I'm sitting on the dock last weekend (Oct 3, 1999), when Mike Bateman & his wife pull up in their Malibu Sportster.  We were having a relaxing conversation, but Mike kept mentioning that he would really like to try a 5-man deepwater.  He wanted to get a picture to show his office buddies how cool foot'n is.  I kept telling him that I was tired, and the water was too rough.  It was around 1pm and wake-boarders were coming from all directions.  We didn't even have 5 footers around at that time to do it.

The more we talked, the more Mike wanted to do it.  The last thing I wanted to do was a 5-man deep with a 6'6" 245 lb guy beside me.  I thought I was big at 6'4" 215.  And who else would be dumb enough to go out there with us.

In order to shut Mike up, I called Kyle Fahrenthold.  I knew I could count on Kyle.  His wife Debbie had him redoing their bathroom, and I knew Kyle would jump at any opportunity to get out of that.  Kyle is 6'1" about 185.  The next two had to be lightweights, so I convinced Colt Mahan 5'10" about 150 and my wife Michele 5'9" (the lightest of us all).

The next question was what boat to use.  An outboard Sanger was out of the question and Mike's Sportster would be lucky to pull 4 up.  Without a doubt, the inboard Sanger was the boat of choice.

On our first attempt, Michele said she didn't want to be on the outside.  We all agreed that Mike (being the "lard-ass" of the group) should be in the middle.   So Michele put herself between Mike and I.  Bad idea!!  When we took off Michele was squashed; so we moved her to the outside and just got used to her bitching about it.

On our 3rd attempt, 4 of us were up, and we were waiting for Mike to get up behind the boat.  Being as big as Mike is, he isn't accustomed to footing at 38 mph.  He got up for about 2 seconds, then he was gone.  Being behind the boat in the prop wash wasn't going to work for him.  So we did some more moving.  I became the middle guy with Mike to my left and Kyle to my right.  The two lightest skiers (Colt & Michele) we on the outside.

Our 5th attempt is shown in the picture below.  From the left we have Colt Mahan, Kyle Fahrenthold, Chuck Gleason, Mike Bateman, and Michele Gleason.  What a wall of water!!  And what a boat!  If we had a sixth man (or woman), we would have had the power to do it.

Thanks to Mike Bateman for not letting us talk him out of trying this.

Rob Cail from Minnesota saw this picture and sent us one that his and his friends did this summer:

Original 5-Man
Atlanta 4-man Flyer
5-Man Video
6-Man Video
6-Man Bridge Flyer
2-Man Cliff Flyer