There’s no record of who first adapted water ski equipment to facilitate skiing with a physical disability. Undoubtedly, it was someone who loved the sun, water and adventure and refused to be stopped by a physical challenge!

 

In the early years, a barefoot training boom was used by skiers with amputation or visual impairment. Technical development of assistive aids was a priority. An early success was Tony Edge’s “Triple Bar”. This innovative design reduced the teaching time for people with physical disabilities to learn how to stand up.   The “Edge Triple Bar” has been used all over the world. Another successful development was the “Delger Sling” named after the designer Ray Delger for assisting single handed skiers. The sling was refined for tournament use by Mark Addicott.  Interestingly enough, in the early days most skiing was done by people with visual impairment or amputation.  This has radically changed over the years, with seated skiers being in the majority today. 

 

The first Sitz Ski was made by Frank Jespers in his furniture factory in Belgium in the mid-1960’s.  The Sitz Ski was a huge (8’ long and 24” wide) flat bottomed ski with a turned-up nose with the skier sitting directly on the board and a steel tube frame keeping the skier from sliding forward. Sit skiing spread slowly through western Europe.  One notable expansion was to the Beitostølen Healthsports Center in Norway.  In 1976, as a bi-centennial gift to the United States, there was a cultural exchange between the two countries including the area of adaptive sports. Eventually, representatives from the Courage Center brought a Sitz Ski back to Minnesota. (This was the first sit down water ski in the United States.)

 

Royce Andes of Biggs, CA is considered “The Godfather” of adaptive skiing in the USA.  Royce was injured while barefooting in 1982 which left him a C4 quadriplegic. His injury didn’t diminish his love of water skiing, his drive or determination.  While in rehab, Royce was shown a brochure from the Courage Center which included a small picture of a skier using the old Sitz Ski.  He commented about how obsolete the ski was and using a mouth held stick pen, Royce developed the Kan Ski in 1983 which took adaptive water skiing to a whole new level.

 

Developing the sit ski wasn’t the end of Royce’s efforts. He went out into the world (Chico State) to find prospective skiers. One of his first “finds” was Bill Bowness who became a multi time world record holder, world champion, coach, manager, judge and has been inducted in both the USA WSWS and IWWF Halls of Fame. Obviously, he taught more than adaptive water skiing. There is a long list of Royce’s successful “finds”. He remained an inspiration, advocate and coach of new skiers until his passing in May of 2018.

 

In 1999 Chris Mairs, a tech executive from England with visual impairment, founded the a-technic charity, initially to create technology for water skiers with visual impairment. Their first product was an Audio Slalom Signal Generator (ASSG), a system that created audio buoys.  Chris called it the Bat Blaster - "bat" as in blind, and "blaster" because it's "very noisy".  Chris competed for the British Disabled Water Skiing Team from 1986 to 2003, setting several world records and captaining the team in three world championships. Prior to the use of the audio slalom athletes with visual impairment competed in wake slalom, counting how many wake crossings the athlete completed within 20 seconds, with each crossing valued at three points.