Board transfers/Contest rules

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. Drew Danielo, I do believe, created this trick. It entails taking two boards out on your run, riding one and then jumping from THAT board onto a board that you've carried out with you. Jennifer Sellers does a nice throw down board transfer, also.

The problem, at a small contest is then you have the take off board floating around the lake, typically somewhere on the course.

At the final NorCal INT League wakesurfing series stop, I sent James swimming to get a dropped board. It's good to be the boss. Anyway, without chase boats or folks available to get the loose equipment, it can be problematic.

So...disallow board transfers? Limit them to the end of your run and require the contestant to retrieve their equipment within x minutes or face DQ'ing? If I try to make consistent rules that can be applied to every venue in the country, there will be instances where allowing a board transfer will negatively impact the running of the contest and so some organizers will simply say - "no" at their site.

Is this trick a fundamental part of wakesurfing such that it needs to be allowed, regardless? Is this sort of...censorship, if you will, detremental to the growth of the sport?

Any opinions?

Jeff,

I like the idea of letting riders push the envelope. If an event has a chase boat or some other auxiliary boat then I think a board drop would be OK. It will take too much time in a big event for the surf tow boat to pick up a board for each rider. I don’t think you could do a transfer at the end of the run, would the rider carry the board the whole way? So IMO if the event has the equipment it would be OK.

I have some other competition rules that I’d like to throw into the discussion if that’s OK. Our event site in Columbus is about 2,500 feet and narrow, that’s long enough for a surfing competition but we make more than one pass on the course. Because there are no-wake restrictions at each end of our course we can’t make a turn, we have to make a dead stop. This year we tried to speed up and turn away from the rider at the course ends but that made large wakes going into the no-wake zone. We tried stopping quickly; when we did the surfer hit the tow boat – not good. We eventually decided to yell at the surfer at the end of the course. When we yelled the surfer had a free fall, that is, the rider could try a trick that he might not make or he could do a creative dismount for points. We didn’t charge the rider for falls at the course ends.

Another idea that I’ve been thinking about is a single rope in hand trick that a rider could get credit for on start up, maybe a slide, Ollie, or something else creative. I’d only give the rider credit for rope tricks when starting the course. I think this judging option gives riders a chance to do something unique and takes care of the what do you do if the rider keeps the rope question.

In the rules that I am proposing for the INT League, I allow "tricks" with the rope in hand only for their Mini-Outlaw divisions (8 years old and younger) in an effort to encourage the little ones to wakesurf. For all other divisions, judging doesn't start until the later of crossing the start buoys or dropping the rope. IMO, it really complicates the process when you allow a rope trick, and I guess to me, it isn't wakesurfing...it's wakeskating or trick skiing.

I personally think having a course, with 150 yard end of course markers is the best setup. So you have start and end buoys to mark the course for the driver and then 150 yards in, a different color buoy so the rider knows he/she is about at the end. That gives folks like you and I who don't always land their BIG TRICK the opportunity to try it before going out the end.

I like coming to a stop at the end of the course and restarting for the second pass. I start the first pass riding frontside regular and the start the second pass backside switch. For folks that do a board transfer, they can get their second board from the boat and finally, as you point out, you don't create a large wake doing a power turn.

I agree with you Ed about wanting the riders to push their creativity, but I think it is in the best interests of contest development to provide consistency throughout.