Surfing

Several years ago, Utah-based Kahuna Creations innovated a sport it calls "land paddling." With the simple addition of a balled paddle, longboard skaters have been able to paddle their way around asphalt and concrete, bringing the burgeoning sport of stand-up paddleboarding onto dry land. Kahuna is now updating its land paddling line with a purpose-built longboard modeled after one of its surfboards. The new Bombora Longboard uses a big, surf-style design to make for what is reportedly a smooth, intuitive ride.  Read More

In order to surf those massive walls of salt water known as big waves, brave surfers usually need to get towed in by a personal watercraft (PWC). This presents some logistical problems (i.e. having to bring a buddy along to tow you around all day). The WaveJet gives you the power you need without requiring a large tow-in vehicle or separate person.  Read More

California-based Signal Snowboards recently fulfilled the dreams of board sports enthusiasts everywhere in its "Every Third Thursday" Web series by building a hybrid board capable of surfing both waves and powder stashes. If you think that the board can't possibly shred on both water and snow proficiently, Signal took it to the beach and mountains to prove it.  Read More

Kahuna Creations is bringing standup paddleboarding to every type of terrain the Earth has to offer. The sport originated as a water sport, and thanks to Kahuna's Big Stick, came on land a few years ago. Now it's turned into a winter sport thanks to the all new Snow Stick. Snow SUP!  Read More

Motorized one-, two- and three-wheeled personal transport innovations like the Solowheel and the cheap and cheerful Solaron certainly look like a fun way to get around, but if it's four-wheeled action you're looking for then the new RoamBoard is definitely worth a look. The result of two years of designing, building, testing and tweaking, this stand up transportation solution brings together technologies seen in the electric skateboard, bicycle, snowboard, and automotive industries and merges them into a land-surfing motorized skateboard.  Read More

In an activity that for many of its participants is akin to a religion, the merging of surfing and technology might seem a bit like blasphemy. But while surfing is still about lifestyle for many of us, these days it's also a competitive sport offering huge amounts of prize money, so it's no surprise to see the emergence of boards packing more than just polyurethane within their fiberglass shells. With the aim of "turning feelings into facts and figures", research company Tecnalia and Spanish surfboard manufacturer Pukas have teamed up to create a surfboard that packs a gyroscope, accelerometer, GPS compass, pressure sensors and strain gauges to measure the flex of the board – but no headlights.  Read More

Four mechanical engineering undergraduates from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), have installed a computer and eight velocity sensors on a surfboard, in effort to create the ultimate surfing experience. While the students ride the board across the waves, the sensors register the speed at which the board skims along the water, then send that data to the computer, which proceeds to transmit it wirelessly to a laptop on the beach. The computer also saves the data on an internal memory card. The students built the board for their senior design project, but also as a part of Ph.D. student Benjamin Thompson’s science-of-surfboards project, in which he hopes to design the "perfect" board.  Read More

Bill Stewart has been shaping and selling surfboards since the late 70’s and, like most surfers, it seems that Bill thinks there just aren’t enough daylight hours to enjoy his wave riding past time. To rectify this he’s created a one-of-a-kind board complete with headlights designed specifically for surfing at night. Dubbed the Night Stalker, Stewart’s creation is the first ever shortboard to pack LEDs embedded in the side fins and two 700 lumen headlights contained with the board’s transparent plexiglass nose to form a pair of surfboard headlights.  Read More

According to Gerhard Tevini from Krunk Surfing in Austria, surfers know the scenario all too well – the fins of your surfboard have to be screwed off when traveling or on the way to the waves. You hear the surf conditions are ideal so you race to the beach only to discover that you can’t find your screwdriver to attach your fins. Everyone else is in the water enjoying the best surf in a long time while you sit on the beach. So Tevini – with his engineering background – set about creating the Krunk Fin System (KFS), a tool-less system for attaching fins to a board.  Read More