|
Waterskiing began in 1922 when Ralph Samuelson
became the first American to invent
and ride a pair of water skis.
The skis were simply crude
wooden boards with rubber foot straps and were roughly twice
the length and width of today’s skis. Throughout the
1920s and 1930s, enthusiasm for waterskiing spread; in 1939,
the American Water Ski Association (AWSA) was formed as a
nonprofit organization to promote the sport.
During the late 1940s and
early 1950s, wooden inboard boats made by Chris-Craft and
Century Resorters, along with the Atom Skier by Correct Craft,
were favored by most skiers. Boats with outboard motors had
a smaller wake but did not have enough power until the advent
of the twinrig concept in the early 1950s.
Twin-rig outboards quickly
gained popularity among competition skiers and dominated the
scene for the rest of the decade and into the 1960s. In search
of the perfect ski boat, Leo Bentz, who operated a ski school
in Florida, designed and built an inboard boat specifically
for waterskiing. In the spring of 1960, the first Ski Nautique
was displayed at the Southern Regional Championships in Birmingham,
Alabama.
It was the first inboard made
of fiberglass and had a hull design that produced a smaller
wake than its predecessors. In 1968, Rob Shirley, a competitive
skier, noticed the growing market and absence of much competition
among ski boat makers, so he designed and built his own ski
boat, known as MasterCraft.
By the 1980s, inboards came
to be used almost exclusively in AWSA-sanctioned tournaments,
and many start-up companies tried to compete with the two
leaders.
How
to buy a boat? | History
Of The Competition Ski Boat Industry| Boat Shows|
Suppliers
To The Inboard Boat|
USA Water
Ski| Malibu
Boats| Buying
a Used Boat| Guide
to Buy a Water-ski Boat| Drive
a Ski Boat|
Buying
a Water Skis as a Gift| Jump
on Water Skis
|
