You just got that new boat, and you’re keen to start wakeboarding. The thought of carving huge lines and doing air 260s over the wake is exciting, and it’s time to make that dream a reality.
Wakeboarding may look somewhat intimidating when you see someone bust a 15-foot air somersault over the wake. However, it’s not as challenging as you think, and you don’t need to be an acrobat to have a great time on the water.
Getting a hold of the basics takes a bit of time, but with the right equipment, instruction, and some practice, you’ll be ready to make your first 360.
This guide gives you everything you need to know about how to wakeboard.
Contents
Buying Your Equipment – Choosing a Beginner Wakeboard
The cornerstone of the wakeboard experience is the board. It’s what makes the sport unique from water skiing, tubing, and other tow activities. The wakeboard is a precision-designed piece of equipment, and it comes in different sizes and shapes to suit your riding style and experience.
If you’re a beginner, you need a beginner board to help you master the art of turning and jumping. Learning how to balance the “rail” of the board is one of the most significant challenges for newbies in the sport. To ensure you keep your learning curve as short as possible, it’s a good idea to start with the right board to match your experience.
Typically, beginner wakeboards have a thicker, wider design and more forgiving rails than boards designed for advanced riders. When you’re choosing your gear, ask the attendant at the store about the right board for your experience level.
Some of the important components of wakeboard design include shape, rocker, and length. A beginner needs a wider, longer board to give them more stability on the water. The more experienced you are, the sorter the board gets.
Short pro boards allow the greatest range of lean for turns, and the rails slice the water providing plenty of grip for powerful whips into the wake. The rocker is also a critical component of the design. If you turn the board on its side profile, you’ll notice that it has a curve to it – that’s the rocker. You get a tail and nose rocker, and the rocker height defines the agility of the board and its ability to hit the wake and launch you into a trick.
Pro boards have large amounts of tail and nose rocker, but beginners need a little less. Typically, the rule is that more rocker equals better turning but less speed and stability.
- Affordable Performance: Exceptional performance at a budget-friendly price. Continuous Rocker design ensures stability on the water and predictability off the wake, making it an excellent choice for riders just starting out.
- Pro-Level Features: Deep, dual-barrel channels at the tip and tail, combined with center-mounted Attack Fins, ensure predictable tracking and easy edging and even pro-level riding if you aspire to that. Our pro team riders love this board.
- Effortless Get-Up: Our extra buoyant foam core makes it incredibly easy to get up and out of the water, ensuring a frustration-free experience for beginners.
- Versatile and Ideal for Friends: The System Wakeboard is not only perfect for newcomers to the sport but also a great addition to your boat. If you have friends or family members who want to try their hand at wakeboarding, this easy to ride board is the ideal choice for sharing the excitement.
- Clutch size 2-5 bindings are already mounted on the board making you able to ride sooner!
Choose the Right Wakeboard Rope
When you’re getting ready to start wakeboarding, the last thing you’re probably thinking about is the tow rope for the boat. You might not realize it, but there’s a lot of engineering, design, and thought that goes into tow ropes for wakesports. The best two ropes come with a rigid design, allowing you to get the most whip possible from a turn as you approach the wake.
Don’t go for a waterskiing rope. These ropes have flexion in them, and they soften your speed on turns, reducing the power when you hit the wake. The waterskiing rope is also 70 to 75-feet long, whereas the wakeboarding rope is usually under 320-feet and 15-feet or less for wakesurfing.
You can pick up your ski rope from an online retailer. Most models retail for $50 or less, and pro ropes go for around $100.
Essential Wakeboarding Gear
After you have the board and rope sorted out, it’s time to get the rest of your gear. If you’re wakeboarding in warm water and air conditions, you can get away with wearing boardshorts for your wakeboarding experience. However, if you’re in cold water, you’ll need to buy a wetsuit.
Check with the retailer about the right size and fit for the wetsuit and the correct thickness of the suit to match the water temperature. Next, look at the safety gear you need for wakeboarding.
You’ll need a Personal Flotation Device (PFD) to keep you safe on the water. When you get past the beginner stage, you’re going to want to start going faster and doing higher jumps. When you hit the water, the force of the blow could leave you unconscious in the water.
If you’re not wearing a PFD, you could sink and drown. A lifejacket keeps you afloat in the water, letting the people in the boat sport you for a fast rescue and revival. The PFD should allow for a full range of motion in your arms and shoulders without irritating your armpits or neck.
We also recommend getting a kayaking helmet or watersports helmet. As a beginner, you can never be too safe.
Getting to Your Feet on the Wakeboard
Now that you have your gear, it’s time to get out onto the lake for some wakeboarding! Here are some basic rules for wakeboarding if you want to take a DIY approach to learn with your friends.
Key Takeaways of Getting to Your Feet
- Tie the rope as short as you can, usually around 15-feet.
- Set the board up properly to accommodate the bindings.
- When you’re in the water, line up with the back of the boat.
- Focus on the wake tower on the stern when you start to rise out of the water.
- Bend your knees to 90-degrees while rising to your feet.
- Hold this position until the boat pulls you out of the water and onto your feet.
- Posture up and start riding, but keep your knees bent for stability.
- Look forward, don’t look down at the board.
These basic tips are all you need to get to your feet; the rest is just about practice and experience. The more time you spend in the water, the faster you’ll learn, and the sooner you’ll find yourself getting to your feet.
So, let’s unpack the process in more detail. When you get into the water, you’ll line the bord up with the back of the boat and signal the driver. Keep the nose pointing to the wake tower on the stern, and wait for the slack in the line to get tight.
Keep your knees bent as much as possible and lean into the rope as you let it pull you out of the water. You’ll find you come out of the water with the board slightly at an angle, so make sure you adjust and keep your knees bent at all times.
The rope should be around 15-feet in length, any longer, and you won’t reach the wake. The critical things to remember are bending your knees and not pulling on the rope as you get to your feet.
You can try a dock start when you have the water start waxed. Stand at the edge of the dock with your shoulder square to the boat.
As the line tightens and starts to pull, jump into the air and switch your stance from square to side-on to the back of the boat. You might need a few tries to get used to this start, but when you get it right, you’ll be using it all the time.
Mastering the Art of Turning and Carving
When you’re learning to carve, we recommend using a long rope in the waterskiing range of 45-feet to 70-feet. This places you outside of the wake and gives you the chance to feel for the board’s rails.
When you’re up and riding and have control of the rope and the board beneath your feet, it’s time to start learning how to turn. The turn is the foundation for the jump. You have toeside and heelside turns.
You dig your heels into the rail with heelside turns and the opposite for the toeside turn. Start with small turns and progress to deeper turns as you get the hang of it. The trick is to match the boat’s inertia and rope to your turn to get the right speed and the lowest angle of approach at the peak of the turn.
Remember to focus on engaging your core and back in turns. As you practice, arching your back out on a turn or leaning deep into a toeside turn will eventually get easier and easier. Sure, you’ll fall flat on your face from time to time, but it’s not the end of the world, and everyone starts somewhere, right?
Learn Basic Beginner Tricks
When you have the turning and carving down, it’s time to take on the wake and learn how to use it to do some tricks. Here are a few examples of beginner tricks you’ll need to master.
Cross the Wake
After you have turned down, you can shorten the rope to get into the wake. We recommend leaving it between 15-feet to 25-feet. When you approach the wake, keep your knees bent and around 60% of your weight on the back foot.
Edging
After you have crossing the wake wrapped up, move on to edging. The edging technique involves moving your heelside and toeside rail inside the wake. You’ll use the momentum of the wake to keep you moving forward. When you’re riding the wake, you’ll need to “pump” up and down the face the get speed and stay on the wake, or you’ll drift out to the side. Keep your arms relaxed and slack in the rope. When you’re edging, you can use a 10-foot to 15-foot rope.
Ollies
After these techniques are down, it’s time to learn the foundation of all aerial tricks – the ollie. The ollie has you start on the heelside rail, pushing the back leg forward towards the front leg. You’ll use the bounce of the wake to help you get the height you need.
Surface 180s
The surface 180 is the introductory trick into advanced aerials. You’ll be spinning on the surface of the water, not in the air. It’s a good way to learn balance on the board and transition your weight. You’ll spin your hips and the board into the turn, changing your stance from the front side to the backside. Many riders find it challenging to master backside riding, so this is a good way to get used to the technique.
Surface 360s
After you have the surface 180 in the bag, it’s time to go for a full revolution with the surface 360. With this move, you follow through with the twist for a full board rotation. You’ll need to learn to advance your hips more in the movement and keep the tension across your shoulders to prevent you from falling backward.
Jumping the Wake
When you have those basics down, it’s time to start playing around with the wake. After all, jumps are the main reason most people get involved with wakeboarding, or you may as well be waterskiing. Start with cutting and pulling from the wake. After reaching the wake, use the ollie technique to get more air from the ramp off the wave. When you’re landing, keep your hands to your hips, stand tall, and keep a bend in your knee to absorb the imp[act from the landing.
Tail Grabs
Once you have the air down and you’re getting decent height, you can reach back with your rear hand and grab the tail of the board in the middle of the jump, holding it until you start to descend to the water. Keep your handle and hips forward and bring the wakeboard toward you until you are in the air. Remember to bend your knees, pull them to your chest, and release them before landing.
Tips for Driving the Wake Boat
While we all imagine ourselves riding the board, eventually, it’s our turn to get behind the wheel of the wake boat. If you’re using a dedicated wake boat, then you’ll have an adjustable ballast and fin tabs to help you produce a big wake and shape it to the rider’s requirements.
Most of these boats come with memories that allow you to save your favorite rider settings for shaping the wake to your preference. Remember to have someone looking out for the rider at all times, and slow down and look for the rider as soon as you realize they are in the water.
The towing speed for wakeboarding varies, but usually, it’s between 15-mph to 25-mph.
Wrapping Up – Tips to Get More Out of Your Wakeboarding Experience
Now that you know the basics let’s wrap up with a few final pointers. Before heading out for your first wakeboarding experience, keep the following tips in mind.
Be Prepared to Take a Fall
Sooner or later, everyone takes a fall. It’s important to understand the effects of a fall and how to fall properly to avoid sustaining an injury from the fall’s impact.
Hitting the Water Hurts
Sure, we get it; the water looks soft. However, when you hit it at 25-mph, it feels like concrete. You can expect to bounce and slide along the surface, and it’s going to hurt a bit – there’s no way around it. No pain, no gain.
Your Arms Will Take a Beating
Holding onto the rope is hard work, and you’ll find your shoulders, biceps, forearms, and hands will take a beating during a day out on the water. The more you practice, the easier it gets. However, you can expect some muscle stiffness for the first few sessions.
Use a Longer Rope When Learning
When you’re getting used to the board and making turns, start with a longer rope, choose something that has no slack in it and learn how to lean into the turn and engage the board’s rails. The rails have small fins that help you get traction when turning, preventing the board from slipping out, so don’t be afraid to lean.
Don’t Pull the Rope
One of the biggest mistakes when learning is pulling on the rope. It’s our instinct to pull on the rope as it pulls up from the water. However, pulling the rope digs the nose of the board into the water, and you’ll go headfirst into the drink. Bend your knees and arms and keep them locked – don’t pull.
Keep the Tow Handle By Your Hips
When you’re riding, keep the tow rope handle as close to in-line with your hips as possible. It requires more strength in your arms, but this position makes it easier to control the balance of the board, especially when making jumps. Many beginners keep the handle too high, in line with their face. As a result, they find the front of the board digging into the water.
Look Where You Want to Go
Another huge beginner mistake is looking down at the board when getting to their feet or riding. You’ll find that you go where your eyes are looking, and if you’re staring at your feet, that means you’re going into the water. Look straight ahead and focus on the wake tower on the boat’s stern. Make sure you’re always aware of your surroundings and alert of what’s going on.
