Watson Park is better known as a football venue and golf practice area but in the wake of last weekend’s rain which flooded highway-side areas of the beachside reserve, a group of Gisborne Boys’ High students used it for a sport more commonly enjoyed at the beach — skimboarding.
Sportsgrounds and reserves throughout the district remain closed. Gisborne District Council is to review this tomorrow.
Meanwhile, according to website surfertoday.com, skimboarding dates back about 100 years to the 1920s in California when two Laguna Beach lifeguards built rounded decks from wood and used them to slide across the water. It was originally called skidboarding but evolved over the years as boards were used to surf small waves that broke right on the shore, or were towed behind a boat like the more modern watersport of wakeboarding.Today’s skimboards are far more technologically sophisticated and a world circuilt has been running since 2006. Picture by Liam Clayton
