The unique sport of shore style skimboarding is starting to make waves on the Sunshine Coast and beyond.
On April 6, local board company Akwa Industries staged the Roberts Creek Open, the first ever skimboard jam on the Coast. Local riders Bryce Rudland and Shane Morrissey placed first and third respectively, while Vancouver's Arden Ross took second place. In all, about 15 wetsuit-clad riders from as far away as Vancouver Island took part, despite the overcast and at times rainy weather.
To Akwa's founder and creative director Bryce Casselman, the inclement weather just made for better waves. Competitors judged their peers at the free entry event, mingled with onlookers, and took turns staying warm by a bonfire. Event sponsors like Banana Slug Board Company and Pepper Creek Pizza pitched in with food and a beach clean-up.
"Skimboarding's popularity on the Coast is growing every summer, and we're seeing more riders brave the winter months as well," Casselman said. "The support from the community and riders [at the event] proves to us we'll be holding many more."
Akwa was forged locally in early 2007 when Casselman joined forces with Sunshine Coast Skimboards' owner Scott Copeland, now Akwa's manufacturing director. Both are in their early 30s and produce boards for both the sport's disciplines: flat land skimboarding (which utilizes rails and obstacles set up on tidal flats) and wave riding (shore style), which involves a rider running out towards an incoming wave, jumping onto the board, then banking off the wave to surf it back towards shore.
All of Akwa's foam-core wave boards and wood-core flatland boards are conceptualized, designed and tested on the Coast. International sales are the next step, said Copeland.
"We're planning on hitting up industry trade shows next year," he said. "So far, we've had a major response from Florida and Sacramento, both large skim scenes in their own right."
"It's a lot of work, but we're confident in our products," said Casselman. "We're putting the Sunshine Coast on the map for Canadian skimboarding."
Even the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) is legitimizing the sport. They've hired Morrissey, an eight-year veteran of the sport at age 20, to teach a skimboarding clinic being run this weekend at Roberts Creek. The course will be taught under the auspices of the B.C. Surf Instructor Association.
"With all board sports, it's about progressing yourself as a rider and trying new tricks until you have them mastered," Casselman said. "It's a very athletic sport that not only gives you an amazing workout, but teaches a lot of self-discipline."
Morrissey, who's taught SCRD courses before, said Roberts Creek is great for beginners. Sand accumulating from longshore drift means terrain at the beach is constantly evolving, he added.
"The waves this year are coming in totally different from last year," he said. A rock locals call 'the snakecharmer,' often used as a launch pad for jumps, used to be far more prominent than it is today, he said. If conditions at the creek aren't to one's liking, Whitaker Beach in Bonniebrook is also a popular spot, with "a great sand bar and bigger waves in the winter," Morrissey said. Davis Bay also sees some skim action.
Since 2006, the sport's informal national body has been the Skimboarding Association of Canada. It aims to collaborate the various skimboarding scenes in Canada, most of which are located in B.C.'s west coast and Lower Mainland. Aside from the Sunshine Coast, the sport is popular at sandy beaches in White Rock and Tsawwassen, at Mystic Beach west of Victoria and at Vancouver's Spanish Banks and Wreck Beach.
"Because it's such a new sport, everyone's really friendly and open," said Morrissey, who estimates there are about 40 dedicated local skimboarders. A board is all that's required for the summer weekend warrior, said Casselman, but winter skimboarders usually don a three to four millimetre wetsuit with a hood and boots.
Akwa supplies a team of about half a dozen young riders, mainly in the United States, with boards and apparel. While there aren't many big cash prizes to be found yet at skimboard competitions, Casselman said it will come as the sport develops.
"The best thing to do is try it out," he said. "Just come down to the beach and ask questions."
