how has wakeboarding progressed over the years?

as part of year eleven at my school in australia i am completeing a subject called research project.

the subject involves researching using different sources and finding eveidence to support our answers and questions.

the reserach question that i chose is "how has wakeboarding progressed over the years".

as a source of information i am using this forum so could you please post your opinions so it can help my research

thanks .

What is the purpose of this assignment? To teach you how to research information, or how to get a bunch of people on the internets to do your homework? The information of this forum is less reliable than wikipedia anyways. You should have probably left out the part about it being for school, cuz it biases peoples answers and jerks like me can rant like we wouldn't have tried the same thing if we had internets as kids.

Seriously tho, no hard feelings, rock on dude

you should watch retrospect, the parks doc., and do some research. it's basically evolved from a side show of ski events into its own industry. it has changed the style of boats being produced, the market of clothing and wetsuit companies, and the list goes on. on a trick basis it has gone in every direction from rails and ramps, to cables, winches, double flips, spawned wakeskating for the most part, different styles of the same tricks...i'd say the biggest area you could easily define is the tricks being done today vs. 10 years ago. alot of them are the same, but done bigger with grabs and some are new tricks only recently landed. another direction would be the evolution of single tip skurfers to symmetrical boards with different fin configurations, cores, binding technology, ropes, life jackets...hope that helps some.

the purpose of the assignment is to research to try and answer our questions, not to get some one else to do my homework.

we have to have different sources of information and this is why i asked the question on a forum. is does not matter how reliable the information is compared to wikipedia. i am not getting graded on so much the reliability of the information i am more being graded on the research i undertake and the sources i use to find it.

thanks for your opinion.

No offense, but the sport hasn't really progressed at all since Parks blew out his knee for the second time. If you watch the documentary and 12 Honkeys, you will see that Parks was the man and that he was doing just about everything then that is being thrown now. If only we could have watch a healthy Parks progress as much as he did during that era.

the progression of wakeboarding is not only about the tricks but also the change in the boats and boards ..
so if u have anything to say about that instead in would be greatly appreciated

You seem to know a lot about what the progression of the sport is, maybe we'll just keep our keyboards silent and defer to your expertise?

jason, I see what you are saying, but I disagree. Wake tricks have gone through the roof with progression in the last year or two. Sure, Parks did one 1080. Now we have them HS/TS, FS AND BS...even w2w. TS BS 5s used to be insane. Lafferty just landed a TS BS 9. Harley is the new Parks when it comes to progression...the dude is learning new tricks like every week. It really hit me when I started watching some videos from ~2005-2008. Those sections are a total snore after seeing Harley's latest online vids. Back 5s, TS 7, couple 9s, couple Petes/whirlys, a nice back 180 vs Harley now doing 5 different 9s w2w, mobe 5s like theyre nothing, and pushing the envelope with style with tricks like his super poked off axis Melan to late HS FS 7 or his front hand grab TS R2Bs.

Add to the insane boat progression, a lot of cable progression, wake lab, system 2.0, winching. A LOT has happened since Parks got hurt.

I like the "business" of wakeboarding and its progression. I think the creation of the sports icons as a part of the marketing of boats, boards and gear is interesting and probably an entire story of its own. As the sport matured and producers chased a bigger market everything become more intertwined including the athletes who represent all those products or have become producers themselves.

Look at Wakeboarding Magazine, it's hugely important to manufacturers and those athletes trying to create an "image" to sell and make a profit. How about the loss of the x-games as a marketing outlet. The offshoots of wakeskating or wake surfing and those who make a living promoting and marketing those new avenues. David Williams who started this site as a hobby and then quit his job to run it as a full time business.

Its an interesting subject with no right or wrong answer like math or physics but more of a story or opinion based on an overall assembly and analysis of information. I'm curious about the direction you research takes you, good luck and let us read the end product.

How about how boats have gone from being affordable to buy a new one to them being as much as a lot of peoples homes. How guys that make a normal living can afford or cant an 85k x star, 230 or vlx with 15 and 20 year loans. Good news is we have icons. Now that is progression. Winches and cable parks are making board sports affordable again problem is there is nothing like loading your family and friends in a boat for a day at the lake.

the boats are alot more high tech the boards and bindings are alot more high tech. the reason parks was so good is he started so young and he had loads of natural talent. now you have harley who started young and has loads of natural talent. i'm not comparing the two because they both came up in different stages of wakeboarding. when parks came up everything he did just about was new and awesome. when harley came up he had to measure up to certain standards before he got noticed. harley also had the benefit of larger wakes and more information and acess to more pro events. i would expect him to do better tricks. i think guys like rusty,rathy,harley and steel are the modern day parks that push the sport and hunger to do the next big trick.there is plenty of new advancement to come in wakeboarding!

when it comes to just trick progression, i think a few milestones were left out. how about parks double back mobe or double whirly from years ago? jeff heer did a back mobe 5 about 12 yrs ago. what about the double s bend behind the boat (andy owings maybe?)? is wake riding progressing or is the industry progressing? how many times have you seen the next amazing product fail. the industry is trying to feed everybody a lot of ****. go watch an event on tv, one big infomercial.

thanks for all your responses it has helped me gain more information for my research
feel free to add anymore comments on how wakeboarding has progressed over the years.

board shapes and materials