The History of Skimboarding

In the beginning

The thrilling and highly skilled sport of skimboarding began on Laguna Beach in Southern California in the 1920s. Lifeguards used homemade wooden boards and skimmed the waves along the shore as an easy way to cross the beach.

1960s-1970s

The idea never gained popularity as a type of sport until the late 1960s and 1970s. The idea of using boards to skim the waves as they broke on the shore re-surfaced at Victoria Beach, also in California, in the 1960s. By the 1970s the sport had started to spread to other areas of the United States.

It was in 1976 that two men from Southern California, Tex Haines and Peter Prietto, founded the company Victoria Skimboards, which has become a major company focusing exclusively on the sport of skimboarding and related products. It was this company, the first of its kind, which began to give the sport credibility, and also organized the first skimboarding competition.

The earliest skimboards were made of wood and rounded at both ends, one end being larger than the other to form the nose of the skimboard. They were often referred to as ‘double enders’. The founders of Victoria Skimboards pioneered skimboard designs and boards began to look shorter and wider. People also began to develop their techniques and tricks and not just riding in shallow water. This saw the emergence of styles such as fly aways, aerials, top turns and wave riding further out to sea.

21^st century

Once again, interest in the sport dipped during the 1980s and early 1990s. With the turn of the century skimboarding is once again escalating in popularity. This has been largely fuelled by the Internet as there are so many more accessible sources of information on skimboarding and the ability to buy skimboards and accessories online. A very popular website with thousands of visitors each day is http://skimonline.com. Fellow skimboarding enthusiasts can share news, photographs, views and ideas, and learn more about the sport. This company also organizes national and international contests.

A popular magazine known as SKIM has also assisted in promoting the sport and providing a community spirit among skimboarders. A further attraction for people is the fact that there are more professionals in the sport and they are used to promote the skimboards and other products of the companies that have grown around the sport.

Skimboard design and materials have advanced commensurately and today modern boards are made from premium quality materials such as structural PVC foam, fibreglass, carbon fiber, electrical and structural glass, put together in a way that will give the right combination of strength, lightness, buoyancy, control and speed. Skimboards used by professionals are very technologically advanced. Board shapes are now pin tail, hyperbolic and swallow tail.

While still being a very small sport in comparison to other water sports, skimboarding is becoming popular internationally, especially in countries such as England, Australia, France, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Japan. Overall, participation is increasing by about 25% each year.