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When professional wakeboarder Shaun Murray announced a new Seafair event, lake lovers Joan and Zach Horn started brainstorming. Could they ride a bathtub in place of a wakeboard? Devise an alien-themed parade float to pull behind a boat?
Seafair’s newest event, the inaugural Can You Ride It? showcase, asks just what it says it does. Creative folks have dreamt up (hopefully) rideable objects that make a hydroplane seem boring. Bespoke crafts will take to Lake Washington from 12–3pm on Saturday, August 2, complete with theme songs and costumes. The objects will be towed by a boat, similar to how a wakeboard works.
“Seafair is already such a celebration of boating, community, and everything water-related,” Murray wrote via email. “The energy is high, people are out to have a good time, and it brings together folks who aren’t afraid to get a little weird (in the best way) in the name of fun.”
Debuting this first competition at Seafair just made sense for Best Day Brewing, the Northern California non-alcoholic beer maker that launched the event. Fooling around on the lake is an old hobby, but until now, there haven’t been many organized, creativity-forward DIY competitions like this. Just crazy guys on YouTube—like the video of Murray riding two ping-pong paddles behind a boat.
A few weeks after submitting a Western-themed design to the call for entries, Joan and Zach were test riding vintage wooden rocking horses. Staying above the water atop wooden horses was, in a word, challenging. The vision: Wearing thrifted cowboy outfits, Zach will lasso Joan as they each ride rocking horses sourced from Facebook Marketplace and Offerup.
Both grew up in and around the water industry: Joan wakeboarded competitively as a teen and now works in boat sales; thanks to a father working in a water ski factory, Zach grew up watching watersport development and manufacturing. By the time he was 6, his dad had taught him to ride barefoot.
“People get so serious these days, and you really need to focus on just enjoying the fun of it and the silliness of it,” Zach says, pointing even to youth competitions that can value performance over enjoyment. Can You Ride It?, on the other hand, is all about having the best day possible, playing on the water like curious kids.
Can You Ride It? teams will be judged on distance, creativity, design, and showmanship. Costumes are “highly encouraged,” so long as they don’t pose a buoyancy or safety risk. Another competitor will ride a trash can lid; one duo is taking a “Bananas in Pajamas” cartoon theme to the water. The top prize is $3,000 and more than $1,500 in gear, and all finalists get a year’s supply of beer from Best Day Brewing.
Zach connected with Murray on this fun-forward vision, a return to the no-bad-ideas days of childhood.
“He’s really just a legend in our sport, and he’s always ridden unique objects,” Zach says of Murray. For his part, Zach had done the same: “Even as kids, we were standing up on kneeboards, or we’d grab some piece of wood. And we’d always just try to see if we could get behind the boat.”
On Saturday, they’ll try it with an audience.
