On your marks! Get set for something unusual coming to Tacoma July 26, 2017. Have you ever seen water-skiers go over 100mph? I haven’t. It looks kinda like this:
This year the World Water Ski Racing Championship will conduct preliminary races in Commencement Bay with the final heats taking place at Seafair in Seattle. In other words, most of this exciting event will take place along the waterfront at Point Ruston here in Tacoma. The logistics are being finalized at the time of this writing, but I’m told permits have been secured and this is most definitely a go.
There will be no tickets, no admission prices, no grandstands. Just come on down and watch one of the craziest things you’ve ever seen and have a stroll along the new waterfront. You’ve been meaning to check out all the new restaurants down there anyway, so why not go when you can also view death-defying stunts going on at the same time.
Water skiers.. 100mph.. men and women..
The event puts ski racers in choppy Commencement Bay to do as many 3-mile laps as they can. FOR SIXTY (60) MINUTES STRAIGHT. When I first heard about this, I assumed it would be like drag racing, where competitors get up to their top speed for a few seconds and then it’s over. Not so. These people are literally skiing faster than I drive my car, and they don’t stop for an hour. There are currently 60 teams of MEN AND WOMEN from all over the world slated to be in Tacoma for this event.
If you’ve never heard of water ski racing, you’re certainly not alone. It appears this phenomenon heralds from Australia where they’ve been 100mph water skiing for quite some time. Just search YouTube for “water ski racing” and you’ll see some ridiculous stuff going back decades. Much like Ice Cross Downhill, the WWSRC could emerge in the U.S., seemingly out of nowhere, to sweep spectators off their feet in short order.