gdhistory09: Water Skiing!

Ralph Samuelson of Minnesota invented water skiing in 1922. After unsuccessful attempts of skiing on water with barrel staves and snow skis, the 18-year old tried out pinewood boards with curved tips. For the tips, Samuelson applied boiler steam to the 8' x 9" wooden boards. Other materials were used as well: an iron ring for a handle and 100 feet of cord for a towrope.

Ralph Samuelson was born on July 3, 1904. He was the official inventor of "water skiing" where he performed his ideas in the summer of 1922 in Lake City, Minnesota around the age of 19 years. While the sport of aqua planning, or standing on a single board while a powerboat pulled you, was already existent, Samuelson had ideas about creating something such as snow skiing on water. Ralph practiced his experiments with different materials of wood on Lake Pepin, which was a wide portion of the Mississippi River between Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Samuelson's early attempts included using staves from wooden barrels and snow skis before he created new skis made of pine boards 8 feet long and 9 inches wide (240 × 23 cm). He bent up the front tips after softening the wood by boiling them in his mother's copper kettle. His brother Ben operated the powerboat that pulled Ralph along, towed by a rope. Gaining confidence on the water, he began jumping wakes, but broke the original skis (the remains of which were believed to be found on a beach on Pepin) in one landing. His slightly-modified second pair still exists; today they are at the Lake City Chamber of Commerce, in Lake City, Minnesota.

Thanks to Ralph Samuelson, we are now living in a world filled with many fun water sports people do today in competition like the summer X-Games and Summer Olympics or just to have a good time enjoying life on the water. Water Skiing over the years has drastically changed giving newer ideas on how to make the sport more interesting and fun. There are those who just like to ride calmly and then there are those so-called "x-tream" water sports fanatics who love to take the sport to the next level.