All Wave Zone skimboards are compression molded to give an outstanding strength to weight ratio. The sharp edge of the lower rail creates less drag and gives the board speed. The decks are smooth, giving a crisp clear graphic
Wave Zone is a premium board builder offering a full line of skimboards for all riders from the beginner to the competitor. Through focused work, product innovation, graphic creativity, and unrivaled customer service the Wave Zone product line continues to be one of the best in the business. Each skimboard is designed, tested and manufactured to the highest standard... built to perform and built to last.
n 1990, after 6 years in sporting goods management and windsurfing/sailing instruction Jeff Shinham opened Wave Zone Custom Surf Shop in Manatee County, Florida. This shop specialized in custom surf boards, custom skimboards, and wind surfers among the hard goods product lines. With a full service surf shop by day and a board builder workshop at night, immeasurable hours were spent building the powerful business that exists today.
Owner, Jeff Shinham, was found every night shaping and building custom surf boards and skimboards in a workshop in his back yard. Over the years, hundreds of Wave Zone custom surf boards and custom skimboards were built and sold. (Photo right - Gary Vreman with his custom Wave Zone Skimboard). Each skimboard was, at that time, shaped and glassed in the same manner as a surf board. In the late 1990's Clark Foam discontinued the production of the foam used in shaping our skimboard cores. Much like the surf board blank shortage of 2005/2006 we found ourselves pushed toward new product design, while using epoxy products as a temporary fix.
Nearly a full year was spent designing and building our first mold based skimboard product. Development efforts were sporadic, having to fit between running the surf shop, filling custom board orders and rasing three awsome kids, who came to work with Jeff daily. The first mold was a bust and not repairable. Pressing on, with dedicated work, a few months later a first successful mold was created and in use.
These new boards were initially sold only through the Wave Zone Surf Shop, but before long Jeff was receiving requests to make boards for other surf shops in Florida. This brought news of the Wave Zone product to a sales rep who approached Wave Zone about representing the product. Soon the rep was "on tour" with product samples. In one brief trip 30 surf shops were on board and carrying the Wave Zone brand... gone were the days of back yard production.
The coming years brought 5 moves to newer, larger facilities to accommodate the massive growth of Wave Zone Skimboards. The booming business made it impossible to continue operating a retail Surf Shop and Jeff moved exclusively to manufacturing and wholesaling of the Wave Zone brand. The crew pictured above is among the first talented group, individually trained by Jeff, to bring Wave Zone forward as a force in the skimboard market today (pictured from left: Kirk Bauer, Jeff Shinham, Bryan Lake, Jason Shinham, Kyle Fredrickson).
Jeff's personal board builder collection includes the recaptured first Wave Zone Surf Board built, the most recent Wave Zone Surf Board built, a Wave Zone balsa long board (never to be sold... yes, he does mean never), the recaptured first custom Wave Zone skimboard built, and a sample of each skimboard style that has ever been made by Wave Zone.
Today Wave Zone Skimboards can be found in hundreds of surf shops around the United States plus various island locations.
Wave Zone Skimboards are proudly Made in the U.S.A.
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