When you first learn to get up on water skis or a wakeboard, it’s an exhilarating experience. The feeling is euphoric when you let go of the handle and surf behind the boat for the first time. But once you’ve mastered getting up and following the boat on skis, kneeboard, wakeboard or wakesurfer, you might ask yourself, “What’s next?”

It’s human nature always to want more. Once we accomplish a goal, we’re ready for the next step.

When you’re ready to move past just following the boat, there are two keys to work on. The first is to direct the ski or board away from a straight path. Water-skiers and wakeboard riders do this by crossing the boat’s wake back and forth. Wakesurfers do so by carving the board up and down the wave.

The second key is to execute a 180- or 360-degree rotation on a wakeboard, wakesurfer, kneeboard, or trick ski. By moving past merely following the boat, you can improve your skill level and ­develop a long list of tricks.

The first golden rule to understand is that the lower body does the work when crossing from side to side or when doing rotations. The upper body follows the lower body. Many incorrectly use the upper body to create movement ­either across the boat’s wake or when initiating a rotation.

Crossing the Wake

In water-­skiing and wakeboarding, because the skier or rider is holding the handle, the tendency is to lean away from the boat, and that pull on the upper body causes the skier or rider to pull even more against the handle to initiate movement. That’s why it is imperative that you ski or ride over the center of the ski or board to eliminate the feeling of pull on the upper body.

Instead of thinking that you are crossing the wake, think of the ski or board as leading the way and your upper body follows. To have the ski or board lead the way, focus on using the strength in your feet and legs to direct the ski or board in the desired direction. By doing so, you are putting the ski or board on edge to get direction either to your right or left.

Rotation

When you turn a wakeboard, wakesurfer, kneeboard, or trick ski around, the board needs to lead the rotation. Focus on using the strength in your hips, legs, and feet to rotate the board either on the surface of the water or when getting air time by using the boat’s wake.

On YouTube, watch a super-­slow-motion video of Olympic figure skaters doing triple or quad rotations in midair. The skater lifts from the ice and gets rotation in the air by using leg strength. As the figure skater begins the rotation, the arms and hands draw close to the body, and the upper body ­follows the lower body. 

Read Next: Three Keys for Tow-Sports Safety

Control Your Eyes

Your eyes play a crucial role when it comes to crossing the wake, carving the wake on a wakesurfer, or executing any rotation. When crossing the wake, most people are looking down at the water ahead of them. This leads to your upper body breaking at your waist, resulting in leading with your upper body. Instead, keep your back and head upright and focus on the horizon. This technique will allow you to lead with the ski or board.

When performing a rotation, it is common to lead the turn with your eyes. However, when initiating a rotation, look at the boat just above the boat’s windshield. This technique will enable you to turn the board while keeping the upper body quiet.

Understanding these techniques will allow you to go beyond just following the boat and expanding what you can do, and you will have more fun with your favorite new tow sport.

The post Take Your Tow-Sports Skills to the Next Level appeared first on Boating Mag.

In my nearly half-century as an enthusiast, coach, and competitive water-ski and wake-sports athlete, I have observed first-hand how recreational and competitive athletes evolve and excel. 

Smart approaches lead to success on the water, while missteps can land you in a frustrating rut with unnecessary falls and potential injuries. Through decades of observation, I have developed a five-step strategy for success.

1. Seek Guidance from the Start

“Just do it” might be an excellent marketing slogan for Nike, but it’s not the ideal strategy for learning and making progress. Instead of adopting a “let me try it” approach, which often results in trial and error, opt for coaching from the outset. Learning through trial and error prolongs your path to success and increases the risk of acquiring bad habits. When you receive guidance, you not only grasp the basics and mechanics of tow sports, but also gain a better understanding of how each maneuver is done. This knowledge enables you to replicate success consistently.

2. Find a Positive Role Model

When aspiring to master a specific maneuver, look for a positive role model who excels in executing the maneuver flawlessly with optimal technique. This role model can be a live, in-person mentor or even someone ­featured in videos. You can recognize ­optimal technique when someone executes a maneuver effortlessly and consistently. Watch this pro perform the maneuver repeatedly to instill a positive image in your mind, affirming that you can achieve the same level. Watching people with poor technique can create bad habits.

3. Equip Yourself for Success

Your choice of equipment plays a key role in your progress. Proper equipment can accelerate your learning curve ­significantly. For example, lighter skis and boards offer ease of use, while comfortable, supportive and lightweight bindings enhance your control over the board or skis. Furthermore, the type of line you select is specific to your tow sport of choice. Low-stretch lines excel in wakeboarding and barefooting, while lines with some stretch are ideal for slalom skiing.

4. Utilize Goals for Direction

Goals should guide you, not consume you. Instead of fixating on the end result, use goals to set your course. An exclusive focus on the goal can lead to an ­impatient mindset, making you believe you should master the maneuver quickly. This impatience can trigger muscle tension, wasting your energy and directing effort in the wrong areas.

To overcome this, employ goals to establish your direction. Discipline your thinking to focus on the basics to achieving the goal. Every maneuver has its basics and mechanical nuances for optimal technique. Developing this disciplined mindset will not only accelerate your progress but also increase your understanding of each ­maneuver’s mechanics.

5. Expand Your Horizons

While many enthusiasts stick with their first tow sport, venturing into other tow sports can enhance your enjoyment and overall ­understanding. Embracing variety within tow sports not only amplifies the fun but also improves your awareness of key fundamentals, such as body position. Each tow sport shares similarities yet offers subtle differences. For instance, wakesurfing eliminates the need for a towline, allowing you to learn how to control the board by applying pressure through specific points in your feet. Wakeboarding and trick skiing teach you how to do rotations, while slalom skiing teaches you how to use the ski’s edge to cross boat wakes and make turns. Barefooting hones your precision and body positioning due to the limited surface area of your feet.

With a strategic approach to learning, coupled with increased body awareness and technical finesse, your progress in water-­skiing and wake sports will be faster and immensely gratifying. This added layer of satisfaction deepens the already exhilarating experience of participating in tow sports.

The post Five Steps to Watersports Success appeared first on Boating Mag.

Water-skiing, wakesurfing and wakeboarding are all fun ways to enjoy a day on the water. The first step, of course, is getting up on your skis, board or wakesurfer. Each sport is unique, but they share certain characteristics. Understanding them will make your starts easy and consistent.

The Power Comes From Your Legs

These tow sports are lower-body sports, which means your leg strength is what gets you on top of the water. Start by drawing your knees to your chest and flexing your ankles inward to bring the ski or board close to your chest. Your skis should be vertical, with the ski tip well above the water. The board on a wakeboard or wakesurfer is typically sideways or parallel to the transom prior to starting in the water.

As the boat accelerates, keep your knees and ankles tucked into your chest. The pressure of the water will lift you up. As your ski or board rises to the surface, raise your seat up as if you were standing from a chair. As you raise your seat and hips, keep an ample bend in your knees and ankles. This position provides the best balance and control. As you complete the start, use your feet and legs to turn the board facing forward.

Relaxed Upper Body

With your lower body working to get you on top of the water, your hands, arms, shoulders and chest should be relaxed, and the handle held palms down. The purpose of the line and handle is to tow you, but they should not support your weight. Apprehensive beginners can carry tension in the upper body; the remedy is to exhale just before the boat accelerates. This releases upper-body tension, allowing your arms and shoulders to relax into a natural position. Relaxing the upper body allows you to use your leg strength during the start.

Read Next: How to Choose the Right Tow Tower

Tips for Quicker Learning

Several techniques can model a proper starting position before you start behind the boat. In shallow water, have someone tow you while you maintain a ­proper starting position. If the ski or board wobbles from side to side, concentrate on using your ­lower body. If you can keep the ski or board still and close to your chest, you understand how to get up. Next, do the same exercise behind the boat while the driver tows you at idle speed. When you maintain a tucked body position following the boat, you are ready for your start.

It is helpful to have an experienced skier or rider next to you and holding you in position. This is especially helpful for young novices, who usually feel more comfortable with someone next to them.

Driving Tips

A driver familiar with tow sports is crucial to quick success. The driver should put the boat in idle while the line stretches out. Just before the line is taut, the driver should put the throttle in neutral and wait for the skier or rider to get in the proper starting position.

The driver should wait for the commands “in gear” and “hit it” from the skier or rider, then put the throttle in gear and accelerate smoothly to the appropriate speed for the ­skier’s size, experience and specific tow sport. Optimal speed for water-skiing on two skis is 15 to 25 mph, 20 to 30 mph for slalom-skiing, 15 to 20 mph for wakeboarding, and 10 to 12 mph for wakesurfing.

The post Getting Up on Your Skis or Board appeared first on Boating Mag.

On July 2, 1922, an 18-year-old daredevil named Ralph Samuelson gave birth to the sport of water-skiing on Lake Pepin in Lake City, Minnesota.

His inspiration for water-skiing came in winter, when Samuelson would ski down the bluffs around Lake Pepin. Skiing on snow led him to wonder whether he could ski on water too. Samuelson built his first pair of water skis from 8-foot-long pine planks. His older brother, Ben, towed him behind a 20-foot workboat. Samuelson got on top of the water and started the sport loved by millions.

Samuelson went on to do one-man water-ski shows in Minnesota, Florida and Michigan. He did things such as water-ski over a 4-foot-high ramp, inventing water-ski jumping. What else did Samuelson do? He skied at 80 mph behind a World War I Curtiss flying boat. During a ski show in Palm Beach, Florida, in the 1920s, Samuelson was water-skiing and lost one of his skis. He kept skiing on a single ski, accidentally inventing slalom skiing.

From there, the sport kept growing. In 1939, the first national championship for water-skiing was held at Jones Beach, New York. The trick ski came into being in 1941. It was shorter and finless, which allowed the water-skier to do 180- and 360-degree turns behind the boat.

During World War II, Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, Florida, began staging water-ski shows to entertain servicemen. After the war, Cypress Gardens’ founder, Dick Pope Sr., made the show a daily event. This led to skiers inventing new tricks, such as doing a 360-degree helicopter spin from the jump ramp and skiing on small skis called shoe skis. Riding shoe skis behind faster boats led to the amazing feat of barefoot water-skiing in 1947. 

In 1959, the first boat built specifically for water-skiing, the Ski Nautique, made its debut. The Ski Nautique was made of fiberglass and featured a tow pylon, a mirror, and a hull design that created smaller wakes for smoother skiing. Fiberglass skis soon followed.

In the mid-1980s, the blending of water-skiing and surfing led to the Skurfer, a smaller surflike board with straps for your feet positioned for a sideways stance. The Skurfer evolved into the wakeboard in 1991, which made getting up and doing tricks easier. Ski-boat manufacturers started designing boats specifically for wakeboarding, with towers for an elevated tow point and hulls to cast a large wake.

Centurion then created boats that produced a tall wake resembling an ocean wave. As wakesurfing took off, Hyperlite debuted its Landlock wakesurfer in 2003, and the wakesurfing craze exploded.

So, as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of water-skiing this summer, we celebrate not only Samuelson’s accomplishment, but also the innovators on the water and the manufacturing side who gave us these incredible ways to enjoy our boats. We look forward to what new innovations will come from the next generation.

The post Celebrating the Birth of Water-Skiing appeared first on Boating Mag.

One summer morning in northern Michigan, I sat on the back deck of a lakeside cottage, watching the sun rise over the glassy water.

Suddenly, the ground began to vibrate, and my coffee cup on top of an end table started shaking. Was it the warning signs of an earthquake, or the footsteps of a ginormous dinosaur a la the famous scene in Jurassic Park? No, a group of teenagers had entered the quiet cove aboard a wakeboard boat, and they had the stereo set to “annihilate.”

While I would applaud this group of kids for waking up before dawn to pursue their passion, their ear-splitting music made me instantly dislike them. They had violated one of the unwritten rules of watersports: Keep your stereo at a reasonable volume. Most of today’s tow boats come equipped with incredible sound systems capable of overtaking any other noise on a given body of water. But just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should. In fact, if you want to maintain any sort of camaraderie with other boaters and property owners on the lake, you really shouldn’t.

With the rise in wakesurfing bringing watersports to new heights, and with more boaters in general, there is more interaction between everyone on and around the water, especially when you factor in the old standbys, such as tubing, wakeboarding, skiing and kneeboarding, along with newer toys like foiling. And while there are definitive written rules for tow sports in every state—such as having spotters and wearing life jackets—there are also the unwritten ones, such as turning down the music. We’ve covered a few of these in the past, but with more people on the water than ever, they’re worth repeating. Here are a few more unwritten rules of watersports.

Go Deep

The No. 1 complaint I hear about watersports—even more than playing music too loud—is when boaters throw big wakes toward the shore, knocking around boats in their slips and slamming into lakefront shorelines. The solution is to go out into the middle of the lake so that whatever wake you throw has time to dissipate before it reaches the shoreline. For wakesurfing, you need a depth of at least 9 to 10 feet to build a proper wave anyway, so it’s a no-brainer. For other sports where glassy water is preferred, it might be tempting to take over that quiet cove. But be considerate of how your wake might impact other boats and structure onshore.

Give Way

If you’re engaged in a tow sport, it’s on you to be mindful of other boats in the area, especially those at anchor or adrift while fishing. Think of the impact your passing in close proximity could have on their day, either by rocking their boat while at rest or scaring away any fish in the area. While having a spotter keep eyes on who you’re towing is mandatory, it’s a good idea to have a second person keep an eye out for boat traffic and possible obstructions to avoid in the water.

Read Next: Right-of-Way Rules for Boaters

Communicate

Some states require skiers and other tow-sports enthusiasts to keep an orange or red flag on board and fly it when a rider is down in the water to alert other boaters. Even if this is not required where you live, it’s a great idea so you can signal to other boaters that there’s a person floating in the water and they should give you a wide berth.

The post Unwritten Rules to Follow When Water Skiing, Wakeboarding or Wakesurfing appeared first on Boating Mag.

All good tow-boat drivers know the basics: Always designate a spotter. Make sure the rider and spotter understand hand signals to communicate. Choose a safe path, maintain a safe speed, and avoid hazards that could endanger your crew. Keep a downed rider in view at all times by approaching on the driver’s side.

Always turn off an outboard or sterndrive, or make certain an inboard is in neutral, before a rider approaches the stern. Never drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

With experience, the game gets upped. As long as the rider indicates they’re OK, slow to neutral after a fall, then return at idle to avoid kicking up rollers. Focus on the water ahead, but keep a roving eye on speed and the rearview mirror. Should a rider bobble, slow down to allow them time to recover before resuming your normal speed.

The best watersports boat drivers, however, take it up yet another notch by tailoring their driving to each discipline. Here’s a few of their insider tips.

Tubing

For a fun, safe ride, watch your speed. A mere 8 mph is best for children, and 15 to 18 mph is plenty for adults. To send the inflatable skidding outside the wake, initiate a series of controlled S-turns to push the tube over the wakes in each direction. Avoid cranking random sharp turns at high speed; in addition to a chaotic, potentially dangerous ride, the towrope will often go slack, then jerk riders as it snaps taut.

Whips can be fun, but proceed with care. Even when under 20 mph, a tube can accelerate to far greater speeds, increasing the chance of injury. Never punch the throttle, and be prepared to back off the speed and turn should the tube accelerate too much. Apply the same thought process to wakes; gentle can be fun, but large at high speed can be dangerous.

Water-Skiing and Wakeboarding

Skiers and board riders appreciate smooth water, straight passes, a steady speed, and clean, symmetrical wakes.

Drive in a pattern that will dissipate your rollers. Make a straight pass in one direction, a smooth turn at the end of the run, and retrace your original path. For riders who like to roam, break a curving shoreline into longer, straighter segments with brief turns. Use a visual target onshore to maintain as straight a path as possible.

Use speed control if available. If not, keep a gentle hand on the throttle and make small adjustments while watching the tach or speedo. Vary your acceleration to the rider’s size and choice of ski or board during deepwater starts. Wakeboards don’t need aggressive acceleration thanks to their larger surface area; a child on two skis requires less force than an adult on a slalom ski.

For both disciplines, anticipate the pull a rider can exert, such as a slalom skier accelerating out of a turn or a wakeboarder progressively cutting toward the wake. Be ready to throttle up ever so slightly to compensate for the pull, then back off as the skier sets up for the next turn or the rider gets airborne.

Read Next: How To Pick Up A Downed Waterskier, Wakesurfer, Wakeboard Rider or Tuber

Wakesurfing

A gradual, smooth acceleration is all that’s needed to pull a wakesurfer atop the water. Once at the target speed (10 to 11 mph), let speed control take over if possible. Nonplaning speeds, significant ballast loads and wake-enhancing hardware can make it challenging to maintain speed manually. Be prepared for significant bow rise; raise the helm seat, flip up a seat bolster or add seat cushions to ensure you maintain good visibility forward, and stay on the alert for boat traffic or other obstructions.

Underway, run a straight path. Deep water is preferable; shallow water can decrease the wake size.

Because wakes can be massive, stay well away from the shoreline and other boats, and be careful when turning back for a downed rider. Shift to neutral, allow wakes to spread, then turn tightly and proceed back toward the rider at idle to avoid swamping the bow or taking water over the gunwales.

The post How to Drive a Boat for Wake Sports appeared first on Boating Mag.

I earned my first gold medal at the 1982 USA Barefoot National Championship. I was 20 years old. In 2021, I won a gold medal in the Open division at the USA Barefoot National Championship.

I was 59 years old. The strategy that has kept me competitive for four decades primarily consists of three elements: a winning mindset, positive health habits and smart training. Improving each element separately complements and adds value to the other two. For example, in March 2021, I put effort into my on-water training and also minimized sugar in my diet even more than usual. I got leaner and lighter, which made my training more effective, helping me win gold. I believe my healthy lifestyle of good nutrition and not consuming alcohol is part of my longevity in the sport.

Winning the gold in the Open division at 59 boosted my confidence and added to my winning mindset. I didn’t view age negatively, instead using my experience to become more focused and disciplined. I have been successful by learning correct technique and focusing on the basics rather than the end result. Practicing with bad technique only makes you good at bad technique. Falls and injuries are signs there is a flaw in your technique or training. Learning by trial and error is not effective. By understanding correct technique and consistently remembering the basics, you will reinforce good habits and not learn undesirable ones. 

I am always working on the basics, whether for barefooting or any of the other wake sports that I do, such as slalom, trick skiing, wakeboarding and wakesurfing. How do you know when you have correct technique? It’s when a trick or skill—no matter the level of difficulty—is easy to do on a consistent basis. That is the sign you are on the right track.  

When I compete, I have a goal to do well in competition, but I don’t think about competing against others. I get inspiration from those who are successful and incorporate that into my training. I think of it as a competition against myself and seek to continually raise the bar for my skills.  

During the past four decades, I also have coached water-skiers, from beginners to elite. This has added to my understanding of what works and what doesn’t, and of what leads to success and what leads to getting stuck in a rut or even suffering injuries. Cliches such as “no pain, no gain” and “practice makes perfect” lead you down the wrong path.  

Read Next: Five Tips for Barefooting Beginners

Besides having all the enjoyment and the positive health benefits I get from barefooting and other wake sports, the strategy I have developed allows me to continuously improve my skills. Working on my skills with success increases the enjoyment factor exponentially.  

No matter your skill level, barefooting and other wake sports are great ways to have fun with family and friends and get an excellent workout for your mind and body. Join me and get out on the water today.

The post Enjoying Watersports for Your Entire Life appeared first on Boating Mag.

If you ask someone who can land inverts, they’ll tell you there’s nothing more exciting than landing a flip for the very first time. It’s the ultimate welcome into a world of possibilities.

Growing up in the south of Mexico, with posters of WaterSki magazine plastered on the walls, the first time I saw someone upside down in a photo was Canadian Kreg Llewellyn flipping around a 20-pound neon Skurfer back in the 1980s. But way before the sport of wakeboarding came on the scene with a multitude of inverts, there was trick skiing.

While the first inverts landed in history date back to the times of Cory Pickos and Sammy Duvall, in the sleepy town of Tequesquitengo, Mexico, a handful of trick skiers became obsessed trying to land flips.

One of them was 18-year-old Jorge Font, who landed the flip in his pass and made it into the finals at the 1987 World Waterski Championships in Thorpe Park, England. Inspired by Font, I learned the flip at the age of 15 and landed it at the 1987 Junior World Cup in Sherbrooke, Canada, becoming the first girl in the world to include a back flip in my pass. As fate would have it, there’d be a lot of flips coming my way with the birth of wakeboarding.

A few months after the Worlds at Thorpe Park, Font suffered a spinal-cord injury. Amazingly, he learned to sit-ski as a quadriplegic, and today he holds nine world titles.

Fast-forward to today, and instead of a couple of inverts, trick skiers flip around nonstop, landing a mind-blowing variety of inverts. Just ask Pablo Font, Jorge’s son, who won the Junior Masters Tricks Title at Callaway Gardens in Georgia.

“Our family has been skiing for three generations, starting from my Grandpa Jorge, who broke the tricks world record in 1962 and taught my dad, Jorge, and my uncle Sergio,” Pablo says. “My dad has been the world trick champion nine times in the World Disabled Waterski Championships, and my uncle Sergio has medaled multiple times at the Panamerican Games and is the senior world trick champion.”

Pablo is in good company.

“There are more than 20 skiers tricking over 10,000 points, skiers creating new, different flips, and new younger skiers showing impressive results,” he says. Most of these trailblazers are in their teens.

Pablo explains that these new giant leaps came about because of new technologies. Boats now allow skiers to set their speed and set the wave height using the ballast and trim systems. Also, there are more ski brands and different types of boots in either traditional rubber or new plastic ones that are similar to snow-skiing boots.

Read Next: The Art of Freeskiing

These advances have allowed skiers to gain a bigger margin of movement, achieve more air time than before, and execute with more balance and control.

“The beauty of this sport is that there’s always more to push for,” Pablo explains, “from landing a new trick, making it fit into your run, participating in future tournaments, and being able to compare and learn from others, no matter the age.”

The post The Font Family Helps Trick Skiing Thrive appeared first on Boating Mag.

My husband is a fairly athletic fellow. (He will no doubt ask what I mean by a “fairly” athletic fellow if he ever reads this piece.) He loves all sports and seems to easily excel at most of them. When I met him he was a teenager living away from home playing hockey. So I knew early on what I was getting into. I knew he would have to work out every day. I knew we would be an active family. I knew the sports highlights would be on the TV as I tried to go to sleep. But still having known this, and despite being married to him for 15 years at the time, I was decidedly unprepared for the effects of the pink waterski boat.

One day at our lake my husband was offered the chance to ski behind an actual “ski boat.” I had no idea what that meant. At that time we just had a regular old boat. As all you waterskiers can imagine, our dinner that night was about one thing and one thing only. Skiing behind a waterski boat. The conversation, although it was more like a continuous speech on his part, went something like this:

“It was amazing … truly amazing.”

“There was virtually no wake.”

“I could do so many things that I cannot do behind our boat.”

“Actually our boat is a tug compared to that boat.”

“The girls would love it.”

And it ended with, “We need a waterski boat.”

I just sat there, dumbfounded, trying to digest what seemed to have transpired in a short two hour boating experience. He was completely pumped up. I smiled, nodded my head, and let him rattle on, certain that this supercharged feeling would pass. We had a ton of things we needed a lot more than a new boat.

But I was wrong. Sooo wrong. His crazy, over-the-top enthusiasm didn’t pass and the next thing I knew we were testing a ski boat in mid October during a rainstorm in Canada. While the affable boat company rep drove the boat, I sat on the floor in a rain soaked hoodie watching my husband ski in only his swim trunks. Although he later described the experience as waterskiing while being shot repeatedly, I could not miss the huge smile on his face. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I knew we had just bought ourselves a new boat.

Then he dropped the next bombshell. It was going to be pink. Our daughters had convinced him, he told me. But despite heated protests on my part and any suggestions of other vibrant colors, he would not be swayed. “We do have three girls. Nobody on our lake has a pink ski boat. It will be great.”

And he was right. For 10 years now we have skied behind that pink boat. My husband has gone from the guy who slept in and recharged at the lake on our summertime vacations, to that guy who gets up super early and monitors the water conditions. Consecutively better and better ski gear has been purchased. He has joined the only waterski club in our city, and heads out there early in the morning or right after work when we are not at the lake. He had hip surgery at 48 years of age, which is considered quite young, so that he could continue to waterski. Now, one of my favorite things is watching my daughters free ski behind the pink boat when the water is perfectly flat. They are so strong and graceful as they cut back and forth, their reflections caught on the mirror-like water.

However, what the pink ski boat and the sport of waterskiing has really done for us as a family has been on a much higher level. It has introduced us to countless strangers on the lake who we would never have met but who idled up to say hello and say “Wow, that really is a bright pink boat.” Some of those strangers have become our closest friends. It got our teenagers out of bed super early in the morning to go ski the course with their dad. Sometimes they would be gone for quite a while waiting for the water to calm out, and they would just talk – about anything and everything. Those type of meaningful conversations that don’t happen anywhere else. My husband and my daughters now share a common goal of trying to do better on the course, to strive to achieve a goal they have set for themselves. This is a skill our daughters can apply to all aspects of their lives, and which we are now watching them do off at university.

It taught our kids patience when they watched me try “like a hundred deep water starts” (their words not mine, but likely quite true) to learn to slalom ski at 50 years of age, when I finally got tired of only being able to drive the boat. And somehow even though their bedrooms are still a disaster, it taught our kids to take pride in their possessions as that pink boat sparkles today just like it did the day we first put it in the water.

My husband’s enthusiasm grows every year. Waterskiing makes him goofily happy. He will promote the sport to anyone who will listen. Crazily enough, the last two winters, our ping pong table has been covered in waterski t-shirts he has had made for both our lake ski course and the club he belongs to in Calgary, and which he gives away for free to everyone who loves the sport as much as he does.

There has been a bit of chatter these past few summers about getting a new boat with an even smaller wake, but it is always met with protests. We can’t get rid of the pink boat – who suggested that? I know without a doubt the pink ski boat will never leave our family for the simple reason that it has become a part of our family.

The post The Pink Boat appeared first on Boating Mag.

On my 64th birthday in August, I completed one of the strangest quests in watersports: becoming (to the best of my knowledge) the first person to waterski on each of the Ancient Greek Seven Seas.

I grew up waterskiing on Lake Maitland, part of the Winter Park Chain of Lakes in Central Florida. I was always passionate about it, but never had my own boat or equipment, so lost access when I moved north as an adult. A trip to Michigan gave me the opportunity to get on skis again after a 17-year gap, and once again I was hooked. Within a year I had bought a boat and began skiing regularly with my family during summers in North Carolina. Since returning to Florida, I’ve skied at least once a month for the past 8 ½ years.

Because of my work with international nonprofit organizations, I have been extremely fortunate to be able to travel throughout the world. My first of the “Ancient Seven” in January, 2005 was a complete fluke. I was taking a brief vacation in Aqaba, Jordan; happened upon a tourist stand offering watersports, and was able to zoom around the busy Red Sea port for 15 minutes on a slalom. It wasn’t until eight years later on the Adriatic in Croatia, when I similarly stumbled upon a seaside resort hotel with a giant “WATERSPORTS” sign, that my husband suggested the idea of the Seven Seas.

The Persian Gulf was next. On business in Dubai I had a spare morning, and my taxi driver “knew a guy” who had a boat and skis. The start on a men’s slalom with a giant boot and broken rear strap was a little rough, but eventually I got up and was skiing around with skyscrapers in the background.

I managed to accomplish the Aegean, Mediterranean, and Black Seas in one trip in 2017 thanks to the persistence of local friends and travelling companions in Greece and Varna, Bulgaria. (Special thanks to Wave Sports in Santorini and Water Ski Zone in Paros.)

By far the greatest logistical challenge was the last sea, the Caspian. The Caspian is surrounded by Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Azerbaijan. Not exactly water-skiing hotspots. Even with the help of my friends at Water Ski magazine, my skiing pals and their pro-skiing friends, and my professional contacts, finding a beach and a tow vehicle was tough. Finally, by internet and phone, I found the Dalga Beach Water Park in Baku, Azerbaijan. The manager Fuad agreed to rent a jet ski, and my son John and I were off to the Caucasus!

The morning of the planned attempt, however, wind and waves were crashing over the 6-foot sea wall. No jet skis would be rented there that day, or likely the rest of the week. Another promising lead at a more secluded beach also came up empty. We were just about to give up when at sunset we spied two jet skis coming from an unknown location. We rushed over by foot, and negotiated in sign language and limited English to rent a Yamaha VX WaveRunner the next day. With John driving and oil tankers in the background, we took off to the amazement of onlookers who had never before seen a water ski. I now believe that Baku has the potential to be the next great watersports destination: modern, remarkably safe, miles of clean beachfront, excellent tourist infrastructure, and plenty of oil wealth.

My advice to anyone who is interested in traveling to ski is, “go for it!” Your best bet in the most remote places is to bring your own ski equipment (I used a Sportube travel case) and confirm in advance that a tow vehicle will be available. Then, be kind and patient. You will be amazed at all of the random people willing to help!

My thanks to all the friends, family members, and complete strangers who bought into this crazy quest and made it possible.

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