For nearly me entire life I’ve been a skier. The fact that I started sliding down snowy slopes when I was four years old has informed my life nearly every day since. It was the genesis of me getting into the outdoors, which caused me to learn to climb, to take photographs, to write, to meet my friends, even to meet my wife. I owe skiing a lot. Maybe that’s why it’s rarely far from my thoughts. Every time I see a steep hill I wonder what it’d be like with a foot of fresh on it or whether those trees would be spaced enough to rip through at max speed.
Skiing has also lead me to other outdoor sports – mountain biking and surfing come to mind. When I was learning to surf I always thought how it would help my snowboarding (what little I do) and if I was more of a snowboarder how it would help my surfing. I always wished there was a way to more freely translate my skiing skills onto the waves. I thought it was just some sort of wishful thinking and a never achievable goal until just recently.
The other day I was watching some footage of big wave surfing and was struck by how much the face of water looked like a burly mountain face. These guys were towing into these huge waves with jet skis – and then it hit me. What if you combined tow-in surfing with skiing? What if you towed into a big wave with water skis on your feet? You could ski the wave. With advantage of being pulled in you negate the concept of actually having to paddle while on your skis (although stand up paddle boarding has my mind spinning too). I think it would be totally outrageous! I’m so keen to try it.
The question is equipment. Do traditional water skis have the lateral stability to hold up to the rolling surface of the wave? Is it better to mount traditional ski bindings onto water skis and wear modified ski boots. Or perhaps snowboard boots, or maybe the binding that water ski jumpers use. Though the concept seems conceived by a 12 year old I do see actual potential for the idea. Maybe it’s silly, maybe it’s stupid and maybe it might not work at all. Maybe I’ll go over the falls with 70’s era water skis on my feet or not even be able to catch the wave. Whatever the result, I’m so stoked to get the experiment rolling – it just looks like so much fun!
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4 comments:
You need to talk to Laird. The Grand-Poohbah of big waves has probably tried everything!
Wow, I've never seen such a drawn-out approach to a shark jump before. It took like two minutes to get to the ramp.
"He's really gonna do it!"
While I'm not a surfer, I'd be wary about an average pair of waterskis' ability to keep your stank up once the jet-ski disembarked.
A monoski type deal would work better, but that's a little too 'French' for my tastes. That kind of appraoch would be like bringing back 'ballet skiing'.
Good luck with that. I look forward to seeing your prototype.
I've thought up the exact same idea.
(as well as others:
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Tow_20in_20waterskiing?op=aye)
I think it's possible but the ski design would be the hard part. Something you can sort of control while planing would be needed so for me step 1 would be to try and waterski a pair of downhill skis (i.e. my K2 pontoons)
If you ever do this... please film it and let me know
Hi Jay - i agree the Pontoons would be the natural place to start. if only Shane was still alive - he would me the man for this mission. if i manage to get anything happening i will for sure film it and blog about it here - likewise if you make any progress i'd love to see it.
cheers for the feedback and take it easy.
Scott
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