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skim board park

 tired of long drives to the beach? tired of waiting for the perfect wave? skim board park is perfect for you!!
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i love to skim board. Im not saying that im good at it, but i love it. If you dont know what the hell skim boarding is then go ask someone cause im too lazy to explain. Anyways, my idea is flat ground w/ curves going up the side. Kinda like a huge half-bowl. The sides would be very gently curved and about 2ft high. Water would always be flowing from the top of the sides. Half of the bowl would be open. The opening wold lead to a big pool. The water would flow out of this opening plus people could ride their skim boards out into the deep water when there turn is over. Maybe the pool could even have a wave simulator thingy. There would be a drain in the pool so the water that drains into the the pool would drain out and sent back up to the bowl somehow. With this constant water flow the bowl would always be blanketed in about a quarter inch of water. The pool would also stay the same depth.The only depth change in the the bowls depth would come when the simulated waves come in, giving the riders the oppertunity to get air on 1-2ft waves. Or if the rider stayed at the back of the bowl he would be barley affected by the waves.

The result would be really cool and really expensive. People would come ther to swim, skim, and hang out. Im sure skim boarders would love many things about it. It would be acceptionally cool for inlanders who have to get on a plane to see the beach.

THE END

—gearhead13, Jul 28 2003

Schlitterbahn (thanks for the typo alert, jutta!) http://www.schlitte...ions-boogiebahn.asp
[Amos Kito, Oct 17 2004]

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       If you get motivated enough to want to explain what this is about, it'll get a better reception. Meanwhile, have a fishbone.
—snarfyguy, Jul 28 2003
   

       There's a "wave surfing" ride at the Texas water park Schlitterbahn, that's pretty close to this idea. It's a high velocity sheet of water, where you surf down a foam rubber slope on a small "body board". The [link] doesn't do it justice, but I think you'd be pleased.
I had never heard of the ride or Schlitterbahn, until seeing it on the Travel Channel last week. They also have a couple of UPHILL water tube rides!
—Amos Kito, Jul 28 2003
   

       Ill show you a fishbone!! ) :   

         

       And ill tell you what skimboarding is ( : You have a wooden or foam board that is about 40in. long and 25in. wide. You wait on the shore till a wave begins to pull out and there is about a quater in. of water covering the sand. Then you throw your board in front of you, run, jump on, and as the name suggests, skim across the water. If you do it right you can catch air on incoming waves. Its really fun!! you can spin around and everything. Theres also some way to do it in deep water like surfing, but im not nearly that good. Sorry for the inconveniance.
—gearhead13, Jul 28 2003
   

       Thank you for the explanation. I will now remove the fishbone.   

       The only problem I see is that when you wipe out you'll hit concrete at speed rather than sand.
—snarfyguy, Jul 28 2003
   

       <estuary english>What is the speed of sand in a vacuum?</estuary english>
—gnomethang, Jul 28 2003
   

       Actually, i was thinking the bowl could be coated in some kind of plastic material that would be smoother and more slippery than than cement. Besides even if it were cement skateparks have the same problem and they exist. By the way, you should check out juttas link, it shows a pretty good picture.
—gearhead13, Jul 28 2003
   

       You can't turn a skimboard, because you need rails to turn snowboards, surfboards, bodyboards ect and wheels on a skateboard act like rails you need some depth to the water so you can rock from rail to rail. because the water for skimboards is only very shallow you cant turn untill you hit deeper water at wich point you slow down to a stop. This makes me think that in such a park collisions would be commond place, also I dont know how effective a skimboarding uphill would be.
—Gulherme, Jul 29 2003
   

       I bet Vin Diesel could skimboard uphill.
—snarfyguy, Jul 29 2003
   

       If you can get a thick, powerful shorebreak like Sandy Beach, Oahu, HI, count me in. None of that wussy 2' stuff.
—thumbwax, Jul 29 2003
   

       Funny you should say that thumb I recently got whupped by a decent shorey doing exactly this, its not fun, felt like hitting a wall, I was planning to launch myself into the air and then this thing just stood up vertically infront of me and the result wasn't pretty.
—Gulherme, Jul 29 2003
   

       thumb-   

       consider it done. 3-4ft for the tough guys in front and1-2ft for the wussys in back.   

       gulherme-   

       good point about the turning thing. Ill see what i can think up. But who the hell ever said anything about skimming up hill??
—gearhead13, Jul 29 2003
   

       These exist in waterparks. I'll try to find a link.
—waugsqueke, Jul 29 2003
   

       3-4'? Waves are measured in refrigerators, man! Sandy Beach is 2 refrigerators high on good days. Higher on insane days, like when I bodysurfed in 3-fridge high mindbending conditions. All clean beachbreak. 20 years ago, several visits to Sandy Beach over the course of the month of July rewarded us with visage of a guy skimming up into the waves, *turning*, riding it like he owned the place. Just a beautiful thing which bent a lot of minds aside from mine.
—thumbwax, Jul 29 2003
   

       Well, thumb, try getting air w/a skimboard on three refrigerator waves. We arent talking about bogey boarding, here.
—gearhead13, Jul 30 2003
   

       Fatal flaw in design: If I'm understanding you correctly you will be riding downhill along with the water. The net speed difference between your board and the water will be about zero. You need a significant speed difference to "float", and hence your board will sink to the bottom.
—Worldgineer, Jul 30 2003
   

       If the board were slightly flexible you should be able to use drag to turn and carve.

  

       Worldgineer, you would still have to displace the water from under the board before it would rub the bottom. I think that once you are moving, the water building up behind the board will push it. I can't see not being able to skim it.   

       I can. Take a board, throw it on a puddle, jump on it. You and it will sink. The same thing will happen at the Skim Board Park unless there's a significant speed difference between the board and the water. Even if water is initially moving from behind, as soon as you hop on and start going down the hill you will travel at about the same speed as the water. At this point the conditions are identical to you standing on the board in a puddle.
—Worldgineer, Jul 31 2003
   

       I can't get the image of a waterslide out of my head and it's lack of friction.
Damn it, now I'm going to have to rig up the kids slip'n slide, carve myself a styrofoam boogie board and try this out. Probably break my ass.		   

       Your waterslide analogy now has me questioning my same speed assumption. Please post the results of your experiment (and have the kids videotape it please).
—Worldgineer, Jul 31 2003
   

       Frictionless waterslide? Ha! On a recent trip to a waterpark, I fell off my tube on the way down a slide. Nice burn on my shoulder to show for it. No friction there…
—swamilad, Aug 02 2003
   

       A much simpler and probably more effective idea would be just flat ground surrounded by walls and blanketed in a quarter inch of water, kinda like a gym. If you did this you could even cover the floor in a soft layer of sand. Plus it could still open in to a pool.
—gearhead13, Aug 05 2003
   

       Guess i shouldve thought of that before i posted this.
—gearhead13, Aug 05 2003
   

       I had pictured your idea as looking the same as a regular skate board park but vinyl (or a better water proof topping), covered, and spongy like a gym mat. Water would constantly sheet from the highest spots, and the lowest would be perforated to drain the large amount of water that would be pumped.
Having a spongy material as your base should not only let you do away with most of the standard safety equipment, it would also cause the water to concentrate in the dent you would make with your board as you ride.		   

       I like the idea. But spongy material? SAND man sand really continuous good waves to skim non-stop put in my back yard!!
—John_R_123, Feb 06 2004
   

       ever heard of air hockey, use the same idea as air hockey but instead of using air shooting up through millions of tiny holes through some type of viynl have water shootig up, you would probably have to do alot of testing to get the right amount of psi and the right amount of holes and the diameter of the holes but the idea would work. using this you could have as many man made hills and banks as you wanted, and where i live we have a pool with man made waves which could come in form the pool idea said earlir. also underneath the smooth vynl would be some type of foam, kind of like a undercarpet so falling wouldnt be so bad
—stoveonarampage, Jul 23 2004
   

       I love skimboarding. Of course the local beach is really close to my place... Spanish Banks in Vancouver if you've heard of it, apparently one of north america's best skim beaches.   

       So I have no need for the park. But it would be great to bring skimboarding to those who live farther from the ocean! Also if it had the jets in the last anno, you could skim forever without bottoming out. That would be super cool. so I'll bump you up to a full croissant here!
—eulachon, Jul 23 2004
   

       ey gearhead dude thats an awesome idea   

       whos cares about falling i skateboard too ive taken my falls on concrete its not much worse than bustin ass on a ton of shells anyway give feedback when project is complete id lov to see it
—skim4life, Aug 04 2004
   

       [skim4life] all these falls onto concrete seem to have robbed you of the power of punctuation. I found these, I think they may come in handy: .....,,,,,,''''''
—Sattamassagana, Aug 04 2004
   

       o sry did i like break a rule or sumthing so this is like a essay we hav to use punctutaion dude get a life and tlk about sumthing sumone cares about
—skim4life, Aug 09 2004
   

       [skim4life]. You gottit in one!. Whilst slang is acceptable you do need to make sure that other people can understand what you say. There is a help file available.
I, too, have thrown myself in and out of concrete on 2 and 4 wheels but do not feel the need to use that sort of 'sk8ter boi' shorthand and then expect to be understood,
—gnomethang, Aug 09 2004
   


 

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