When asked what they love most about their sport, professional skimboarders don’t often talk about the dazzling array of tricks they can do or the exotic beaches in places like Mexico, Brazil and Japan that their craft has taken them. They talk about the community they’ve found. “You get a second family when you start skimboarding,” says Sydney Pizza, a professional skimboarder for ZAP Skimboards. “You fall in love with the sport and you meet a bunch of people who are just as in love with it as you are. I met my best friends at contests.”
For most people, a 50-some-yard strip of shoreline on Nokomis Beach may not look like much. For the hundreds of skimboard aficionados who flocked to the beach from May 16-18, however, it was much more—a proving ground, war zone and haven all rolled into one. The crowd and competitors were there for the fifth annual Spring Fling Skim Jam, hosted by local skimboard manufacturer ZAP Skimboards and Skim USA, one of the three North American skimboarding contest organizations.
The event, which included a skimboard camp from the organization Alley Oop Skim, a free skimboard clinic and a Pro/Am contest, is more than just one of the stops on Skim USA’s East Coast Tour, which culminates in the Pro/Am World Championships in August. It’s a declaration from the community of surfing’s smaller, more niche cousin that the sport, which has been around since the 1920s, is alive and well. It’s a testament to the strength of Venice’s skimboarding community, propelled by ZAP Skimboards, which has grown into one of the industry’s leading manufacturers since its inception in 1986.
“Skimboarding is still a smaller, niche sport, but there are hot pockets of it around the world,” says Max Smetts, vice president of ZAP Skimboards and a professional skimboarder himself. “I’d consider Nokomis Beach the mecca of skimboarding on the Gulf Coast.”
There are two styles of modern competitive skimboarding, each dependent on the type of waves encountered at the shoreline. With larger wave breaks, riders will sprint headlong into the water, mounting the board just in time to pump onto an incoming wave, do a maneuver and ride it back to the beach. The other is more akin to skateboarding—when the waves aren’t as big, such as the glassy-flat break on Nokomis—riders engage in a more technical style, running parallel to the shoreline and popping the board off small waves to get airs and perform tricks such as 540s and pop-shove-it variations.
The plan of attack? “To run as fast as you can,” says longtime pro and local Dave Armstrong-Morehead. “When it’s flat like this, trying to go big might not work as well. You want to link tricks together like big spins, shove-it variations to get the most out of it.”
Fellow ZAP professional rider Mason Broussard echoed his teammate’s sentiments prior to the finals. “I’m definitely going to try to hit a couple of three-shoves (where the board spins 360 degrees) and a few airs,” says Broussard, who beat out reigning world champion Gerardo Valencia for first place. “Skimboarding is a mixture of surfing and skateboarding—you want to do cool tricks, but you also want to have long rides as well. On a day like this with very little waves, it’s definitely more of that skateboarding style.”
Although the waves were miniscule, the action was not. Underneath the blazing sun, riders of all ages and skill levels from beginners to the best in the world battled
each other in 10 minute heats to prove their mettle. “As a skimboarder, everyone wishes the waves are always great,” says Broussard. “The most important thing, however, is that we’re all out here having fun and putting on a show for the people. That’s what it’s all about.”
