Coffee Table Book of: Waterskiing and Wakeboarding (Paperback)

Description

Coffee Table Book of: Waterskiing and Wakeboarding is a large format book of waterskiing and wakeboarding, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: skis and boards, the tow rope and its handle, glassy lakes at dawn and the slalom buoys, the kit being made and cared for, the early days of the sport, and a few skiers and riders seen far off in plain dark clothing.

The making follows a pale ash plank bent over a curved form, a wakeboard core of glued wooden strips, glass fibre laid into a ski mould, an old ski hung up freshly varnished, an old runabout sanded back in its shed, a rope hung up to dry and wooden skis stored for the winter. The past runs from plain pine boards with leather straps and a broad wooden aquaplane to varnished wooden skis, a wooden tow handle on its old rope, an early board with foot straps, a timber jump ramp, old bleachers by the water and runabouts of varnished mahogany.

Then the places, empty at every hour and in every season: a narrow lake at first light with its zigzag of buoys, lakes in fog, rain, wind and storm, under a rainbow, the stars, a full moon and the northern lights, a frosted dock, a frozen lake, ice breaking up in spring, blossom over the water, autumn maples, a mountain lake at sunrise, slow rivers, a launch ramp, a judging tower, a boathouse and a cabin at dusk, and a few small skiers and riders far off: carving a turn, crossing a lake, wading out, resting on a dock and a raft and walking the bank.

Short notes run through the book, on slalom, tricks, jumping and wakeboarding, the skis, boards and ropes and how they are made, and the history of the sport: a slalom course has six buoys to round, set in a zigzag between a gate at each end, a boathouse with a water door lets a boat be driven straight in, out of the sun and rain, the first water skis, in the early 1920s, were plain boards with their tips softened and bent up, and before water skis, riders stood on a broad towed board called an aquaplane, holding a rope.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a paperback.