Fashion 88 : Catch a New Wave

Demographics don’t count at Aliso Beach, just south of Laguna, skimboarding capital of the world. Here everyone is under 20, all the girls wear two-piece suits and the “big fall trends” are rolled-down waistbands and T-shirts tied in knots. It’s quintessential California, where summer lasts all year and your skimboard’s the only accessory that matters.

What’s a skimboard? “It’s the smaller, zippier successor to the surfboard,” says Tex Haines, who makes the thin, sculptured disks out of polyurethane foam, fiberglass

cloth and resin. He also publishes Skimboard magazine and sponsored the recent Victoria Skimboard competition where 2,000 teen-agers showed up.

Skimboarding was born on the coast, but it’s catching on inland too, Haines says. “You can skim off wind waves on a lake, sand bars on a river, wet lawns after a heavy rain. Nowadays you’ll see kids in wet suits skimming on golf courses in a storm,” he says. “For little kids who want the thrill of sliding, it’s the best.”

There are many skim techniques, but it’s best on a steep beach, Haines concedes. You just drop your board on wet sand, slide into the wave, then ride in the wave’s barrel, parallel to the shore.

“It’s neat when a huge wave is curled over you and you’re in the tube of it, in the eye of the hurricane, where all is calm and quiet,” Haines says.

Matt Crowl, a Laguna resident and lifelong skimmer, says the sport is more dangerous than surfing. But it’s better for spectators, because “skimming is done so close to shore, in breaking waves. It’s much more fun to watch.”