by David Hanson

Pool gaps have always been fun, so it’s completely natural in every young shredder’s mind to conjure up plans to build their own, which is exactly what happened out here in Narcoossee, Florida, this past summer. The spot was designated to be at my grandma’s backyard, just down the street from my house. Unfortunately it took a while to build, mostly because of our unwillingness to drop tons of money to afford all the wood. Luckily, KB Homes down the street offered to sponsor the construction of it! How generous of them… The total for the entire pool gap turned out to be 90 dollars. And even that we split 5 ways.

The pool set up consists of a 45 foot long pool with a 30 foot decline rail on one side of the pool, and a 30 foot long flat ledge on the other side, which drops off to almost 6 feet when the water is low. The pond is perfect to land in: long and deep enough to not worry about being flung into cement, yet too small for a PWC to fit in. We’ve always just pulled it with a winch.

We built this thing with filming in mind, and the tricks that have been captured have not let us down. Some of the highlights include Chase Connor’s frontboard 270 shuv off the ledge and his ridiculously close frontboard backbigs out, Nick Taylor’s front big off the down rail, Josh Kirby’s nosepress and noseblunt on the ledge with some lock-in technology, Kyle Walton’s shove from the pool to the pond. I’ve had some fun on it as well, with noseslides and back blunts down the decline rail. To see all this and more, check out the all-wakeskate video Esoteric, due out this spring.

Oh and if you see my grandma, tell her thanks for being the raddest old lady in the world.

0410143554Grandma gill mcmurtrie

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