Intermediate Wakesurfing

How to Wakesurf

Learning to surf is the quintessential achievement in wakesurfing. It seperates the men from the boys (in the metaphorical sense). There is only so much you can do without being able to toss in the rope and keep on truckin'. Here we will walk you through what you need to know in order to wake surf without the rope for the first time.

The prerequisites for surfing are getting up, keeping your balance, and getting slack. And the fine art of surfing will be made exponentially easier if you have a good wake and an experienced driver.

For your first time surfing without the rope, you should start close to the boat. Get slack. When there is slack in the line, it signals to you that you can safely let go of the rope without falling behind.

Once you have slack, gently toss the rope to someone in the boat (be sure that you don't hit them in the head while they're not looking, I've seen some nasty bruises happen this way).

It is important to keep the same stance as you had with the rope after you are no longer holding on to it. Some people will immediately lean on their back foot which is exactly what you want to avoid. Remember: your front foot is the gas and your back foot is the brake.

It can sometimes help you lean farther forward if you hold your front hand out toward the boat. Another thing that may help is bending your knees into an exaggerated "surfer pose."

Practice surfing behind the boat for as long as you can. When you can easily stay in the curl for as long as you want, start to experiment with how close to the boat you can go and how far back you can drift (yet still pull it out). This is your experimentation phase. You'll need to be creative and get the hang of not using the rope as a fallback.

Once you are comfortable, you can start carving or trying some tricks like the fire hydrant. If you're not quite comfortable enough to do those yet, try some tricks that use the rope.

Need help with this trick? Visit our wakesurfing forum.