Demo draws wakeboarders to Lake Sammamish
July 2, 2008
By J.B. Wogan
Peter Jancola chews gum when he wakeboards.
If he doesn’t, something feels off, he said.
During a free wakeboarding demo on Lake Sammamish June 27, Jancola forgot to bring his typical Trident, the original flavor, and had to buy an emergency substitute packet.
Anyone could take part in the demo, hosted by Sturtevant’s, a Bellevue sports store, as well as staff from the Byerly and Hyperlite wakeboarding brands. For the demo, about 25 people signed up to hit the waves, according to Tracy Gibbons, a co-owner of Sturtevant’s.
Jancola, who rated himself as an intermediate wakeboarder, said he came to test out new wakeboard models.
The sport resembles waterskiing – a motorboat tows the athlete across crashing waves called wakes – but the main piece of equipment looks like a snowboard with open-toed boots.
Wakeboarders resist the pull of a rope to maintain balance. By keeping the back straight and the legs bent, weight is distributed evenly through the heels. Without this counterbalance, a wakeboarder would slam headfirst into the waves.
Scott Sims, a Hyperlite representative, helped Jancola test the boards by driving the boat. Sims steered the Malibu wakeboard boat through 64-degree water at 21 miles per hour.
The Malibu left a fading imprint into the waves, shaped like a whale’s tail, thin at its origin and spanning out in inverted parabolas.
Hundreds of feet away from the shore, the boat came to a halt and Sims invited Jancola to try out a board.
Jancola strapped on his ash-colored wet suit and life jacket and plopped into the water.
There were clear skies during the morning demo, and the sunlight refracted into iridescent patterns as Jancola’s board kicked up a trail of white foam and water.
“It’s a little choppy,” observed North Bend resident Kevin Dreher, a Sturtevant’s store manager. “Ideal conditions are glassy water.”
Some days, the lake’s surface will look like a mirror, Dreher added.
Wakeboarding is a difficult sport to get into unless you own a boat, said Gibbons. Even with a boat, boarders need special permits from Lake Sammamish State Park to launch from sites like Swim Beach and Sunset Beach.
“There isn’t an easy answer,” Gibbons said.
From the boat ramp, boarders can launch without the permit, but such a scenario works best with private enthusiasts.
Jancola said he drives up from Tacoma each weekend to enjoy the lake.
Larger events like the demo or a competition require a bigger space, like Swim Beach.
Local boarders use the Lake Sammamish Waterski Club and the International Novice Tour – a national amateur water sports league for wakeboarding, waterskiing and kneeboarding – as venues for experiencing a more social water sports experience, Gibbons said. Otherwise, wakeboarding is often a personal and casual hobby.
Wakeboarders want to drift out to either side of the trail created by the boat and then lean into the edges, sailing up out of the water for jumps, spins and flips.
After one spill – the handle darted out of Jancola’s hands – he cycled through a series of tricks.
The most basic jump is called a pop, which involved Jancola exploding sideways out of the water, several feet in the air, landing, and maintaining a steady grip on the rubber handle attached to a spectra rope towing him all the while.
Spectra, similar to nylon, remains more taut and allows for a higher vertical on pops, Dreher said.
A 180 involves training the front of the board to turn 180 degrees, closing or opening the boarder’s stance in mid-ride. Jancola transitioned through 180s repeatedly.
A 360 is more challenging, according to Dreher. This move involves a complete rotation while popping, and requires a handoff between hands during the turn.
Each time a boarder crashed into the waves, a staff person on the boat had to raise an orange flag.
In the Malibu’s case, this was the charge of 15-year-old Auburn native Kahlen Sheehan.
Sheehan said he would like to be a professional wakeboarder one day, and had practiced every day for three weeks.
Toward the end of his ride, Jancola employed three tantrums, a trick translating to a mid-air cartwheel.
“You were huge,” Sims said, complimenting Jancola afterward. “Huge” referred both to the height of the jump and diameter of the ensuing cartwheel, he said.
Jancola thanked Sims and patted his demo wakeboard.
“This is the one,” he said.
For more information on local wakeboarding opportunities, go to http://lswsc.org and www.intleagues.com.
Reporter J.B. Wogan can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.
Comments
One Response to “Demo draws wakeboarders to Lake Sammamish”
Got something to say?
Before you comment, please note:
- These comments are moderated.
- Comments should be relevant to the topic at hand and contribute to its discussion.
- Personal attacks and/or excessive profanity will not be tolerated and such comments will not be approved.
- This is not your personal chat room or forum, so please stay on topic.
That picture is great. Doesn’t look like he landed that:)