Water Ski Jumping
See also: Water skiingThe ski jump is performed on two long skis similar to those a beginner uses, with a specialized tailfin that is somewhat shorter and much wider (so it will support the weight of the skier when he is on the jump ramp). Skiers towed behind a boat at fixed speed, maneuver to achieve the maximum speed when hitting a ramp floating in the water, launching themselves into the air with the goal of traveling as far as possible before touching the water. Professional ski jumpers can travel up to 70 metres (230 ft). The skier must successfully land and retain control of the ski rope to be awarded the distance.
An extreme version of this sport named Ski Flying was promoted by Scot Ellis and Jim Cara, in which boat speeds and ramp heights are increased.
Read more about this topic: Ski Jumpers
Famous quotes containing the words water, ski and/or jumping:
“The point of the dragonfly’s terrible lip, the giant water bug, birdsong, or the beautiful dazzle and flash of sunlighted minnows, is not that it all fits together like clockwork--for it doesn’t ... but that it all flows so freely wild, like the creek, that it all surges in such a free, finged tangle. Freedom is the world’s water and weather, the world’s nourishment freely given, its soil and sap: and the creator loves pizzazz.”
—Annie Dillard (b. 1945)
“The goal for all blind skiers is more freedom. You don’t have to see where you’re going, as long as you go. In skiing, you ski with your legs and not with your eyes. In life, you experience things with your mind and your body. And if you’re lacking one of the five senses, you adapt.”
—Lorita Bertraun, Blind American skier. As quoted in WomenSports magazine, p. 29 (January 1976)
“Unwind, hands,
you angel webs,
unwind like the coil of a jumping jack,
cup together and let yourselves fill up with sun
and applaud, world,
applaud.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)