Re: 3.0L...too powerfull to ski???
My family just started boating last summer. We had all skied before, but had very limited experience. We always just ease on to the throttle at first, and as everything gets moving and the skier starts to rise, we just smoothly and steadily increase the throttle until the skier is on plane. Let him/her get settled in, then when they look comfortable, adjust the speed to their liking.
Now, my brother-in-law is the only one in the family who has years of experience. He's been skiing/slaloming all his life. When he started boating with us last year, he kept telling us to just hammer the throttle when he's skiing, that's how he likes it he said. So that's what we did. It always took him forever to get up! He's the expecienced one, and slower to get up than the rest of us. He just said that's how his family always did it. Well, he always leaned way back and plowed through the water with a death grip on the handle until my V8 eventually dragged him on up. A weaker person would have just had the handle ripped out of their hands. WOT and hanging on tight was the only way he could get up. Finally, he let us show him a more proper form and we can pull him up easy like the rest of us. I have a V8 and we certainly don't need all of it to pull skiers, but there's a big difference in how hard the engine has to work to do it. We get effortlessly behind my dad's 3.0L, but personally like having the extra torque of the V8 to make it all a little easier. BTW, my bro-in law, my brother, and I are all about 270 lb.
The morale of the story is, both skier and driver need to have good technique to get the best results. Poor driving sure makes it hard on a skier, and a poor skier can make you feel like you have to have a 350hp 383 stroker to get him up. There is a learning curve to both, and good communication is key.
Sorry for the incredibly long post. I'm a bit long winded.
