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Cable Park: 1960-1964 Prototype
T he graduate engineer Bruno Rixen, an addicted water-skier always asked himself why this magnificent sport was not more popular. A market research showed that waterskiing had two big disadvantages: to expensive and not very efficient.
The idea of a water-ski cableway had to be realised. After spending a lot of time and money on prototypes during two summers, there was no turning back. In the year 1961 Bruno Rixen founded his company RIXEN SEILBAHNEN. Additional to the technical challenges, there were early financial difficulties to cope with. But, Bruno Rixen kept on inventing and developing as he took his power from the feeling of success and his pleasure in waterskiing.
37 Inventions had been patented since the inception of the cable system. The profitability of a cableway was only given when several skiers could drive continuously at the same time. Therefore, the problem of the start was the biggest problem to solve, as it is not possible to stop the cableway each time to engage a skier. Bruno Rixen positioned the skier not under the cable, but to the side, a full line length from the cable. The skier accelerates continuously until he is below the running cable. The tow line is attached promptly but the skier is accelerated slowly up to the running cable speed. This solution which seems so simple was the groundbreaking innovation which built the basis for each water ski cableway today.
Despite all these important innovations and years of experiments with cable guide, cable twist and derailing, Bruno Rixen was still in the early stages of waterskiing with a water ski cableway.
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Cable Park: 1965-1969 Prototype to Production
The running cable had to be improved so that it had a durability of at least 1000 hours for 100 summer days. Today the durability of the running cables with 11,000 hours is equivalent to 8 years of use. After two years of attempts with a prototype in Hamburg and another two years with a larger prototype on the Baltic Sea, the first commercial Rixen water-ski cableway was build in Benidorm, Spain in 1966. 40 years later with over 50,000 operating hours, the water-ski cableway in Benidorm is still successfuly working despite the hard conditions (saltwater, off shore, long season).
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Cable Park: 1970-Present Advancing the Sport
Since 1976 water-ski cableways have been built with a 10mm running cable. Enormous operating experience has been made during this time. The technical demands of the water-skiers, wakeboarders and the cableway owners has increased continuously and has been kept up by constantly improving the system. The systems have also been utilized by snowskiers and snowboarders throughout the years.
The technical development has changed the drive concept from the old belt drive to the state of art frequency regulated, computer steering drive with newest touch screen displays. This steering type eases the work of the operator, takes over a lot of working steps and offers the operator much more time to take care of his riders. Additionally, the safety measures have also been raised. Due to over 40 years of experience and close cooperation with the numerous water-ski cableway clients, the Rixen water-ski cableways are known as the safest and most reliable on the market. Today there are over 150 Rixen cables in 33 countries and on all continents at which about 390,000,000 kilometres have been skied on Rixen Cables. Today Rixen can manufacture systems that run either direction: clockwise or counterclockwise. Rixen has produced a system that has multiple starting docks to maximize throughput. Rixen has also developed techniques to ensure long life spans of systems installed in salt water enviroments. Rixen continues to develop and improve the system, always trying to provide the best possible product to the market.
In the 90's, Rixen began to develop the idea of a two-tower system, originally called the "Easy Start." This system was intially designed to help beginners, but quickly became a favorite training device for professional wakeboarders and wakeskaters. This system has been through numerous designs ensuring that it is truley the safest system possible before bringing iot to the market. In 2008, on a site trip in Jamaica Mike Olson and Blake Hess helped rename the new system the Little BRO. The new name fit perfect because the system is a ideal compliment to a full size system (Big BRO) or may work as a stand alone product. The accronym BRO stands for Bruno Rixen Original and applies to both the big and Little BRO After installing at least ten Easy Start systems in Germany, McCormick's (Tampa, FL) installed the U.S.'s first commercial two tower system in 2008. In 2009 Texas Ski Ranch will be installing the newest version of the easy start, the Rixen Little BRO.
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Cable Wakeboarding: Events
Competitions were held for the first time in 1970 in Germany. The first German Cable Nationals were held in 1972. In 1978 an unofficial European Championship was organized in Spain. Finally, in 1985, the first official European cableski championships were organized in Germany, and the fourth discipline in waterskiing was born and officially recognized.
The final step was to get cableski recognized worldwide by the International Water Ski Federation (IWSF). By this time, cableski courses were in full operation on almost every continent, but because some countries did not have separate organizations for cableski, it took some time before they were founded. In 1994 the World Cableski Council was created and started its work.
As wakeboarding began its phenomenal growth in the 1990s, riders began to show up on cableways around the world. As an increasing number of impressive big air tricks began to be thrown on the cable by some of the then up-and-coming riders such as Darin Shapiro and Shannon Best, tournaments and other organized competitions in many countries soon followed.
In response to the explosion of wakeboarding around the world, the IWSF created the World Wakeboard Council (WWC) in 1998. The WWC governs both boat and cable wakeboarding in three regions around the world.
As the sport continued to grow, Ccable Wakeboard National Championships were held in several countries. Sports industry sponsors are finally beginning to take notice and realize the potential growth that comes from cable.
1999 European Cable Wakeboard Tour Launched
1999 WWA Cable Wakeboard Worlds
held at OWC in Orlando, FL laid the groundwork for the future of cable wakeboarding. Here are some of the riders that competed in this event and then went on to dominate the wakeboarding industry.
Shannon Best
Parks Bonifay
JD Webb
Dean Lavelle
Shane Bonifay
Danny Harf
Dallas Friday
Cathy Williams
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Trevor Hansen
Phillip Soven
Bob Soven
Josh Rice
Reed Hansen
Rob Mapp
Emily Copeland
Sonja Scheffler
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2001 WWC Cable Wakeboard World Championships held in Duisburg, Germany, and was an astounding success. Over 150 riders representing 20 countries around the world attended.
2002-05 USA Cable Wakeboard Tour
The tour was dominated by Ski Rixen riders, the experience from Deerfield Beach - the oldest park in the U.S., set the bar for cable wakeboarding. Donald Shelbrick always rode consistently and took home the overall title the first two years. Many riders continued their wakeboarding and wakeskating success after competing in this tour. (Rob Jacques, Jimmy LaRiche, Brandon Thomas just to name a few.)
2003-Present TSR Cablestock
Since TSR opened this has been the largest cable tournament in the US. While Cablestock is alway much more than just a tournament, the cable takes center stage as the industries best athletes take advantage of that famous Texas hospitality. The early years saw Keith Lidberg and Rob Mapp dominate. Recent champions include Tom Fooshee, Josh Rice and Nick Davies.
2003 WWC World Championships (Australia)
2005 WWC World Championships (Hungary)
2005 World Games
Cable wakeboarding finally achieved true international Olympic-level status when for the first time in history, not only was it included as a featured sport in the 2005 World Games in Duisburg, Germany, but also ranked #2 in television ratings (American Football was #1) out of over 30 different sports covered at the prestigous event. The 2005 World Games was won by Texas rider Josh Rice.
2007 WSIA - Blake Hess was asked to give a speech on the benefits of the cable to the growth of the entire industry. The reaction was so great that Blake was again asked to speak on the same subject at the Surf Expo later that year.
2007, 08 & 09 Byerly Toe Jam
The best wakeskaters in the world embraced the cable as Scott Byerly introduced a cable stop to his international series. Byerly reconized the hidden talent on the cable and helped introduce it to the industry. His visions were proven when unknown local (and cable operator) Bret Little won the first event at his home site, Texas Ski Ranch. Byerly continues to make a stop each year at TSR and utilizes OWC for part of the finals.
2007 WWA US Wake Park Series
Tom Fooshee from TSR was the overall champion the first year of the tour. In fact, 3 of the top 5 riders hailed from Texas (Josh Rice, Kyle Reed)
2008 WWA World Wake Park Series
Tom Fooshee again showed his dominance winning 4 of the 5 stops, including the WWA World Championships. He has proven that he is the best overall cable rider in the world by mastering both air tricks and structures.
2009 Hyperlite makes a signature pro model board designed for cable for European rider Nick Davies.
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