‘Sport for Insane’ : If You’re Into Body Bashing, Grab a Skimmer and Hit the Beach

Phillipe Leroy, 15, races into the surf at Pacific Beach, carrying a fiber glass board.

At just the right moment, he throws the board onto the wet sand, jumps on top of it and glides off into a one-foot wave.

He can diligently execute a perfect 360-degree turn, hop over a wave and slip through two-inch-deep water on the homemade contraption.

Sometimes the fiber glass board slips from underneath Leroy’s lanky 5-foot-7 frame, his arms flail and he is thrown sideways into shallow water. But the blond teen-ager just stands up and begins his maneuvers anew. A skate boarder since the age of 6, he has taken on a new challenge.

Welcome to skimboarding, an increasingly popular sport, especially for young people with resilient limbs.

“It definitely is a sport for the insane,” said Bill Sullivan, spokesman for a surfing association. “These guys are fooling around in the shore break, going at tremendous speed, and they flip two or three flips in six inches of water.”

Tex Haines, a Laguna Beach skimboard manufacturer and, at 35, one of the few old-timers in the gritty, body-bashing sport, said: “Even if you’re good, it’s like being in a washing machine. You and the board get tumbled.”

Skimboarding got its name because the oval board skims across both wet sand and the wave. The sport is about 40 years old, according to its practitioners.

The first skimboards were homemade, heavy disks of sanded plywood. Some of the homemade boards are still in use, Leroy attests.

The skimboard of the ‘80s, however, is a lightweight, high-tech board of fiber glass with a core of polyurethane foam. Typically, it is about 4 feet long, 20 inches wide, and five-eighths of an inch thick. It weighs seven pounds.

Like the surfboard, the skimboard has a slightly rounded bottom, but lacks the skeg--bottom fin--of a surfboard. It is designed to glide across flat sand and water, turned by the balanced--or sometimes imbalanced--footwork of its rider.

Skimboarding is still, as Haines called it, “the bastard sport of surfing”--something to do when the waves aren’t big enough for surfing. But it is coming into its own on beaches from Marine Street Beach in La Jolla to Aliso in South Laguna to Sandy Beach in Hawaii. It is even being used on the shores of Lake Michigan, avid skimmers said.

Skimming has advantages over surfing. For one thing, skimmers are happy even on the calmest day, when the surf isn’t up. “Surfers ride the swells. Skimboarders ride the little bumps. And there are so many little bumps out there, it isn’t funny,” Haines said.

Skimboards Less Expensive

For another, skimboards are less expensive than surfboards, which typically cost $350 or more. Haines’ Victoria Skimboards sells its cheapest board for $55. A top-of-the-line board retails for $280.

As skimboards become lighter, their riders increasingly are trying acrobatic maneuvers that few surfers can attempt, including double and triple flips. Some riders stand on their heads. Or, like their surfing counterparts, they may “tube ride,” skimboarding inside the curl of a wave.

“As a kid, I remember riding on the wooden disks. You just jumped on them and went,” said Jane House, a co-owner of Surfglas Surf Products in San Juan Capistrano, which responded to the growing demand by adding skimboards to its line just two years ago. It now produces 300 a month.

“Now the boards are elongated. There’s a little shape to the back and the front, and there’s definitely more technique (to riding them). Riders cut back into waves, do somersaults or grab the rails and do a roll-over,” House said.

Skimboarders say that the sport hasn’t become as trendy on San Diego beaches as it has in Orange County, simply because the beaches here do not have enough slope. But skim boarding is becoming increasingly popular nevertheless.

Shops like Alexander’s Surf and Sport in Pacific Beach report that skim boards sell quickly.

Marine Street and Windansea beaches are reported to have the best skimming conditions.

Discovered by Television

Sports television also has noticed the acrobatics. ESPN, the cable sports network, and entertainment shows like “Eye on L.A.” have featured skimmers, said Haines, who publishes a magazine on the sport--Skimboard, circulation 5,000.

A few skimboarders have turned professional, even though the money is not enough to live on, according to Nick Hernandez, 22, of Dana Point. Hernandez studies music at UC Santa Barbara but spends summers on the skimboard circuit.

Professionalism has its advantages. Because Hernandez won the 1985 East Coast Skimboarding Championship held in Dewey Beach, Del., he is sponsored by an Australian swimsuit company, which supplies his trunks. He gets his wet suits free from a company in Santa Cruz, and he travels to contests in Hawaii or the East Coast with expenses paid by a skimboard manufacturer.

This year, there will be more than 15 skimboard contests on the East and West coasts and in Hawaii, including one at Aliso Beach in Orange County on Aug. 22 and 23. And for the first time in its 11 years, the Aliso contest, sponsored by Victoria Skimboards, is offering a small purse: $1,000 in gift certificates and cash.

For all the claims that skimboarding is coming of age, the sport wasn’t included in a surf competition held July 24-26 in San Clemente. Sullivan, a spokesman for the Professional Surfing Assn. of America, said he didn’t believe there were enough skimmers to warrant including them.

At some of the current skimboard contests, some of the judging is questionable, said Harry Wilson, the manufacturer of Sandblaster skimboards, from Dewey Beach, Del. “At lots of contests . . . the participants themselves are judging. They finish the heat and run up and judge their buddies,” he said.

Wilson is trying to organize an “international skimboard federation that would be recognized by the Amateur Athletic Union and the Olympic Committee” as the standard-setter for skimboard competition.

Some Try Gymnastics

Increasingly, gymnastics are a popular part of skimboarding, especially on smooth beaches with few waves, like those along the western coast of Florida, skimboard experts said. “Last year one skimboarder got his mom out there, and some friends and jumped over seven people on a skimboard (in a competition),” Wilson said. “It was a real crowd-pleaser.”

For all the acrobatics and bruising falls, skimboarders and lifeguards alike said they don’t believe skimming is any more dangerous than surfing.

Because skimboarders play in such shallow water, they are not likely to drown. And so far, skimboarding does not seem to account for a large number of serious injuries, such as spinal cord injuries, lifeguards in south Orange County said.

“It does lead to some broken arms and definitely some nice sand burns and tail bone bruises, when you’re learning--and even when you’re not,” said lifeguard Lt. Mike Dwinnell of San Aliso Beach.

“You take some pretty good knocks. But all kids are made of rubber--didn’t you know that?”

Jim Gingery, 15, who skims on a team representing Alexander Surf and Sport of Pacific Beach, says the the sport requires coordination, balance and a willingness to take risks. “You can get hurt doing it,” Gingery said. “You can fall and the sand will bruise you. You can twist your ankle. That’s why most of the people I’ve seen doing it are under 25.”

Enthusiasm for the skimboard has paid off, Leroy said. He was chosen to be a skimboard representative for Pacific Drive Surf and Skate Shop, which adds up to discounts on wet suits and boards.

“Being a representative means I talk about the brand of boards to people I meet,” Leroy said. “I help out kids who I see on the beach that are trying to learn how to use one.

“I say to people that they should try it at least once,” Leroy said. “If you can skateboard, you can skimboard.”

Leroy, who spent two entire summers skimming beaches before he got a part-time job at an ice cream shop, said he sees no danger in the sport.

“It makes me feel good about myself, because I know how to do something,” he said. “I get self-satisfaction.”