Skimming the surface

Pamela Simpson has big plans for Skim Chicks, the organization she launched earlier this month with Richard Tibbetts.

Skimboarding is a sport that started in Laguna Beach, but now Simpson — the Laguna resident — is hoping to help it branch out all over the world. And as you might guess by the company’s name, she wants to get “chicks” — female competitors — involved.

They’re taking a huge first step toward that goal in June when the Victoria Skimboards World Championship of Skimboarding at Aliso Beach will hold its first-ever women’s pro division competition.

Simpson, 34, doesn’t want to stop there.

“Overall, we’d love to see that professional division not just in that contest, but in the sport in general,” she said. “A professional tour would be great. There’s been a lot more recognition of women and women coming out of the woodwork.”

Skim Chicks as a company has been in Simpson’s plans for a while. But a couple of years back, she met Tibbetts, a Seal Beach resident with more than two decades in the television and film industry. He has the most experience as a “gaffer,” the head of the electrical department on a film.

“Pamela worked a summer at a warehouse where I rent some of the lighting gear from,” Tibbetts said. “You see this poor girl wrapping cable. My industry’s very dirty. There’s no two ways about it. Behind the scenes it’s very mechanical, very greasy, very dusty. I’m watching her clean all this and I’m thinking, ‘This poor girl. What does she do for fun?’ And she started telling me she skimmed.”

From those humble beginnings, Simpson and Tibbetts have already accomplished so much. They have a Facebook fan page with more than 700 members. Skim Chicks has also been instrumental in the development of the Women’s International Skim Boarding Assn., which aims to unite “skim chicks” and eventually establish the first professional tour for women.

Tibbetts produced the 40-minute documentary “Skim Chicks,” which highlights female skimboarding. It got an honorable mention in the documentary category at the SoCal Film Festival in Huntington Beach last year and was also shown at the Grand Rapids Film Festival.

Plenty of men have also stepped up in support. Bill Bryan, the South Laguna skim legend who has won “The Vic” 14 times, is in the documentary. He also made an appearance at the “Skim Jam” competition that Skim Chicks organized April 17, during the Help Blue Water Earth Day celebration in Laguna.

“These guys aren’t buying into it,” Tibbetts said. “They’re supporting it.”

It’s all good to Shonna Cobb, 26. She is one of the three skimmers officially on the Skim Chicks team, also including Simpson and Jen Jacobs of Huntington Beach. Cobb, who went to Laguna Beach High and lives in Long Beach, has long been representing skimboarding. She has won at “The Vic” eight times.

She is also moving to Seattle for work at the end of May, she said. Still, she’s thrown plenty of support behind what her good friend Simpson and Tibbetts are striving for.

“For me, it’s pretty much a no-brainer,” said Cobb, who plans to be at “The Vic” this year for that first pro division despite her move and recent lack of practice time. “I love the sport itself and the women have a lot of camaraderie. We’re not out to beat each other down. But now the girls have a reason to want to come out.”

“I’m pretty much scared right now,” she added, laughing.

Trigg Garner, general manager at Victoria Skimboards, said it hasn’t been decided how many spots the women’s competition will pay out. It could be top four, it could be top eight. But just having the women’s pro division at “The Vic” could cause an upswing at other events.

Garner, who is on the Board of Directors of the United Skim Tour, said he’d love to see all of those contests adopt a pro women’s division.

“I think [Victoria Skimboards founder] Tex [Haines], that’s what he always wanted out of the men or the women skimboarders,” Garner said. “He wanted them to organize as a group of professionals to try to make change. It was good to see them get organized. That was our goal with this, that we could put this in play and hopefully this dominoes to the other contests out there. We’re super-stoked and more than willing to accommodate them.”

Skimboarders have to be tough, and female skimboarders even more so. But it’s definitely a segment that’s growing, Tibbetts said.

“To me, they’re like rodeo riders on the ocean,” he said. “They have that type of toughness, they have that type of tenacity. I see them – they get hurt, they get dinged, but they just keep coming back to it. That’s what drew me in.”

Simpson, who has lived in Laguna for 13 years now, was drew into the sport in the early 1990s. She took third place at “The Vic” in 2005 and keeps chugging along. She keeps a steady eye on the Facebook page, where she can connect with more and more women from outside the state.

“I love it so much,” she said. “It just makes me beam with excitement every time a new girl pops up on there.”

Still, all it takes is a quick walk along Laguna’s beaches for Simpson to see how far women’s skimboarding has come, and how much further Skim Chicks can take it.

“When I come to the beach in the summers now, I’m seeing the teenage girls who used to tan and gossip on the beach and they’re grabbing skimboards,” Simpson said. “They’re out there and they’re trying it, so it’s really exciting.”