A Waterline is a slackline that is rigged above water. This type of line, or better, a slackline in this contexte is much more difficult to walk compared to a normal one, above solid ground, because the optical senses do not have any good reference anymore. On top of that, you can not simply start from the ground by stepping onto the waterline but you have to manage some kind of mount to feet, from a sitting or droknee position.
Waterline includes different disciplines
Waterlining includes trickline, longline, rodeo and more, this means the line can be rigged with extreme tension or without tension at all, at any possible length from 3m up to several hundred meters. In any case we are talking about a waterline, either over a river, over the sea or over a swimming pool.
Waterline Competitions and records
Water trickline competitions such as the “International Waterline Competition 2019” in Italy, have already taken place several times. Concerning the water-longline, the records have been beaten successively, year after year. A clean waterline distance record basically counts if it is – ideally – walked without a leash and on single webbing (without the backup-webbing that is used in highlining and helps dampening the oscillation).
Waterline slackline webbing
If you want to use the line as a trickline a slackline with grip is recommended. Generally rubber-printed ones, like Slacktivity’s superJumpline is a good option.
If you want to simply walk, bounce or surf on the line we clearly recommend a slackline with a widt of around 25mm. If the anchor points are high enough and for rather short waterlines of up to 40m, a nylon line like e.g. the pinkTube is a great waterline slackline. For long distances or low anchor points where you should not have much sag, a low-stretch slackline like the halfMarathon or 2Faces are ideal.
Be aware that a wet line has more elongation. This specially accounts for nylon slacklines. For tensioning it is a great option to get the line wet at first, tension it a bit and wait until it dries. In this process the line will automatically gain more tension.
In any case, we recommend to use a soft slackline webbing because the body is mostly poorly protected against abrasion on a waterline slackline… ????
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