4 more hours but not wakesurfing

So we lied to you yesterday, we said that we’d be writing from Florida at the wakesurf contest site but instead we are writing from the phoenix Airport! Our flight missed the connection by 20 minutes and we’ve been in the terminal for 4 hours of our 9 hour layover!

It’s amazing how empty the gate is when you show up 9 hours early

Such is the deal with traveling for a wakesurf contest. At least we’ll make it for the event!

The USA Wakeboard Nationals, now the USA Wake Surf Nationals has a fairly long history, almost as long as the WWSC. Back in the day, it was organized by Chris Walker of USA Wakeboard and Ed Sullivan out of Ohio. You have to have a general understanding of the USA Waterski organization. Under that general organization are several sport/disciplines, like Wakeboard. Now at the beginning of this year there was a proposal to form a separate sport discipline called Wake Surf. There was lots of disargeement and issues with this proposal so a separate group the Competitive Wake Surf Association was formed and created the current years rule set that will be used at Nationals and will probably closely resemble the scoring system used at the WWSC.  Although there is simply no consistent scoring system yet employed at the various events.

So, the proposal to form the USA Wake Surf sport discipline is still alive and well and Nationals will be sanctioned by that group with the idea that there will be enough membership to create a stand alone group under the overall USA Waterski umbrella.

In past years, when it was organzied by Ed Sullivan it was held under the USA Wakeboard sport/discipline. Ed found it necessary to retire from professional wakesurfing contest organizing and the event lanquished in his abscence, dwindling from it’s biggest year with close to 50 participants down to just about 10 or so. The location changed from Ohio to Florida and Oklahoma City. Currently Scott Culp who is the Secretary of the CWSA is organizing Nationals and it is back to it’s glory days, with three days of riding, a cash purse rivaling the biggest events of the year and evening festivities. It is also part of the Centurion wakesurf tour, which allows the riders to qualify for entry into the WWSC this year. It’s sure to have some of the best wakesurfing of the year.

We’ll be in Florida at some time in the wee hours of the morning and it will sure be good to get settled!

Thanks again for following along and listening to us ramble about the history of competitive wakesurfing.

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