On conventional water skis, it's a matter of getting a ride behind the boat, maybe cutting from side to side. With slalom skiing it's doing cuts faster and wider. But that got so specialized that there were fewer people doing it, and probably fewer watching it as well. Enter Tony Finn and Herb O'Brien. When the surf was flat and they wanted to do something they'd get a boat and a rope and surf the wake.
Surfboards have no footholds.
In 1985 Finn, a San Diego surfer, shortened his board and attached foot straps. That was the birth of skurfing, or ski-boarding. In 1990 O'Brien, whose company made water skis, developed a thinner board made of compressed molded epoxy-Fiberglas. It was the prototype for today's wakeboard. Boards vary in length, width, curvature, fin size and foot straps or boots.