Though there appears to be a lot of similarity between the two water rides, wakeboarding and water skiing are two completely different sports.
The nature of both the rides is a key point of difference between the two. Water skiing is a relatively straightforward sport while wake boarding is a derivative of several different games. In water skiing a person uses skis to ride the waters while being pulled along by a moving speed boat. Though wakeboarding follows the same principle, it is more of a combination of surfing and snow boarding along with water skiing and a little bit of skate boarding as well.
As mentioned earlier water skiing is a simple water ride. The size of the wake is not a factor in this sport. In fact the smaller the waves, the better it is. Wakeboarding is an offshoot of surfing which means that the wake boarders prefer larger waves to ride on.
Some of the major differences between the two sports involve the equipment and gear. Water skiers ride the waters on water skis whereas the wakeboarding sport makes use of specially designed boards complete with foot straps and fins to help maintain the balance of the wake boarder. Unless you are slalom skiing, skiers generally use two different skis for both feet whereas wake boarders use a single board.
The speed boats used for these purposes also differ from each other. A water skier’s tow boat can be any simple boat but the wake boarders need to use specially designed speed boats. In the case of wake boarding, since the wake boarders thrill lies in riding waves, the wake board boats are designed for leaving extra wake behind them. One common principle adopted to ensure extra weight at the stern is to place engines at the rear. The lower the stern the higher the waves produced. Most manufacturers spend a lot on R&D for new knowledge in further weighing down the stern as a means to create higher wakes for wake boarding.
The ropes used to pull the skiers and the wake boarders also belong to opposite categories. While the ropes used in wakeboard belong to the non stretch variety, the water ski sports requires ropes with some stretch which helps to pull the skier back and forth as he rides along the curve.
OK, so much for the differences between water skiing and wakeboarding.