Red Bull Wake of Steel 2012 – Linz – 12.Rank

Red Bull Wake of Steel is over and I am so stoked, it exceeded my expectations. In September 2011 we had our first meeting, from than on loads of work and unexpected things come up. Austrian government and specially the shipment authority gave Jürgen and Jörg, the main organizers, a hard time with all the paperwork and permissions.

We even had to show a static structural analysis report from the ship proven by an engineer. In october we found a 325 ton ship at the ship graveyard which seemed to be appropriate to build a sick obstacle over it. I wanna thank here Nico von Lerchenfeld who also gave me some good input at the design. The 3D Design from my side was finished in December, the original plan was to start building it in February but because of all the Paperwork etc. we just start building it 4 weeks bevor the Event. On some days there were 10 People working on the boat, the crew around Eibsi, Pauli and Shape Obstacles did an awesome work.
On the test run 1 week bevor the comp, everything went wrong, from technical problems to stormy weather. We just had a 4 hour permission were they close the harbor for us, we ended up needing 6 hours and almost paid a fine.
Thursday evening bevor the comp, Red Bull picked a fancy restaurant, paid the bill and made us all having a good time. It was a nice get-to-gather between the worlds best Cable-, Boat- and Obstacle Only rider between young stars and legends.
On friday there were just 15 min training per rider possible. The hard lines and sick tricks where still kept back, you could feel and see that everybody had some respect from the obstacle. Friday evening started off with some nice live concerts and Dj´s directly in front of the Boxx Office and the competition venue.
Saturday second training, the riders already started to throw some hammers. Nico Kasper a young rider from Germany showed 6 meter high backside 720s over the big kicker, Miles Töller who won the wildcard at the Wakeparade at Fetzysworld even did a moby dick into the pool. We also saw 630° gabs on the aframe, myself did the first kicker riffle transfers but unluckily I injured my knee.

From 4pm to 5pm the qualification took place, there were two groups each 8 riders, everybody had 6 passes and the best 5 riders made it into the next round. The whole ship was split into 3 sections: bow, pool/kickers and rear. For each section was one judge responsible, who scored the best two tricks per section. The idea is, to make it easier for the judge and more transparent for spectators. Each judge could give 100 pts per section, 40% for each trick and 20% for composition if the rider hits different lines for e.g. if he hits the aframe and riffle pipe he can earn an other 20pts. The final score was put together of the average of all three sections. The first idea was just to score the best trick of each section, that would have been really easy and transparent to compare with but than we were afraid that the riders wouldn’t hit the whole ship, so in the last moment we changed it to: 2 best tricks per section.
The second round started at 6pm. Now the top 10 riders were competing head to head against each other, this time everybody had 8 labs. First rider of group A was competing against last rider of group B. You saw the level of riding was stepping up, the riders were fighting like gladiators to go into the final.

In the final, all riders were killing it. It was so super exciting to watch, you saw everybody wanted to go for the key of the Suzuki swift. All the riders showed their best performance in the final. The crowd was pumping, specially when Dominik Hernler from Austria was starting out last. It was a close battle between him and Daniel Grant. In the end the kicker section decided, Dan had a massive grabbed bs 540 plus a hs fs 720 and Dom „just“ had a grabbed Mobe and a ts backroll into the pool.

The detailed results of all rounds are online at cablewakeboard.net, see comps & events.

Straight after the prize giving the live concerts in the backyard of the boxx office started and this time even bigger than on friday. All the riders were partying like rockstars with over 5.000 party people. Anyway next to the wake event, there ware a lot of other attractions too: climbing tower, kids go kart, air show of model plans, live paintings, jet ski show, harbor cruise, whirlpool, live installations (visuals), remote cars where jumping 3 meter high on strange kickers plus the biggest graffiti in Europe was finished on a hugh building in the back of the red bull wake of steel ship. It was all part of the harbor festival. Linz know as Steel and Industry City turned his harbor for that weekend into a beach, holiday, culture and action area and Red Bull Wake of Steel was definitely the highlight of that weekend.

Text: Daniel Fetz

My final 3D version in december 2011

I had to be the crash dummy for the first test run (the ship was half finished)

left: Dominik Hernler on his 8 meter high mobe. right: the first kicker to pipe transfer in the test run

thanks to daniel deak bardos for this nice photo ofme

the crew photo by Flap

party on friday photo by Flap

construction time

The riders