I went to the skimboarding contest today at the Balboa Pier with my son. It was a foggy day with poor skimboarding conditions. Some of the competitors had come from far away places to take a shot at the title. There were even some 'Pros' in their own heats.

It all started for me when I found a round wooden disk that had been painted red in 1963. I learned to skim across the flat sand on it. Then one day in 1965 a friend showed me a combination skimboard\bodyboard called a BonAire. It was made out of molded plastic with two handle holes on each side of the board. It had detachable fins. We would fill the fin holes with wax.

I quickly learned to skim down the beach slope and try to catch waves with it. The water would rooster tail out of the handle holes as we skimmed across the water. I lived in Newport Beach and would skimboard everyday with Jim Trapp. We dominated 45th street!

Because of the blunt nose and the squared off tail along with the limited buoyancy we couldn't do much in comparison to todays skimboard riders. For us it was 'walking' the board and 'nose riding.' We would catch waves for short distances before we sank into the water. One of the more fun things was when we would catapult ourselves into the air and flip. We quickly learned how to land flat on our backs in the dry sand in such a way that we never got hurt.

Before the rock groins were installed in Newport, back when there was only the steel pillar walls, there would be strong backwash that we could ride out into the water and then turn and ride an incoming wave back to shore. This was about as close to todays style of riding that we ever got.

The BonAire would crack now and then and we would have to go purchase new one's from Hart's Sporting Goods up in Costa Mesa over by Lions park.

Lee Pope the best surfer in my neighborhood at the time would suggest making a skimboard out of foam and fiberglass like a small surfboard. He was a few years ahead of his time on that idea. We never quite got around to trying it...wish we had.

It wasn't until I made a visit with my BonAire to Victoria Street Beach in Laguna Beach in 1975 that I saw the first actual foam skimboards. A group of dudes around my age were rippin on them. They told me to leave 'their' beach. They were not very friendly at all to me. Seriously, they were down right mean to me.

Here it is 2009 and my favorite pass time of my youth has now become an actual sport with it's own contest. I wonder what they would think to see me, a 58 year old rippin on one of those foam skimboards. Loose a few pounds, do some cardio, practice and suddenly show up in a contest...LOL

Hey...I was one of the best skimboarders around Newport Beach in the sixties...just ask Steve Parkford , Mike Rucker , Scott Clucase , Lee Pope or Mike Grasso, all really great Newport surfers. Scott was pretty good at skimboarding also. We never dreamed that Victoria Skimboards would make skimboarding into a worldwide sport.

Oh ya, for all you skimboarders today...there was no 'Blackball' for us in the sixties, we could skimboard all day long any day anywhere we wanted to in Newport Beach in the sixties. And we did!

I watch some of the videos on youtube and am amazed at how skimboarding has really taken off. Check it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skimboarding






David Sloane