The Extractor Rescue Sled is a product resulting from an inspiration that its creator, Daniel Elias, had while watching a movie in 1987. This movie, North Shore, directed by William Phelps, was about dreams turning into reality for a young Arizonan man wanting to surf the world famous waves on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii.

In the movie there was a scene where a surf contest took place at Pipeline- a treacherous, tubing, left reef break, where many drownings and injuries have taken place in past years. Dan noticed that during this contest, if a surfer fell or got caught in the "impact zone", Hawaiian Watermen/Lifeguards, such as Brian Keaulana and Terry Ahue, using stand-up model pwcs, would race out into the impact zone to the surfer in distress and help the surfer to safety. One deficiency that was noticed though, was that the surfer had to hold onto the body of the person operating the pwc; and, they both, were subject to possible injury inflicted by the pressurized water emmitted from the jet pump.

Dan, working in the surfboard manufacturing industry at the time, thought that if some sort of board could be fastened to the rear of the pwc, the pwc operator, instead, could kneel or stand on the pwc stern step and operate the pwc as it was designed. The surfer, having a board to ride upon, would be able to hold onto something more secure...something that could also serve as protection from a possible injury inflicted by water pressure.

A couple of days after seeing the movie, Dan drew his ideas down on paper. Opportunity to act on those ideas did not take place until winter of 1991, when he had seen some of his local lifeguard friends cut a Morey/Doyle longboard in half and tie an end down to the stern step on one of the sit-down model pwcs. They had just received the pwc from Kawasaki through the Law Loan Program. They used this cut up board as a platform for hauling up and removing lobster traps out of the surf zone. The buoy ropes and traps posed as a drowning threat to surfers who happened to get their leashes tangled in one of them. Dan told his lifeguard friends at the time, Larry Giles and Tom Buckner, that he could build them a better one...one that could also be used for hauling and rescuing people.

So, plans were made where the City of Encinitas, in the State of California, provided the necessary funds for the materials and Dan donated the designing and engineering skills and labor. The sled was built shortly thereafter.

Not surprisingly, that same winter, those same Hawaiian Waterman that were seen in the movie five years earlier rescuing surfers were found to be prototyping and using a sled of their own design.

The evolution of the pwc and advent of the sit-down version had allowed an inspiration grow and a concurrent reality develop for those surrounded within the surfing community.

sled v. 5- June, 1995 ( First Quick Hitch Sled- 7'4" x 44" x 4.5")

 

sled v. 6-June,1996

sled v. 7-Nov., 1996

sled v. 8- Sept., 2002

Literally, setbacks and much blood, sweat, and tears have been shed while researching and developing this product. Many years have gone by and many different models have been developed and used in the working environment that have led us to what makes the Extractor Rescue Sled what it is today...

 

 

 

The EXTRACTOR is the ORIGINAL PATENTED rescue sled for towing victims behind a PWC. It is the first and only sled to adopt a design which incorporates a solid composite hitch configuration along with a sled shape that performs well, independantly from the pwc. Extractor is the pioneer using this technology and is constantly creating new and improved features through our research and development... to provide the highest performing, safest, durable, most user-friendly, truely valuable product available.

Being the only sled to have been awarded the US Utility Patent 5,354,222 and having other & foreign patents still pending, this makes others on the market either reproductions or unauthorized copies.

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