As a teen, I spent my summers doing rooster tails around Rice Lake on a pair of old wooden Go Go water-skis. The bindings, made of plastic, were designed for a men’s size 10 foot, but that didn’t slow me down. Now twenty years later, shivering with that same mixture of fear and cold, I tuck my knees up to my chest, try to avoid the outboard motor’s sputtering gas fumes, and yell, “Hit it.” Suddenly I am launched on top of the water. The slick blue wakeboard with its vice-like bindings anchor me in place as I cut through the wake feeling that old adrenalin rush.

The prehistoric Go Go water-skis now hang on the boat-house wall, antiques by today’s standards. While water-skis celebrate their 85th birthday, those early wooden planks have made way for newer, more exciting rides: from windsurfing to kiteboarding, surfing to wakesurfing, skateboards to wakeboards and now wakeskates-it has been a real trip. Kyle Gordon, store manager of Boardsports, Toronto, attributes the boards’ evolution in part to extreme sports and the media attention they receive. Twenty years ago water-skis were the only game in town. Today, when asked to pick their bestseller–it’s all over the board.

Windsurfing boomed in the 80’s and early 90’s, but fell out of favour soon afterwards. Since the late 90’s, the boards have been totally redesigned, losing their long, sleek narrow profile to a shorter fatter more stable design. The results have been dramatic. According to Gordon, “You can now rip the top off some waves. The new boards are three to four times as fast and you no longer spend all your time trying to stay on the board.” Gordon states, “It is a completely different sport and is making a full comeback.”

While wakeboards continue to be their #1 selling board, wakeskates, dubbed a “skateboard on water”-have become pretty popular too. These four foot fiberglass slabs are the size and shape of a wakeboard-but don’t be fooled, with no bindings to hold you firmly into place, skilled skaters must rely on balance and their feet’s ability to grip the foam core, while doing 360s and aerial jumps. They are a cross-over between skateboarding and wakeboarding.

For more information and pricing on these boards visit http://www.boardsports.ca/ and get boared silly.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 at 11:00 am and is filed under Toys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.