The beginnings of wakeboarding could be dated back around the mid 1980’s when Tony Finn, a San Diego surfer developed the Skurfer. The skurfer was basically the combination of water skis and a surfboard and from there other designs help innovate the wakeboard. The first major development began in 1985 when they decided to add footstraps that were drilled into the boards. The innovation actually originated from two different people who at the time didn’t know what each other was doing. Finn added straps to his Skurfer, while at the same time Jimmy Redmon of Austin, Texas added straps to his Redline water ski board. The addition of these footstraps was in essence the beginning of wakeboarding because they added effect and allowed for big air which added much more than the sport of surfing could allow.
Through Finn’s design he went on to promote the Skurfer and the sport of skiboarding was born. Even with Finn’s promotions and marketing, the sport in of skiboarding was struggling around in the 1990’s. He knew that this design needed more to it because the lack of innovation and technology was holding it back. Only skilled riders were the ones who were able to ride these boards with its defect of being too narrow and requiring excessive energy to get up.
From this point another person by the name of Herb O’Brien, a successful businessman in water skiing and owner of H.O. Sports, started to tinker with the board. From this he was able to design a neutrally buoyant wakeboard known as the Hyperlite. This board is what sparked the massive growth of the sport now known as wakeboarding. This board gave inexperienced riders to experience
