Several years ago the founder of what would eventually become this company, Wave Skater®, LLC set about to create a better bodyboard. Already a lifelong bodyboarder, from the time he was a very young boy who first rode the waves into shore on an old fashioned air-mattress at Bradley Beach, New Jersey, up until a few years ago when he still took the plunge into the waves with sleeker, more modern polypro, slick bottomed boards, our founder realized that there was still something missing in the overall bodyboarding experience. And what was missing, at least to him, was the ability to control both the flow of the ride and the direction of the board through the churning waves.

Our founder realized very early on in his bodyboarding education that ocean waves were very powerful forces of nature. And he certainly understood that even small waves had the power to toss people around like they were mere feathers in the wind. Over the years, as his skill in riding ocean waves improved, on an ever-changing landscape of boards, he nevertheless, came to the unmistakable conclusion that the ocean always had the upper hand. But how could he make it a more level playing field for both the skilled and unskilled rider alike?

After many long days and nights agonizing over this dilemma, the proverbial “light bulb” went off inside his head and the first thoughts for a better bodyboard were born. And this inspiration came to him one day after watching a professional surfing tournament on television. During this tournament, a number of skilled surfers strutted their stuff by expertly trekking across mountainous waves, riding each of them in safely towards shore. What caught his eye was the way in which each of these surfers rode the waves. And, to a man, all of these riders chose not to come in straight towards shore, but rather by following the curl of the wave and coming in sideways, paralleling the wave.

He thought for a moment, skill aside, about how it was that these surfers could ride such monstrous waves and yet still exhibit such extraordinary control in their rides. And in an instance, the idea for a better bodyboard hit him, “fins!” It was the surfboard’s fins that allowed these skilled athletes the ability to weave in and out of the waves, along with the shifting of their weight back and forth along the surface of their boards. But it was the fins that allowed the surfers the ability to track across these huge waves and turn on a dime when necessary. Wasn’t this in reality, the same principal as rudders on a boat, he thought? Turn the rudder and the boat turns in the corresponding direction. How utterly simple and yet how so utterly profound!

So, almost immediately, he set about to construct his own version of a bodyboard that could mimic a surfboard’s actions in the water. Spending countless hours and thousands of dollars, he purchased several dozen of the most technologically advanced bodyboards out on the market and proceeded to cut them all up. As he glued some of them together, attached a piece here, or another piece there, sometimes with duct tape and other times with screws and bolts, he soon realized that he had taken on quite a task for himself. But in all the excitement to build the next great board, he hardly noticed the effort and it became a labor of love.

Soon enough, he realized that he would have to venture down to the shore and try out some of his wacky “Rube Goldberg” contraptions to see which ones truly worked and which ones were mere flights of fancy. And so one day he gathered up his early primitive prototypes and journeyed down the shore with his two children, who by the way, couldn’t care less about their father’s crazy dreams.

As he tested one after another of these fanciful designs in the water, reality soon intruded on his daydreams. And although not an engineer by training, it became literally, “painfully” obvious, which designs had a future and which were destined for the trash heap. So after several bruises, to both his posterior and his pride, our founder gathered up his boards, his kids and ventured on back home. But he had learned a valuable lesson on that first day of testing and one, which stuck with him through all further development of the Wave Skater®. And that lesson was that in creating anything worthwhile, “form must follow function.” So it wasn’t enough just to envision and create a cool looking design, unless that design actually worked in the way in which it was intended.

So armed with this new insight, our founder tinkered around some more until he finally created a few new designs which seemed to work quite well in the water. Now, convinced that he had indeed stumbled unto something truly worthwhile, the next step was to find a competent attorney and have a patent search done to see if his brainchild was truly unique. Fortunately, one of our founder’s lifelong friends owned his own law firm and was able to initiate the patent search and file the patent application almost immediately. In addition, he turned to a few of his closest friends for assistance in helping finance this dream of his and was overwhelmed by their generosity and enthusiasm.

Armed with the knowledge that at least his idea appeared to be original, and through a series of circumstances, our founder eventually made acquaintances with the legendary surfer and creator of the original bodyboard, Californian, Tom Morey. And after lengthy discussions on all matters pertaining to surfing, bodyboarding, the shape and structure of the universe, and other esoteric matters of interest, he and Tom struck up a business relationship in which Tom agreed to be chief technical consultant for an idea long overdue in the bodyboarding world. And thus Wave Skater®, LLC was born, with “East Coast meeting West Coast!”