6-Month-Old Water Skis Across Lake

Her parents say it was totally safe
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 25, 2016 4:02 PM CDT
6-Month-Old Water Skis Across Lake
Two professional water-skiers decided it was high time their 6-month-old baby took up the family business.   (YouTube)

A 6-month-old girl whose professional water-skier parents put her on junior-size water skis last week glided 686 feet across a man-made lake in what her parents say sets a youth record, the AP reports. Keith St. Onge said his daughter Zyla could have kept going if the boat hadn't reached the end of the lake. The 30-inch, 20-pound Zyla, who doesn't yet walk, skied across Lake Silver in Winter Haven, Florida, last Thursday. A video of her skiing was posted on YouTube. She stood on tiny water skis that were attached to each other by wood. She gripped a handle bar attached to the skis that looks like a walker someone with mobility problems might use. She wore a life jacket as a boat pulled her at a speed of 7mph.

About a dozen adults treaded water on either side of Zyla's path, but the path in the lake ran out of adults as she glided farther away from the shore, at which point she grimaced and let out a few cries. St. Onge pulled the boat's 30-foot line closer and slowed the boat down as Zyla got farther out. When she and the skis sank into the water, he jumped in and was with her in seconds, he said. "She barely, barely got her head wet," St. Onge said. St. Onge said he realizes some people might not think it's appropriate for someone so young to be water skiing, but he said safety measures were taken and it happened in the controlled environment of a private lake geared for water skiing. "People don't realize that it was done properly," he said. "It was planned and she was ready for it." (More parenting stories.)

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