The inaugural Boatsetter Rodeo, held on Lake Travis in Austin, Texas, broke new ground in water sports on July 12. But what, you may ask, is Boatsetter Rodeo? The day on Lake Travis acted as an amalgamation of live music, e-foil acrobatics, wakeboarding, and a dose of wild west aesthetics for good measure. Those who attended witnessed a marriage between aquatic athletic allure and the daring dustiness of the rodeo.
Above all else, Boatsetter is indicative of the growing popularity of watersports. “We’re seeing a much broader audience become interested because the category is becoming more social, more approachable and more culturally relevant. Boatsetter Rodeo is our way of celebrating that shift,” event CMO Caitlin Choate said in a statement. Pro wakeboarder and Austin native JB O’Neill had a spot at the top of the marquee, alongside wakesurfer extraordinaire Tyler Stewart and eight-year-old surfing phenom Uriah McDonald.
The Wake Edit spoke with O’Neill in advance of his appearance at Boatsetter. Check out the conversation below.
The Wake Edit: What was your reaction when you received news of Boatsetter?
JB O’Neill: I thought it was pretty cool that Boatsetter was coming through and putting an event on here at Lake Travis. I grew up on Lake Travis—I was born and raised in Austin. I grew up maybe 200, 300 yards from the lake. We’ve been going on the lake my whole life, so it’s pretty cool.
TWE: How do you think the competition with Tyler Stewart will go down? Have you done any showdowns with him in the past?
JBO: I think it’ll be fun. Tyler’s a really good friend of mine, so we’ll see how it goes. I don’t know how Boatsetter will judge one sport versus another [wake surfing versus wakeboarding], but I think it will be a pretty cool time.
TWE: As far as Uriah McDonald, would you say he’s ahead of where you were at his age?
JBO: Definitely. When I was Uriah’s age, I was building tree houses and playing tag with my friends. I wasn’t focused on water sports or wakeboarding. I was doing some lake activities and having fun on the water, but it wasn’t like I was trying to make a career out of it. Uriah [is] far, far, far ahead of where I would have ever been at that age.
TWE: Wakeboarding—any board sport, really—has a rhythmic, dance-like quality to it. Is there any particular music or artists you enjoy to get in the zone?
JBO: I personally don’t listen to any music, just because it kind of distracts me. If someone else is riding and I’m driving the boat, I let them blast whatever they want, and I enjoy that, but when I’m wakeboarding and I’m trying to focus, I go pretty much straight silent, and just listen to everything else around me.
TWE: Your most popular YouTube video is from around six years ago, the one where you wakeboard down a spillway. It’s got over a million views. Did you think wakeboarding down a spillway would resonate with people to that degree?
JBO: I’m not sure what we were thinking. Back then, we were making a lot of videos and just trying to come up with something new every single day. After it came out, we understood why it blew up, why it got so big and popular: because almost anyone can go down this same spillway. We’re not really doing any tricks or anything, so it’s pretty easy for people to relate, that’s what I should say. People can understand that there are spillways probably 200 feet tall, and can relate to bombing down a big hill…on any board, honestly – bombing big hills on skateboards, or anything like that.
TWE: I view wakeboarding as the center of a three-way Venn diagram of water skiing, surfing, and skateboarding. Which board sport is your go-to outside of the wakeboard?
JBO: I skate quite a bit, although I’m not, like, very good at it or anything. In winter, we skate all the time. We go to all sorts of different skate parks. I have a small half-pipe at my house and a mini ramp. I’ve snowboarded a few times – it’s just that we’re really far away from cold weather. I think that I would probably choose to snowboard the most; it’s just so hot here in Texas that that’s never gonna happen.
TWE: Is there anything on the wakeboard you haven’t learned yet, even though you’ve been doing it for decades? Is there anything you want to master that you still have to check off your bucket list, so to speak?
JBO: Just to always be progressing a little bit. I’m 35 years old now. There are up-and-coming kids who are, you know, 20 years old, and they’re absolutely insane. So I just want to be gradually progressing, keep doing it, and have the best time I can.
TWE: I’m speaking to you on behalf of The Wake Edit, so I want to know if you’ve ever ridden your wakeboard behind a jet ski. If so, how big of a switch in writing style do you make from wakeboarding behind a boat versus a jet ski or smaller craft?
JBO: I’ve probably ridden behind a jet ski 20 times. We can still do a lot of tricks behind it. A couple flips, some spins and stuff, but the wake is so much smaller that it is a huge jump. You have to edge a lot harder, or you have to pop a lot harder, just because the wake behind the jet ski is a lot smaller. Something we do quite often is wake skating behind the jet ski. That’s a lot of fun because it’s really close to skateboarding. You can do the shove it, the kickflips, and on-the-water tricks instead of having to go super big in the air. We’ve also done barefooting behind jet skis. I have two [jet skis] myself, and we use them all the time.
