By Vigdis S. Aas
The history of the sport called wakeboarding goes back for a couple decades It is really a combination of several sports; water skiing, snowboarding, and surfing. For years surfing has been the sport of many beach goes, but Tony Finn developed skurfer in 1985 in San Diego. Skurfer is what wakeboarding use to be called and is a combination of skiing and surfing.
To do the sport you used a little surfboard and was pulled by a boat while the rider performed many surf-style moves. The ride style was visions of snowboarding and skateboarding with a little bit of skiing. In the beginning, the boards didnt have a foot strap and so the rider stood anywhere on the board and tried to stay on the board as long as possible.
In the summer of 1985, foot straps were added to the boards. This was an interesting innovation at that the time because it came from two different people at the same time and each person was not aware of the other. The two were Jimmy Redmon from Texas and Tony Finn. Because of this innovation, more jumps and tricks were allowed to be incorporated into the sport. The sport became more dynamic and free-styled. All the...