Tips by David Ngiam
Video : Jeff Langley
Photo : Max Christian
Of all the Raleys you can do on a wakeboard (ie. behind the boat, on the cable corner or off the kicker), this is probably the easiest to do. However, before trying this trick, you should have some experience hitting the kicker first and be able to do big long jumps off it.
First of all, before attempting the actual Raley, try hitting the kicker with a more aggresive but still progressive approach. Not all kickers are built or angled the same, so you need to have lots of practice sizing up your approach, which is key to this trick. The later your cut in for your approach, the more aggressive your approach will be. However, this also reduces your margin of error significantly. If you don’t think you can reach the kicker in time, just bail out early. I have seen riders crashing into the side of the kicker and its not a pretty sight.
Once you’ve got your big jumps dialed in, to execute the raley, just ride it up as you would for a jump, but at the top of the kicker, just let your lower body sweep up and behind you while keeping your shoulders squared in front of you. Just keep both hands on the handle and your chin up and spot your landing. The pull in the air is not very tight so as long as you have enough tension in the line, you should be able to pull your board underneath you before you land. Most likely you will pull in really early, and you’ll land with a butt check. Thats ok. Just hit it a couple of times more and you’ll get your timing down.
If you are stargazing, its likely that you have too much weight on your back foot. Approach and ride it up with equal weight on both feet. It could also be that you are throwing the trick a little too hard. If your approach is good, you just need to sweep it behind you without having to throw it too hard.
For the krypt, everything is the same, except this time you are landing fakie. The key to the krypt is not turning the 180 too early. It sounds scary but if you’re landing fakie on your butt, that likely to be the problem.