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The Official Slalom Course Diagram

For years water skiers have set up their race courses while studying a diagram that is a flat out lie. To draw a picture of the slalom course that shows the buoys nearly as wide as they are apart is horribly misleading to say the least. As long as you're attacking the slalom course thinking that you need to ski wider than you need to ski down the lake, you're going to have a hard time skiing efficiently.

Measurement	Distance	Tolerance (+-)
Entrance Gate to Boat Guides (length)	27 meters / 88.5 feet	.135m / 5.25"
Boat Guide to Boat Guide (length)	41 meters / 134.5 feet	.205m / 8"
Buoy to Buoy Diagonal	47 meters / 154 feet	.235m / 9.24"
Turn Buoy from Course Centerline	11.5 meters / 37' 8.4"	.115m / 4.5"
Entrance Gate Width (buoy to buoy)	2.5 meters / 8' 2.4"	.125m / 5"
Boat Guide Width (buoy to buoy)	2.3 meters / 7.5 feet	.23m / 9"

When you study the slalom course in a real-life environment (or in a to scale diagram that actually shows proportional distances) you start to notice a few things...

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