But Samuelson didn’t always get so much recognition for his clever invention. As the story goes, he first tried water skiing while riding his aquaplane, a large, flat board pulled behind his brother’s boat. On June 28, 1922, he skied for several yards this way—but knew he could do better.
He unsuccessfully tried snow skis and barrel staves before realizing that he needed something that covered more surface area on the water. The ever-resourceful Samuelson went to the local lumberyard and found two eight-foot-long, nine-inch-wide pine boards, wrote Sports Illustrated’s Jim Harmon in 1987. Using his mother’s wash boiler, he softened one end of each board, then clamped the tips with vises so they would curve upwards. He affixed leather straps to hold his feet in place and acquired 100 feet of window sash cord to use as a tow rope. Finally, he hired a blacksmith to make a small iron ring to serve as the rope’s handle.
In the days that followed, Samuelson tried several different approaches. In most of his attempts, he started with his skis level with or below the water line; but by the time his brother got the boat going, Samuelson was sinking.
Finally, he tried raising the tips of the skis out of the water while he leaned back—and it worked. As his brother steered the boat, which was powered by a converted Saxon truck engine, Samuelson cruised along behind him. To this day, this is still the position that water skiers assume, according to the USA Water Ski & Wake Sports Foundation, which inducted Samuelson into its hall of fame in 1982.
Of course, Samuelson didn’t stop there. He began learning tricks on his skis, which drew crowds of onlookers to the shoreline. Eventually, he began charging admission to his unofficial exhibitions and turned over the proceeds to the town, which paid for the gas the boat used. The town also built a small bandstand next to the lake, where live musicians sometimes accompanied his shows.
Sadly, his career as a water skier was short-lived. When he hurt his back in a construction accident in 1927, he was forced to hang up his skis for good. He never patented his water skis, and he never took credit for inventing the sport. Skiers in New York and France tried to claim that they were the first to float on water, and Fred Waller patented the first water skis in 1925.
But so many people had watched him ski—and he had gotten so much news coverage for his feats—that Samuelson was eventually heralded as the sport’s inventor.