Riders start with a rope behind the boat as the wake forms.

It wasn’t long before others would pump the wake behind the boar

Wakeboarding might’ve started in the early and mid 1980s (video linked here). It came full-circle with wake surfing and wake foiling in the 2000s

wake foiling 2.jpg — the trickiest board to ride behind a boat

Check out the determination on the face of this homeboy from Bart's Watersports (competitor with a cool pic - linked here.

Team Riders Skyla Rayner & Nathan Cross testing the Blue Planet Easy Foiler on the wake. Foils are designed to lift the board out of the water, eliminating all board related drag, allowing surfers to catch bumps, wake and swells that normally could not be ridden by traditional board design.