A punishing day on the wakeboard that produced another fine result.

If only I could land a 360 … gee I would be a good wakeboarder then.

I had virtually taught myself to wakeboard, at the time we knew very little about it except what the board looked like and a few images. I literally bought my first board by mail order, sight unseen, and no idea how to ride it …i had only seen some basic video. You couldn’t view it on the internet either at the time, the technology wasn’t there. I experimented and became quite competent but rode it partly like a trick ski and partly like a kneeboard, until I saw the wakeboard nationals in Albury, I think about 1999. The pros were doing some amazing tricks but outside of that I only saw a few land an aerial 360, so knowing I wasn’t good at being inverted (Im prone to vertigo) this became my aim.

Off I trekked with my wife in tow to the water sports centre at Carrum, there was a guy doing some tuition there at the time so I booked half a day.

I want to learn a handle pass 360 I told him.

This is where you cut hard into the wake and as you launch / jump over to the other side you do a 360 degree handle pass spin, turning to the back and completing a turn to the front, then landing on the opposite side of the wake.

As I said I wasn’t that competent but one thing I did do was to go at it aggressively. Off we went with some basic instruction… up on the board ride for a while attempt the trick, fall, a bit more instruction then repeat again. Time after time I got up on the board and fell !  so the first 45 min session  was hard work without much gained, but thats ok ..as I said first session. Now two things we know now, is first it is more difficult to wakeboard behind a boat powered by an outboard, and secondly smooth water is better than rough.

Well I had both against me … the instructor had an old outboard with 3 heavy water filled drums in the back to weigh it down and build a sizeable wake, and anybody who has been to carrum on a bad day will know it gets very rough. I had picked a bad day. Lucky I had a lot of enthusiasm because there was a few things against me.

Second session we tried a few different tricks as well as the 360 and I went hard, so at the end without much gained I was feeling the pinch. As we sat on the bank and consumed some food and drink and watched as the water got rougher with even more wind, I contemplated not going for the 3^rd session. It was cold and I despised the cold, I was tired and feeling a bit beaten up. I said to linda (my wife) maybe I will miss this session and take a rain check for another time. She paused and thought and then as often happens, she came back with the right answer “while you are here you may as well have another go… who knows when we will return” She was right, I needed to do it now.

There are times when you look back and realise that was a defining moment … this is one of those times. Pushing myself to get back into the water and have a go, I immediately seemed to be able to switch on my mind and focus on the task. A 360 ! well from memory it was about the 3^rd attempt I released off the wake stood tall and spun a perfect 360 landing opposite side of  the wake facing the boat again. The realisation was when I heard linda scream her approval from the boat … what a great feeling! We train hard for these days and anybody who has done It will appreciate the feeling of accomplishment at executing something that seemed out of your reach.

I took pride in the fact I kept my fitness up with regular gym sessions, no doubt this helped me through, but for the rest of the day I was feeling totally smashed. This had been a big day but I got through and it had been well worth the effort … the elusive 360 ! At the time I was 39, almost 40 years old and there wasn’t many people attempting other than executing this trick in my age bracket. Comparing myself to others i know, but sometimes you need to so you know exactly where you are.

The next week back home I went to lake Hume and in another session i landed 2 perfect 360s .. job done !

 

Note: i competed at the nationals twice as a wakeboarder in the vets (over 40), once in 2002 with a fairly insipid performance for 5th and then again in 2006 with a much better performance for 5th again in a much stronger field.