Wakeboard Boats Begin To Evolve

By the summer of 1996, the wakeboard revolution was in full swing.  Every lake had boats and runabouts zooming around towing “the latest craze”.  The riders at the leading edge of the revolution quickly began to realize that the biggest challenge to learning, landing and innovating new tricks was the amount of time they had in the air between take off and landing.  With the spectator nature of the sport, quickly it was understood that the more weight in the boat, the larger the wake size.  Riders started filling containers of all shapes and sizes with lake water and weighting devices – water jugs, barbell plates, Rubbermaid containers, sand bags, anything you can think of.  Not everything worked out well.  There were several blown transmissions, and electrical systems from overflooded bilge areas (think how much weight you can add when you remove the hull plug, then forget to put it back in) and many more cases of fuel tanks that were completely filled with water after all the fuel Jerry Cans in their boathouse were used for water weight!  Local companies like LaunchPad of Stouffville, ON began to have a impact across North America for their revolutionary pump-in/pump-out ballast bag systems to place hundreds (and in some cases thousands) of additional pounds of ballast into your boat through lake water.

A revelation of the physics of wakeboarding showed that pulling from a high point allowed riders to “float” across the wakes rather than being pulled back to the water.  In 1994/95, Jake Thomas and I began experimenting with strapping a barefoot boom vertically to the centre pylon of our Ski School boats for training purposes.  It was unbelievable how much of a difference the vertical pull meant for learning tricks.  At the same time scores of aftermarket tower extensions, some of them literally homemade in basements and garages, began to pop up everywhere.  New tricks were literally happening weekly now.

It was clear that the cottage industry of innovative splinter companies was leading the evolution of wakeboarding, and the boat companies needed to catch up.  The World Wakeboard Championships in the fall of 1996 would change everything.  Correct Craft used this platform to release their 1997 Air Nautique.  A revolutionary cage shaped tower, and integrated hard shell ballast tanks changed the direction of wakeboarding forever.  In fact the 1997 Air Nautique was such a revolutionary boat that the wake tower (now adopted by all brands of boats) was granted a utility patent by the United States government.  To this day, all wake towers from every manufacturer must pay a fee to Correct Craft(Nautique)for the privilege of installing a tower on their boats.  Through the innovations of the 1997 Air Nautique, hard shell tanks and with brass water pumps have now replaced the makeshift soft bags, and bilge pumps making the systems in all wakeboard boats safer and more efficient.
The 1997 Air Nautique became the new benchmark that all new wakeboard boat designs started from for the next decade.  In 1999, the flagship Nautique was updated to the Super Air Nautique – a V-drive orientation that produced ideal handling, more weight in the stern and the perfect social layout platform for the interior.

In the next edition – Ontario Competitive Wakeboard Scene is Born