At home on the board

Andrew Edwards

Twenty-eight years later and Laguna Beach is still the home of

skimboarding.

Aliso Beach was the scene for the Victoria Skimboards World

Championship of Skimboarding, where throughout the weekend,

competitors challenged each other and some tough waves in a contest

that gave local rippers a chance to compete with skimboarders from

around the world.

“This is kind of the Super Bowl of skimboarding,” senior pro

skimboarder Ron Pringle said. “This is the Mecca of skimboarding.”

Skimboarding is Laguna’s homegrown sport and resembles a cross

between surfing and skateboarding. Unlike surfers, skimboarders do

not paddle out into the ocean to catch waves. Instead, they take off

from the sand with their boards in hand. When they hit the water,

they drop the board and with a fluid motion, step onto the board as

they run toward a wave.

Once afloat, skimboarders glide on the water like surfers, and

like skaters, can pull off tricks like 360s and kick-flips. It’s not

an unusual sight to see a skimboarder use a wave for a launching pad

and catch air.

Another popular stunt is to ride the tube or catch the barrel of

the wave and skim along the water as the wave crashes. This is the

kind of wave that skimboarder Brent Grech, 16, of Corona del Mar

looks for.

“Nice, peaky, slashable waves,” Grech said, describing the best

waves. “Cruisers, cruisers for tubes.”

The Victoria championship started out 28 years ago when Charles

“Tex” Haines opened Victoria Skimboards in 1976. Over the years,

skimboards have evolved from homemade wooden cut-outs to high-end

boards made from synthetic materials.

“It was just plywood back in the old days, now it’s advanced to

high-tech water rockets,” Pringle said.

Who was the first skimboarder? No one knows for sure.

“A lot of people in different places just decided to get a piece

of wood and slide on it,” said Trigg Garner of Victoria Skimboards.

Pringle was one of 11 of the godfathers of skimboarding who

competed in the Senior Pro competition. The old-school matchup gave

Haines a chance to get back into competition, and featured some

spectacular aerial moves by Kurt Westgaard, who finished off his

semifinal heat with a double-flip off of his board.

In the Pro Division, Laguna’s Bryan brothers once again showed

they were at the top of their game. Bill Bryan won his 11th world

championship after a fiercely competitive final round with his

brother George “Geo” Bryan and Laguna rippers Mike Stanaland and

Morgan Just. For the Bryan brothers, skimboarding is a way of life,

not only do they compete, but after Sunday’s competition they

premiered the skimboarding film “Knee Deep in the Hoopla” in Dana

Point.

“We grew up in Victoria Beach,” Bill Bryan said. “When I was

3-years-old they started Victoria Skimboards and I was a test pilot,

a crash test dummy. I was hooked.”

Senior Pro Chris Henderson, respected as one of skimboarding’s

all-time greats, said he personally looked up to Bill Bryan.

“Bill Bryan has taken it to a new level,” Henderson said. “A

totally different level.”

The majority of skimboarders hailed from Laguna Beach, but

skimboarding is a growing sport, and competitors from the East Coast,

Mexico, Japan, Brazil and Chile came to Aliso Beach to show their

moves. Kentoro Higshiyami of Shimagun, Japan owns a skimboard shop in

his hometown and said the sport is popular on his side of the Pacific

Ocean.

“Many, many people skimboard,” he said.

Closer to home, the future of the sport could be seen in the

amateur competitions. Women and youngsters, like 7-year-old Timothy

Gamboa of Laguna Beach, the youngest skimboarder in the event, showed

they could perform some solid moves along the shoreline.

“[I am] just looking to pump the girls up, that’s about it,” said

Laguna skimboarder Shonna Cobb, who finished second in her division.

The rise in skimboarding’s popularity came as no surprise to

Haines.

“That’s why I did it,” he said. “It had potential.”