Wakeboarding History

It is not entirely certain where wakeboarding came from. It progressed from many different sports during the 1980's but there are a few key sports and individuals that stick out as contributors to wakeboarding.

Surfing is one of wakeboarding's closest relatives and one of the main contributors to the sport. One of the earliest forms was surfers getting pulled out to sea by boats to catch waves or being pulled by a truck along the shoreline. A surfer named Tony Finn developed one of the first wakeboards called the Skurfer. In the early 1980's he and his partner John Hamilton started mass-producing the Skurfer, which looked much like a mini surfboard. Later straps were added to allow riders to perform additional tricks.

Throughout the 1980's the sport was known as either skurfing or skiboarding. One of the problems the sport first encountered was the inability to draw big crowds to competitions. The boards and boat wakes were modified to allow riders to perform more spectacular tricks and gradually crowds increased. Another problem was that the early wakeboards were difficult to get up with because of their high buoyancy.

The next person to help in the evolution of the sport was a surfboard and water ski producer named Herb O'Brien. He helped develop the first neutral-buoyancy wakeboard, the Hyperlite Pro. One of Herb's employees, Paul Fraser (who happens to be a former pro) is unofficially credited with coming up with the name 'Wakeboarding'. With an innovative rider, Darin Shapiro, promoting and riding the new board the sport took off. Darin was known for getting huge air while being pulled behind a helicopter.

Wakeboards continued to get better and better throughout the 1980's. They were made thinner with sharper edges. Jimmy Redmon was responsible for changing the shape from a surfboard shape to twin-tipped, so that riders could ride regular or fakie.

In 1990 Jimmy Redmon founded the World Wakeboard Association and also produced many of the sports rules and regulations. He went on to develop boards for Liquid Force and helped get the sport into the X-Games.

Wakeboarding was originally an event at water ski competitions. It was finally recognized with its own competitions in the U.S. in 1992 and received great exposure on ESPN. The first wakeboard tournament in Canada was held in Brooks, Alberta during the "Source Series" Recreational Tour in 1994. Two years later the first Canadian National Wakeboard Championship was held in Huntsville, Ontario.

Early athletes tended to have some roots in water skiing, however, many of today's boarders have grown up on the lakes without any slalom, trick, jump or barefoot experience. For today's athletes, wakeboarding is about personal expression. There is a tremendous amount of room for innovation and creativity. This melting pot of crossover athletes has created a sport that is exciting to watch and more fun to perform.

Recreational wakeboarders cover all age ranges and skill levels. However, the Pros are generally a young crowd ranging in age from early teens to mid 20's. The style and attitude are laid back, similar to the skateboarding and in-line crowd but a bit more upscale simply because the sport requires more than a board or blades--it requires a boat (or a cable ski park) to propel them through the air.

To many of the athletes who compete, wakeboarding is more of a lifestyle than simply a sport. With newer, fresher tricks always being invented, as well as wakeskating gaining in popularity, the future for wakeboarding is bright.

Source: www.stokecity.ca