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Who Needs Surf? Skimboarding Makes A Splash

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By NICK WILLIAMS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 31, 2008

CLEARWATER - Under the watchful eyes of several onlookers, 17-year-old Alec Kugler sprints full speed across the wet sand at Sand Key Park.

He tosses his board onto the water and leaps into the air, landing safely on the miniature surfboard.

Before his five-second thrill ride comes to an end, Kugler pulls off a 360-degree flip on his board to impress judges at the fourth annual Double Barrel Skim Fest.

The crowd roars.

The sport is called skimboarding, where a person drops a smaller version of a surfboard in very shallow water and jumps onto the board to ride into the incoming waves near the shoreline. The board sport is similar to surfing, but it does not require paddling out to sea to ride large waves. Rather than riding the wave to shore, skimboarders race across the sand into the waves.

The popular water sport demands endurance and speed. Think Olympic bobsledding, only on water.

"You have to be in pretty good shape," said Kugler, admiring the cuts on the bottom of his feet from running along the shoreline. "You're constantly running, constantly balancing yourself."

Kugler, a Largo High senior and soccer player, is one of nearly 100 skimboarders on site for the contest. Contests are becoming more common in the Tampa Bay area, simply because the skimboarding scene is booming.

Double Barrel Surf Shop owner Skip Maxwell, 38, said at minimum, there are only two or three suitable months for surfing each year in the area. The rest of the year, water enthusiasts can be seen skimming on the beaches.

"The majority of our waves come in the winter time," he said. "We're encompassed by shorelines, so no matter where the surf's going, you can always go skimming."

Skimboarder and Clearwater native John Schrader, 25, works at and is sponsored by Double Barrel. He travels the country, competing in various skim contests and said no coastal area can compare to the growing skim scene in the Bay area.

"It's an easy sport to do here, because the waves are minimal," he said. "Probably in the past six years its grown tenfold from what it started out. You used to come out and it'd be like two or three skimboarders. Now it's like every kid you talk to skimboards. Skimboarding has certainly taken over on this coast."

Maxwell said the Bay area could become a hotbed for skimboard athletes

"We had entries this year from Naples, Fort Lauderdale, Panama City and Jacksonville. We drew competitors from all over the state," he said. "The number of pro skimboarders in the state, you can probably count on one hand. The thing about being a pro skimboarder is there's no qualifying tour you have to go on. You just check the box and pay the extra money."

Skimboarding is also becoming a profitable business.

Rick Bracic owns and operates Concept Skimboards in St. Petersburg. A former boat and yacht manufacturer, he started building skimboards in his garage five years ago. Because the skimboard scene has grown so quickly, he has a profitable business.

"I used to make about a board a month, and now by myself, I do about five boards a week. That's just me. I know there are some board manufacturers out there doing about 100 boards a day. The skimming market is probably one of the biggest markets out there right now."

Maxwell thinks skimboarding could become the new recreational sport for youths in the area.

"In this day and age, kids recreate differently then they did probably in our parents' time when it was Pop Warner Football and Little League baseball. Now you have huge tours like the X Games that specifically catered to what used be classified as an alternative sport, is now pretty mainstream and prominent."

Reporter Nick Williams can be reached at (813) 865-4848 or nwilliams@tampatrib.com.

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