The passion for water and waves is not the only element that brings together board sports lovers from all over the world: the feeling of freedom and the search for contact with nature is what pushes enthusiasts to seek new forms and ways to ride the waves of the sea. If you add to this a good dose of adrenaline and recklessness, the perfect union is created to give rise to strong emotions that they can hardly do without.
We have collected the 10 most interesting board sports : some still unknown to most, while others have been known to the general public for decades now, but about which probably not many curiosities are known!
surf
The wave sport par excellence is obviously surfing. Lovers of this sport arm themselves with a board, wetsuit or costume and ride the waves of the sea to the shore. A passion that is born on the beaches of Polynesia , where the local inhabitants loved to spend their time swimming with wooden planks under their bellies, throwing themselves into the waves. The sport as we know it today developed instead in America, on the Californian coasts, where generations and generations of surfers they gave life to a real culture . Among technical innovations and new rules for practicing sport, however, there remain references to Polynesian tradition, such as the classic surfer greeting: the " Shaka ", a greeting gesture that was already in vogue centuries ago on Hawaiian beaches.
Wind surfing
The passion for the waves does not stop water sports lovers, who in the 1960s devised a new method to continue riding the surface of the ocean. Not everyone knows that wind surfing was invented by a aerospace engineer , James R. Drake, who thought of attaching a sail to the board, so that he could exploit the force of the wind to be transported. 
Kite surfing
The curiosity and ingenuity of water sports lovers has allowed the creation of even new tools to enjoy the power of the ocean waters. In the 1980s, Wind Surf champion Robby Naish decided to apply the prototype of a tool designed to deal with marine emergencies in lifeboats to his Wind Surf board. This is how kite surfing was born, a variant of surfing, which consists of being towed by a kite inflated by the wind on the board that skims the surface of the water.
Sup – Paddleboarding
For those who love an experience different from surfing, there is SUP (Stand up paddle), which consists of paddling in the sea while standing upright on the board , with the help of an oar. Compared to surfboards, SUP boards are larger and guarantee greater balance in the ride. The sport is loved by many enthusiasts also for the possibility of being able to practice it in peace , without having to wait for the right weather to unleash the waves on the beach: for this reason many surfers practice SUP as a form of training.
Water ski
For lovers of speed, water skiing must necessarily be mentioned, an activity that combines classic water sports with mountain skiing . The skier is attached via a nylon thread to a boat, which by gaining great speed allows him to slide on the surface of the water and experience incredible sensations. This sport also prefers the absence of waves on the sea, unless the skier prefers to perform magnificent acrobatic tricks that will take your breath away.
Wake board
Combining water skiing and snowboarding the discipline of wake board was born, a recently developed sport practiced mainly on lakes. Using the same logic as water skiing, the practitioner is transported to the surface of the water thanks to a horizontal board and a boat that drags him at high speed. The board is much more reminiscent of a snowboard than a surfboard, as it is smaller, has rounded edges and has attachments that allow the athlete to remain anchored to the board without it being lost in the waves. There is also the variant of wake skate , in which there are no attachments for shoes, but the board has a rough surface that guarantees grip to the skater: the evolutions practiced in this case are much more similar to those of skateboarding.
Flyboard
A more recently born sport is flyboarding, first patented in 2012 in France. In this case the classic surfboard is powered by two powerful motors at the base , which launch the swimmer meters above the sea surface, allowing him to make fantastic jumps and evolutions . Since its birth, this sport has gathered numerous acclaim among lovers of extreme sports, allowing the birth of the first world flyboard competition, held in Qatar in October 2012.
Wing foil
By combining surfing, windsurfing, kitesurfing and SUP, wing foiling is born, a new discipline that allows water lovers to experience new sensations of freedom. In this sport, the surfer wears an inflatable structure in the shape of a gull's wing , which allows him to acquire the speed necessary to ride the waves with a board raised from the surface of the water thanks to a fin placed under it. An evolution of board sport that is certainly ambitious and complex, but which gives enthusiasts great emotions.
Skimboards
A variant of surfing is skimboarding, a practice that takes advantage of the smaller waves closer to the shore . Thanks to a board smaller than that of surfing, swimmers can perform small tricks similar to those of skateboarding , such as ollies or shove-its. This sport was born in California, where the lifeguards of Laguna Beach were looking for a way to ride the waves that came to the shore during breaks, without having to waste too much time chasing those in the open sea.
Bodysurfing
The most surprising evolution of surfing is bodysurfing, which, as the name suggests, does not involve the use of a board : for many water sports lovers this variant represents the best method to connect with the power of nature, as there is nothing that separates man from water. Not much is known about the birth of this sport, since it has always been a practice used by wave experts simply to move from one point of the sea to another . Over the years the technique has been refined and the sport has taken on its current structure.
Nothing can stop water sports lovers, always looking for new stimuli and new emotions to experience. Only in the last few decades have dozens and dozens of different surprising techniques for riding the waves emerged, fusing knowledge from other sports and applying it to the resources offered by the sea and the wind.
We are lucky to have such ingenious minds within the community of enthusiasts, able to observe their surroundings from a different perspective, thus allowing the growth of board sports towards horizons that were still unthinkable!
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