Wakeskating, a new exciting sport

THERE seems to be no restrictions on the minds of those who enjoy their water sports and one that is older than one might think but is gaining a great deal of popularity, especially in the USA, is wakeskating.

Most people have heard of water skiing, which gave birth to wake boarding, so wakeskating is considered by many as a much more accessible and exciting sport. The problem with wake boarding is that generally speaking you need a fairly expensive motor boat to pull you along as a decent amount of wake is required, but with wakeskating this isn’t the case and a jet ski or even a winch is sufficient to allow you to participate.

The board is slightly smaller than a wake board and is made from wood or fibre glass but the biggest difference is that there are no straps or bindings so is genuinely like a skate board for the water. Each board is covered with grip tape or ridged foam to give both traction and to allow the rider to go bare footed if he wants to.

The rider can travel at around 20 miles per hour and has the opportunity to perform the same sort of tricks that he could perform on a skate board, albeit at a greater speed and there are a number of competitions around the world, whilst in America companies with winches will tour the country setting up winches in quite small areas of water to allow aficionados to practise.