Where asphalt meets the waves

Like all the tricks you get with skateboarding and the water element of surfing, but can’t find a balance of both?

Head down to the Balboa Pier in Newport Beach this weekend, and you might find just what you’re looking for.

While people are soaking in the sun and enjoying the beach life this weekend, a group of amateur and professional skim boarders are hoping the public finds their way down to the pier, where they’ll be showing off the sport.

“The main thing is to get people to come out and show them that skim boarding isn’t sliding back and forth across the sand, and there’s some pretty big names coming out,” said Hank Snapp, store manager for Exile Skimboards.

Skim boarding involves a short, thin board. You start from the shore and run out into the water and ride up the wave, then turn 180-degrees and ride it back in.

It offers the nimbleness of a skateboard but the long ride of a wave.

It’s something that appealed to Zack Hoag, 20. Hoag, a Florida native, said this will be his first year competing professionally at the event. This weekend’s competition wraps up the United Skim Tour, which has professional skim boarders around the country competing for points. The top five professionals will be in Newport Beach this weekend, and it’s a tight race, Snapp said.

Hoag said he’s just excited to be in the competition and happy it’s here because of the waves.

“I’ll be competing against the guys I grew up watching,” Hoag said.

“You’re surfing except you can make the board do a lot more without having to get stuck in the water. It really incorporates a technical aspect,” he said. “It’s a very versatile sport.”

The versatility should be on full display this weekend with event organizers expecting a southern swell, and possibly a western swell, to come in and offer decent waves.

The area offers some of the best skim boarding in the world, Snapp said.

If You Go

What: Fifth annual United Skim Tour skim boarding contest

Where: Balboa Pier in Newport Beach

When: Saturday and Sunday starting at 8:30 a.m. and ending late afternoon about 4:30 p.m. or as weather permits

More Information: Call Exile Skimboards at (949) 492-0284 or go to www.exileskimboards.com