier to beach, as the engine can be lifted, so the prop doesn’t hit the ground. Also, the weight is more to the back, so there is less weight causing the front hull to be damaged on the sand. Inboard boats have much more weight forwards, so they won’t get nearly as far up the beach. They have 3 fins around, or a little forward, of the driver that could be damaged if they hit the bottom. You can’t change where the prop and rudder are, so make sure you are deep enough at the back of the boat not to damage them as you leave. Reversing will cause the bottom to sink a little deeper so more likely to hit the ground with the prop.
Docking the boat will take some time to practice and get right. Have a second person with you to make sure you don’t do any damage until you get super familiar with the boat and how it moves.
Tip 18. – Bungy Cord Docking Rope
There are a few different brands of these, they are awesome. If you have a buffer to throw over the side, then the cord can hold the boat to the dock without damage. Also, when other boats go by, their wakes will naturally rock the boat away from the dock and back without issue. When you use a static rope, like a ski rope, you will find that it is pretty jerky and rough, and the boat may actually hit the dock harder when other wakes go by.
Tip 19. – Make Slow Mistakes, Not Fast Mistakes
Less speed, less damage.
While you familiarize yourself with a new boat or area, keep the speed a bit lower than you are actually comfortable with. We all make mistakes from time to time, but making them at low speed is soo much better than when the throttle is down. When in the shallows, there is really never any need to be doing more than idle speed, it’s where most of the things you can hit are too.
If you need to make an insurance claim, they will be far more understanding if the accident was at 5-10km, rather than 20-30km.
Tip 20. – Definitely Not The Same As A Car
The worst thing you can have in your mind when learning to drive a boat!! Turning is less responsive, and there are no brakes!!
Tip 21. – Keep The Boat Tidy
This may sound like it comes from your Mum, but it’s kinda important. Ropes, Lifejackets, and skis are probably the worst combination to have strewn around the floor of a boat. The ski is slippery and will move if you stand on it(or you’ll damage the fin). The life jacket is just complex and thick enough to make gaps and holes to stand in and trap your feet. And the rope will wrap itself around you more easily and quickly than a snake. If you can’t move quickly and easily around the boat, then you have a problem. Tripping over gear if you are in a hurry for any reason is not going to be good. It only takes 3-4 pieces of gear to majorly inhibit your ability to move around the boat.
Leave gear behind that you won’t be using, wrap the rope up if no-one is skiing, and tuck the skis and jackets in the storage spots under the seats. It only takes only a moment to do but has caused injury and death in the past when ignored.
Tip 22. – Inboard Boats Need More Fore-Thought
Inboard boats don’t have the greatest maneuverability, especially at low speeds. Giving yourself more time to move and spot your line ahead of time.
I will make an article going into the differences between inboard and outboard boats, with relation to skiing, soon.
Tip 23. – Finesse The Throttle
Learning to finesse the throttle will take a little bit of practice, though there are a few things you can do to set yourself up for success.
I have always found lightly holding the stem of the throttle with the whole hand to be the easiest way to make micro-adjustments to speed and be the smoothest I possibly can be. I have always avoided grabbing the top of the throttle as that will require a full arm movement to engage the throttle and speed up, where holding the stem can be done with much more control from the wrist.
Pinch the throttle stem between your index finger and thumb, use the thumb joint(Half-way, not the base knuckle). From here, you can roll, or stroke, your thumb up the stem to lift the locking mechanism to get in gear. Then use the same stroking type movement to add fractional amounts of extra gas when speed adjustments are needed.
Tip 24. – Stick To Idle Speed
If you are not pulling a skier or deliberately going to high speed to get somewhere, then there is almost never any reason to go faster than idle speed.
To go idle speed, move the throttle forward until it clicks into gear, and then you leave it there!! Idle speed is actually pretty high in a lot of boats, so if you give it a moment, the boat will actually start to cruise along fairly quickly.
When you add that little extra throttle, you don’t gain much more speed, but what you are doing is setting surprisingly large wakes across the lake, and giving yourself less reaction time.
If you are not going up to cruising speed, then you are likely still near the shore, swimmers, or other boats, so just keep the speed down, please.
Tip 25. – Keep Your Right Hand On The Throttle
Unless you are doing a tight turn or driving through the slalom course, you should keep your right hand on the throttle at all times. This is the equivalent of keeping your right foot on the gas peddle in your car.
All speed control comes from the right hand, so if you need to slow down or stop in a hurry, then you need to be out of gear asap, and the only way to ensure you are totally on it is to have your hand there and ready at all times. You don’t have any brakes in a boat, so getting out of gear quickly is imperative in an emergency situation.
Tip 26. – Left Hand Always On The Wheel
Just like having the right hand on the throttle, you should never let your left hand leave the steering wheel.
When you are at cruising speeds, you should be able to make fairly tight turns with a half-turn of the steering wheel. So if you have placed your hand on the wheel in the correct spot(10-11 o’clock-ish), then you should be able to turn in either direction without shifting your hand position.
Doing a full turn of the steering wheel at speed is often too tight, that type of turning is done at idle speeds for greater accuracy of maneuvers.
This is based on my personal experience with a variety of tournament ski boats, other boats and brands may vary. The point is, less hand shifting on the wheel, the better.
Tip 27. – Keep Your Throttle Elbow Secure
You will need to find the most comfortable position for you to put your elbow, not always easy in a boat though. For some reason, the shelf behind the throttle for your elbow is often too high to rest your arm comfortably.
Find a position where you can secure your elbow, it may be by your side squished between your side and the boat. When your elbow is free, it will move when you change speeds, which will reduce your finesse and smoothness with the throttle.
With your elbow secure, you can focus on using your fingers and wrist to move the throttle.
Tip 28. – What Way Does Your Boat Reverse?
This is easy for an outboard boat, point the engine in the direction you want to go, easy.
For an inboard boat, however, not so straight forward(haha). The direction that the prop spins will influence the direction the boat will reverse in. Because the rudder is behind the prop, when you are in reverse, the prop is not pushing water onto the rudder to give it the turning response when moving forwards.
You don’t need to know what way the prop spins, just know that when you put the boat into reverse, it will pull either left or right. This is huge because it means the back of the boat will swing when you use reverse to slow down to pick up a skier, park the boat at a dock, or put the boat on the trailer.
Tip 29. – Intermittent Reversing Can Help You Reverse In A Straight Line
Getting used to the boats’ natural reversing direction is a must as there are only a few times when you will have the time, space, and desire to reverse in a straight line.
If the boat you are in naturally pulls to the right in reverse(We will assume this for this explanation), then turn the wheel as far to the left as you can, then back off from full lock by a 1/4 to 1/2 turn. If you leave the wheel at full lock, the rudder works more like a wall than a rudder.
Pop the boat in and out of gear, wait until the engine engages in reverse, leave it there for a second, then click back to neutral. While in neutral, wait a moment for the prop to stop spinning, and dragging the back of the boat to the right. When the prop has stopped, the momentum of the boat will continue to move you backwards, but now the water has a chance to be guided by the rudder to keep you straight.
You will need to pop the boat in and out or reverse 3-5 times to get enough momentum without prop interference to have the rudder get a good hold of the direction. Once you feel the boat going to the left, you can put the boat into reverse-idle and leave it there. You should now be holding a straight line or turning slightly to the left.
This will take a couple tries to get right, so practice somewhere with lots of space before giving it a go in tighter situations.
Tip 30. – Don’t Try To Use Reverse As A Brake If You Are Still Moving Forward With Speed
It will often be better to turn away from the obstacle, rather than to try to stop before it, using reverse(extenuating circumstances aside where you have nowhere to turn).
For starters, it’s bad for the engine; you wouldn’t throw a car from Drive into Reverse while still moving forward, would you. While that is an extreme example, it still isn’t good for the gearbox to make that quick change.
Secondly, it doesn’t work as well as you might be envisioning it. As you move forward, the speed of the prop in the water is creating air bubbles on the edge of the blades, because physics. The same bubbles or boiling of the water happen when you are in reverse too. Now imagine that you are still moving forward, even though the throttle is in reverse. Due to forward momentum, the bubbles will still aerate the water behind the prop(i.e. trailing towards the back of the boat). Even if the prop is reversing, it’s mostly air behind the prop, with little water to grab and use to pull the boat backwards. It also means that there’s more air than water going over the rudder, which reduces steering control.
Thirdly, when the prop does grab as you lose speed, it causes the back of the boat to rise out of the water due to hull shape. When the back rises, the nose lowers and plows down into the water. This will send a huge amount of water over the bow and windshield into your face and lap.
Disclaimer
The tips here are a collection of the tools I use while driving and coaching. Not all the tips here will work for you. The idea here is to get you thinking along the right lines about the fundamentals. Use whatever tips make sense to you, and use the rest as inspiration to experiment on the water. Find out exactly what makes you feel the most comfortable, and use it, because comfort is the main goal. If you’re comfortable, fun and progression come easily.