About Us

ABOUT C PRENTICE

Christy and Cindy Prentice are the daughters of Tom & Carrie, original TAC line distributors. Growing up on the water, these two can’t help but be passionate about water sports! Their goal is to provide both a superior customer experience and tremendous value for our customers.

We love our customers and welcome your feedback and suggestions!

HISTORY

¼” 16 strand polyethylene Japanese ski rope was originally sourced from Japan through a past skier of Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, Florida. He had been supplying the rope for years to Cypress Gardens and other clubs. In 1994, Tom Prentice and Carrie Berg launched Lake Elmo Sports and started importing and selling Japanese TAC (Tom And Carrie) line rope to ski clubs. The rope came from a company named Daiei in Japan. In the year 2000 or close to that, Barefoot International started purchasing and using the same rope from the same source for their Barefoot and Wakeboard ropes. Sometime after 2002, the Daiei factory that made the rope in Japan burned down and the rope was no longer available and there were no plans to rebuild. Producing the rope again didn’t happen for several years.

Creative Sites

In 2011, after many of the ski clubs kept calling Tom to try and source the rope again, Tom agreed to try to source the rope again and reached out to his contacts in Japan. Kurt Carpenter, from Ski Otters in White Bear Lake, requested the rope and agreed to invest in the rope project and do the sales and marketing, if Tom sourced the rope again. They formed an agreement with the manufactures to purchase the equipment needed to start up rope manufacturing again, they formed Show Ski TAC and started importing and selling Japanese TAC line rope again to ski clubs. The main challenge has been the long lead times, available colors, and keeping enough on hand to meet demand. Long time family friend, Dan Olson from Winter Haven, Florida, took over sales and marketing in 2014, launched the showskirope.com website and grew sales. In 2020, Dan passed the reins to the Prentice daughters (Christy and Cindy), who are now the sales and marketing representatives for Japanese TAC line.

Design

¼” Japanese 16 strand hollow braid Polyethylene rope- When the manufacturer measures it without a load, they refer to the rope as 8mm, but when you pull it tight it measures ¼”. There are 16 strands and each strand is made up of 15 monofilament filers. Not all polyethylene rope is the same. Like a lot of products, there is some art involved with the filament formulation and the settings on the rope winding machines which remains a trade secret.

History

Polyethylene was first synthesized in 1933 and put into production in 1939. Polyethylene rope has very low stretch, high strength, and is excellent in both chemical and ultraviolet resistance. Similar to Polypropylene rope, but polyethylene retains its memory so that winding a ski rope is made easier. Polyethylene is heavier that polypropylene and offers more abrasion resistance. It also has a high buoyancy, which allows it to float.

Product

Currently in stock is white, dark blue, aqua blue, lime green, pink, and yellow. In order to add a new color, we typically need to order more than 100,000 feet shipped by container from Japan. We have limited availability of white, but have white on order that should arrive soon.

Simply Amazing

Be sure to check out our customer reviews page and read what people are saying about our product.

Used by Professionals

Our product is used at many professional shows across the world!

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