The first thing you’ll notice when you get on a catamaran is “dang, this thing is fast.” The next logical progression is to tow a skier! Waterskiing behind a Hobie Cat has been a long-standing objective of mine ever since I learned how to sail 20 years ago. I’ve tried to accomplish this several times in the past with no success, but each time highlighted what works and what doesn’t. Yesterday, with the help of some good friends, we made it happen, right here in Tahoe.
Video:
This objective is challenging for a variety of reasons, the main one being that you need a rowdy day for it to be windy enough to get the skier up, and those days are dangerous. We definitely needed a support boat for safety, as the water is cold and the waves are large and there is a chance of capsizing while separated from the skier, in which case the skier would need to get picked up. The skier faces some rough conditions, getting pounded by 4 foot waves and spending a lot more time in the water than you would otherwise.
Sean Whelan and Hazen Woolson left Sunnyside to meet me and CJ Ware, my excellent crew, out on the lake. After fixing the tow line to the Hobie, Sean suited up on the boat and got his skis on, a pair of fatty trick skis generously donated for the mission by Lee Schmidt at the High Sierra Water Ski School. We skirted the motorboat and tossed him the tow line, and it was game on.
We dragged Sean for a short time before picking up plenty of speed to get him up to a plane, and once he did, the Hobie rocketed forward in the high winds. The fat skis helped tremendously. Sean held on despite the large waves and the speed we were going, which was awesome to see considering he was airing off every wave and generally getting trashed! The tow was a full success.
The second tow was equally successful, until I paid too much attention to Sean staying on a plane and less attention to sailing the boat, mainly the fact that my harness wasn’t hooked into the trapeze. I lost my balance and got thrown off the back of the boat, tangled up in some line, and the boat flipped. The wind caught under the bottom of the boat, almost immediately pushing it into full turtle position… not what you want to happen in high winds and large waves. However, after a while of finagling and rigging up a different righting system after breaking the righting pole, we finally got the boat upright again. Of course, then we noticed there was a gaping hole in the trampoline, the spinnaker wrapped itself around the front of the hull, and the jib halyard had snapped, and meanwhile we were getting slammed by increasing winds. Total chaos. Sean and Hazen followed us back to shore to make sure we got in okay.
As Hazen put it in the video… “raging partial success.” Mishaps aside, it was a success. Here’s to making dreams happen with the help of friends!
awesome!