Photographs: BOARDER X PRODUCTIONS
NOWRA wakeboarding star Josh Sanders has written himself into the record books, sliding over the world’s longest wakeboard rail, which just happened to be over a houseboat.
In an extreme world first event on the Shoalhaven River, the 2005 US Pro Tour Wakeboard Champion, Sanders slid 118 feet to enter the record books.
The Houseboat Rail at 36 metres long (118 feet) is not only the longest wakeboard rail built to date, but the first rail built over a houseboat.
Built to specific angles to ensure it is user friendly for the wakeboarder and creativity of slides can be achieved easily.
“The whole plan started with just a crazy idea,” he said.
“I had seen this sort of thing done on computer games and thought it would be something really cool to do!
“My father and I started building the houseboat last year with provisions made for a huge rail slider over the top of it.
“It all just went from there.”
Keen to see the Houseboat Rail Project come to life, Josh’s sponsor Red Bull, renowned for creating unique and extreme events, then jumped on board to help with funding and putting the event into action.
Sanders was delighted with his efforts.
“It all went well,” he enthused.
“It was a bit trial and error, nothing had ever been done like this before.
“There were a lot of elements to be taken into account - the rail moves in the breeze and current, the driver needed to stay parallel to the rail at all times and I had to do my bit and line it all up right.
“It took a couple of attempts before we nailed it!
“In the end it was awesome, it went really well and was definitely a world’s first!”
And the whole record effort is set to feature in a documentary Sanders is doing for HD in the US.
“We had the Ocean and Earth helicopter down to help with the filming, we have some great footage and it will all screen in a one hour show in the US featuring the rail attempt and the Shoalhaven,” he said.
And the performance has set a new world benchmark.
“Nothing like this has ever been done before,” he said.
“It is breaking new ground - no-one has ever been on such a big rail before.
“We’ve got it filmed and will be sending it off to the Guinness Book of Records.
Sanders now goes into the record books as having completed the longest ever wakeboarding rail jump - joining his soon to be brother-in-law Robbie Maddison as a record holder.
“We do like to push the boundaries and we do egg each other on,” he admitted.
Of course Maddison set a new jumping distance record of 322 feet on his motorbike in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve and will again be gunning to extend the record while making another attempt at Calder Park in Melbourne this weekend.
So what’s next?
“Well we’ve slid over it, I think our next efforts might be to try and jump the whole houseboat outright,” he said.
“We’ll just wait and see what happens.”
For Sanders it’s back off to the US in three weeks’ time for the World Series and US Pro Tour.
“Hopefully I will go well over there and we’ll keep our other projects moving forward,” he said.