Wakeskate
A wakeskate is a piece of water sports equipment that is pulled by a lift or boat like a wakeboard , but without a binding. The tricks possible with wakeskate are therefore a mixture of wakeboard and skateboard . Due to the lack of binding, more feeling is required when driving with the wakeskate than with the wakeboard, and there are no high knee loads that arise when landing after inverts on the wakeboard (lack of height). But there is a great risk of missing the board after a trick or only hitting it with one foot. With wakeskates completely different tricks are possible than with a wakeboard with bindings. Popular tricks are, for example, the shove-it, in which the board rotates around the transverse axis under the feet, kickflip (rotation around the longitudinal axis), big spin (rotation of the board by 360 ° and rotation of the body by 180 °) or the Madonna that is driven in shallow water.
In the beginning competitions were only available as an addition to wakeboard competitions, since 2006 there has been a German championship at the lift in this sport.
The first German championship was in Schwandorf in 2006 , there were more in 2007 in Magdeburg , 2008 in Xanten , 2009 in Heeder See , 2010 in Blaichach and 2011 in Damp . The association responsible for German competitions is the German Water Ski and Wakeboard Association (DWWV). National and international competitions for wakeboarding and wakeskate are announced and organized via cablewakeboard.net.
The first world championship on the lift took place in 2008 in the Philippines.
Another difference between wakeskates and wakeboards is the different implementation of the reinforcement of the hold on the board surface ( grip tapes ) - necessary because of the lack of binding compared to the wakeboard. The most popular are griptapes, such as those used on skateboarding - rough, sandpaper-like coverings ( self-adhesive sandpaper ). Another possibility is to use a foam mat made of EVA (also called "foam" because of the English word for foam), similar to the surf pads on surfboards . Some skates are also ridden with wax like when surfing.
In addition, the shape of wakeskates is different than wakeboards. Wakeskates are mostly flat in the underwater hull and are often ridden without fins. The average length for a wakeskate is between 100 and 115 cm and the width around 40 cm (depending on the manufacturer and model). For some time now, the trend has been for wakeskaters to have their boards built by the manufacturer according to their own wishes, i.e. according to customer requirements (custom made skate).