When did you start? Share your first wakeboarding memories... Mine start about '96

My 'not so favorite' memory was around 15 years ago when my buddies decided they could make their own boom out of a 10 foot fence post. At the time, we trucked it around to which ever of our dad's would let us use their boat for the day. It worked flawlessly for one summer until we strapped in my dads 17ft Crestlner. You see, my soon to be engineering friends devised a system of eye hooks and ratchet straps to keep it in place on a small 2x4 platform.

My buddy cried out 'hit it' and I dropped the hammer on the 120hp sterndrive. Before I could take my next breath I was bobbing in the water with blood in my mouth watching the boat spin in the 'death circle' while my buddies in the boat were pinned against the side of the boat. The boat made a single revolution before they realized what happened and peeled themselves from the seat and put the boat in neutral before myself or the rider in the water got hit. One of the ratchet straps snapped and the boom hit me in the shoulder and face and tossed me out of the boat before I knew what happened. No one got seriously hurt, and we all got a great story out of the deal.

I started waterskiing with my family at about age 7, so that would have been around 1974 or 75. We lived at the lake in the summer so we pretty much grew up on the water. Got pretty good at Slalom skiing and idolized Sammy Duvall. Though the early years I got into Trick skis, kneeboards, and barefooting. Then my career choice pretty much ended all waterskiing at age 25 or so. Jump ahead to age 40. My wife and I sold our business and I took a new pilot seat just a 15 minute drive from the lake cabin. (best move I ever made) When I got back on the water I noticed that I was not seeing that much skiing, mostly wakeboarding. So I looked into it. I was watching wakeboarding on you tube trying to figure it out when my daughter walked into the room and asked me what I was doing. I told her I was thinking about learning how to wakeboard. She said, "You can't wakeboard, you are to old!" That was it..... I drove to the sporting goods store bought a wakeboard, and by that weekend I was wakeboarding. Not very well, but still I was doing it. Now the whole family is into it and last summer our neighbor at the lake got us hooked on surfing. So it was time to buy a v-drive and dive into it. So glad the wife and kids love it as much as I do.

I first started wake boarding the summer I bought my boat. That must have been 2010 or so, a coworker of mine lived on a lake in Mississippi and had a MC Maristar and we would talk boats all the time. Well one day he called me up and asked me if I wanted to come hang out for a few days so I drove down the MS that after noon and got on a wakeboard for the first time behind his boat. Only took two pulls to get up and going. Then I bought the LSV that fall and didn't wakeboard again until April 2011 and now I am hooked.

I grew up with friends that had boats and stuff and I knew how to slalom and stuff already so I was familiar with water sports and had always wanted my own boat. Glad I got to fulfill that dream 24 years old!


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I grew up skiing the NorCal Delta behind my father's POC cuddy cabin with a small outboard. That thing put out a huge wake which back then was bad for skiing, and now we pump 3,000 lbs of water in our boats!, then at 17 years old, I bought my first of many many boats. Always singled skied and never used doubles as I couldn't control two skies. I still have my old wood Maja up in my garage storage. Had a Skurfer back in the late 80s and a knee board, but we only did those after a few good slalom runs.

Then in '03 I went down to my local boat shop to get new bindings for my HO Mach 1, I ended up buying;

1. New Waterski
2. Two wakeboards
3. A brand new $65k Team Edition Air Natique

I figured that I had better learn to wakeboard, my reasoning was that my boys who were still quite young would want to wakeboard rather than ski and I figured I would need to learn to do it better so I could teach them.

Well after jumping the first wake I was hooked!! Haven't touched a slalom ski since.

Some cool stories for sure! Keep 'em coming.

I realize the thread title about wake-boards, but I dont board on a regular basis, I surf.

Back on 06 when we bought our tow boat, we pickup up a Liquid Force Venture 5.0 based on a recommendation. We absolutely struggled that first season with the entire setup, until I surfed a different board, behind a similar boat with similar weight setup. I then realized the POS board was a surf slug :p