Our US correspondent Elliott Maurice takes a look at some of the best wake surf boats on the market, from the likes of Axis, Yamaha and Mastercraft…
From the humble beginnings of the speedboat, owners have always towed people behind their boats on skis, boards and a variety of other contraptions.
This has evolved over the decades to include ever more extreme and inventive water sports – from simple water skis and knee boards to towable bananas, boat tubes, discs (in some cases designed to fly high out of the water) and even wearable inflatable toys but in 1974 a new form of the sport started to gain traction – wakeboarding.
Much like snowboards these shorter, twin-tipped boards were relatively easy to get started on but also better suited to jumps, tricks and stunts than traditional water skis as riders progressed.
The trend drove demand for boats that could deliver bigger wakes for ever more extreme tricks. Initially this was done by taking a traditional ski boat, originally designed to create a small, even wake for slalom skiing, and weighing down one side with passengers to create a large enough wake on one side of the boat for riders to use as a launch pad.
However, as the sport took off specialist wakeboard…
