Good advice - well for the most part! I never yell, except maybe a time when screwing around almost resulted in a bad ending. I think Dusty makes a good point there about any "advice" from the water comes across like an attack on the driver.

Other than that I just don't get it. We've been doing this for 6+ years. I'm starting to wonder does she never watch what I'm doing or how I do it? Another example - when bringing the rider the rope I will watch for when the handle is almost to them, hit neutral or even reverse, so it is a nice gentle pickup and they can ready themselves. When I'm in the water - holy crap, you better be paying attention because that handle is going past at 10mph and if you can't handle rope burn, don't get it on the first grab and brace yourself for immediate launch you'll have to wait another 10 minutes while she makes a loop half mile around the lake to pick you up.

She will drive on to the trailer if the launch is not crowded and has no wind/current and does pretty well with that but that doesn't help with the rest of the day.

Tinkering around with stereo or anything is out of the question with her behind the wheel. The passengers had all been given assignments too on this particular instance so I don't think that was the problem.

The other issue I've been trying to work on is no power turns. She avoids this wakeboarding by doing the 1/2 mile loop to pick me up. Surfing on the other hand gets pretty scary. She doesn't slow down but rather cranks it around and keeps the speed up because she's afraid of taking water over the bow. I've demonstrated numerous times how to cut the throttle and crank the wheel, let the waves go past, then gently motor back. I have yet to see it happen though.

We have a new law in WA regarding needing a boater's license and minimum age requirements. Since the girls 11, 16, 19 are usually more interested in changing the song on the stereo every 30 seconds or fighting over tanning oil I think I'll focus on my 9yr old son as first mate and start training him. Then again he probably already knows most of it.