Standerd Slides

Subject: Kevin Henshaw
Photo: Joey Meddock
TSQ Location: Book 1.4, Critique Section, Page 81

“The most insane/sick/rediculous/pimp photo of any wakeboarder I have ever seen!”

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that, I’d have a lot of nickels by now. I saw Kevin Henshaw do this trick and was blown away. In fact, originally I saw a photo that someone else took similar but the angle didn’t do it justice and the photo sucked.

I was determined to recapture it the proper way and quickly spoke to Henny about redoing it. We talked it over and I explained to him what I was going to try to do, he just had to do it over and over again until we got a good one.

The whole set that morning, that’s nearly the only trick he did. One after another, after another.

I floated in the water, like I’ve been doing a lot lately, and had the driver pass by in front of me. When we first started, the distances that the boat was driving wasn’t working out.

Once that was dialed, I had to get Henny to cut at the wake at just the right time. The first couple passes I was getting to much of the bottom of the board which didn’t allow the viewer to see his body positioning correctly. To me, that was to whole dope-ness of the trick.

I told Henshaw to take a breather for a bit so we could talk it over then try again. Finally, he began to line it up just right. He had to go completely past where I was floating, then edge in before it was to late and he was to far from me.

This angle is pretty much completely behind him, yet still on the side of the wake that he cut in from. You can see the where the rope is going.

His body is rotated back towards me and away from the boat. As he patiently waited to cut in for each attempt, I saw it getting better and better. I knew I was close.

I think this was about the third pass-by with the correct timing when we nailed it. I saw this one and was super stoked, but had him do a few more for insurance sake. That way we had a few to choose from and were able to pick the best option.

I was happy and confident with a few of them. I gave him the “pat on the head,” signaling that we were done.

I got in the boat, did some high-fiving, and he asked, “you think we got it?”

“Hell yeah,” I said.

“Good,” he replied. “‘Cause my hips are killing me.”

- Meddock