Once upon a time, in 1984. a surfer and enthusiast from San Diego Tony Finn produced a Skurfer - predecessor of wakeboard. Skurfer was very much like surf, only shorter, without bindings. And so the crowd went on skurfing until 1990. when Herb O'Brien, a man with a vision, knowledge and a waterski company, appeared. He designed the very first neutral buoyancy wakeboard, Hyperlite, with bindings, which allowed easier water starts and better control over it. As a result,  a sport ceased to be reserved for a skillful few and became accessible to everyone. Later development of sport and gear led to the modern "twin tail" wakeboard with fins on both ends which made all kinds of new and different tricks possible - a rider was finally able to combine both regular and fakie position (left or right foot front). Tony Finn is still one of the most influential people in wakeboarding. He's also a co-owner of the Liquid Force Wakeboards company.

Graf shows the structure of IWSF, organization that governs waterski and wakeboard sports worldwide. IWSF is recognized by International Olympic committee and has a network of 80+ national federations.

Wakeboard globally has two main directions - boat wakeboard - being towed by a boat, and cable wakeboard - riding on cableway systems. Another important wake sport is wakeskate (without bindings), again boat and cable.

IWSF (International Waterski Federation) is the organization that governs all waterski and wakeboard sports, all info on events, ranking lists etc find at wakeboardcouncil.com (Boat Wakeboard) and cablewakeboard.net (Cable Wakeboard).

Recreational riders are people of all ages and skills, but the pros are generally younger group, between 15 and 25. Wakeboarding is more than just a sport, like other "extreme" sports, it's a lifestyle and grows every day more popular worldwide.

Certainly, for the development of sport is important that the cable parks continue to pop up all over the world, since that is the only affordable way for many people to ride.

There are over 100 wakeboard and waterski cableway parks around the world, more then 40 of it in Germany, on natural and artificial lakes. Cableways are ecologically acceptable - the electric drive influences environment much less than the boats.

Croatia today has three cable parks - Cable Krk in Punat bay on the island Krk,  Cable Pag in Zrce on island Pag and Ski lift Galeb in Porec. While cables Krk and Pag are completely wakeboard oriented, Galeb mainly attracts classic waterski fans.

10 May 2009