Destination Spotlight: Wakesurfing at Lake Powell

One question we hear all the time is, “Where’s the best place to wakesurf?” Though we each have our own go-to spots, there’s one destination our team just can’t quit: Lake Powell. Our founders—myself included—have been coming to this breathtaking reservoir for nearly two decades, and it still tops our list of favorite places in the world.

We’re kicking off our new 2025 Destination Spotlight Series by featuring some of the most incredible wakesurfing locations on the planet. And what better place to start than with Lake Powell? Below, you’ll find out exactly why it’s such a unique spot to ride, plus our tried-and-true tips from countless trips.

Biomechanics of Tricks: Unlocking Air, Spins, and Landings

When it comes to advanced board tricks success isn’t just about courage or creativity. It’s about understanding how your body moves in space. This is where biomechanics, the science of how the body generates and transfers force, comes into play. By grasping the fundamentals of jumping mechanics, rotational movements, and landing dynamics, you’ll not only improve your consistency and confidence but also reduce your risk of injury. Think of these principles as the foundation that will transform raw effort into refined performance.

Efficiency in Motion: Leveraging Body Mechanics for Power and Speed

When it comes to wakesurfing, speed and power are the names of the game. Whether you're cruising for a longer ride or setting up for that perfect trick, how you move your body can make all the difference. By fine-tuning your body mechanics, you can ride faster, generate more power, and do all of it while using less energy. Let’s break down how you can achieve that.

The Physics of Movement: How Biomechanics Drives Wakesurfing Performance

When you're wakesurfing, every movement you make is a balance of physics and biomechanics. Whether you're carving back and forth or recovering from a wobble, understanding how your body interacts with the board and the water is key to unlocking consistent performance. By mastering core principles like balance, force generation, and momentum, wakesurf riders can achieve a higher level of performance on the wake.

Top 5 Wakesurfing Tips for Beginners: Mastering the Basics

A day out on the water wakesurfing can be some of the best days of your life. But like any new sport, learning the basics can make or break your first experiences. The good news is that with the right guidance, you can go from struggling with balance to confidently carving in no time. Whether you’re completely new or just dusting off old skills, these five tips are designed to set you up for success from day one.

Essential Post-Season Wakesurf Board Care: 5 Tips to Keep Your Ride Ready for Next Season

By following these simple maintenance steps, you’re not only preserving your board’s performance but also ensuring it’ll be ready for action next season. Taking a few extra minutes to rinse, store, and protect your board can make all the difference in how it performs for you down the line. At Smith Board Co., we’re here to help you make the most of your wakesurfing experience, from your first ride of the season to the last.

Optimizing Air: How Riders and Boards Work Together

Air, like all aspects of wakesurf performance, is a combination of rider skill and smart board design. By understanding the physics and dynamics behind it, we can continue pushing the limits of what wakesurf boards can do. Whether you're looking to catch more air for tricks or simply improve your jumps, the right combination of technique and design is key.

Breaking Down Translatable Force: How to Launch Higher

Understanding Air in Wakesurfing: What is Max Height?

Wrapping Up the 2024 Wakesurfing Season: A Year of Growth and Innovation at Smith Board Co

As the 2024 wakesurfing season draws to a close, it's an exciting moment for us at Smith Board Co. This year has been marked by significant milestones in both product innovation and community engagement. Our journey to redefine wakesurf board performance has taken bold steps forward, and we couldn’t be more proud of what our team has accomplished.

Wakesurfing: The State Of The Sport

As a whole, wakesurfing seems to be at a tipping point in its history. Waves are only getting bigger, boards only getting better, and interest only going up. The expansion of competitions, innovations in equipment, and global adoption are reminiscent of skateboardings popularity in the 90s, albeit with a bit nicer of toys needed to get into it. And as wakesurfing rides this wave of growth, it’s clear that the best is yet to come—pushing the limits of what’s possible, both on the water and in the sport’s future.

Mastering Rotational Speed in Wakesurfing

Understanding and optimizing rotational speed is crucial for taking your wakesurfing to the next level. Whether you're aiming to nail that elusive 360 or simply want a more responsive ride, focusing on rotational speed can make a significant difference.

Mastering Linear Speed in Wakesurfing

Why Did We Start Smith Board Co?

Whatever that is that makes for no bad days on the water, that’s why we started this. We love to surf. We love to think about how to make things better. But we love to be out on the water. Yes, our mission is to build the best boards in the world, but the reason we want to do that is to give people more of that feeling. That love for being out on the water. That is a part of who Dakota, Ben, Lewis, myself and everyone else on the Smith Board Co team, and we want to help as many people as possible share that feeling. That’s why we started this. That’s why SMITH exists.

The Impact of Snub Noses and Tails on Wakesurf Board Performance

If you’ve been wakesurfing for awhile or have looked into which board would be good for you, you’ve probably noticed that some boards look like the nose or tail of the board has been cut off. If you’ve never heard of a snub nose or snub tail, then rest assured that cut isn’t an accident. It’s actually a design feature called a snub nose (if it’s on the front of the board), or a snub tail (if it's on the back of the board), and it has a pretty big effect on how a wakesurf boards gonna ride. If you don’t read any further into the nitty gritty of why these features do what they do, then you can just generally think of a snub nose and tail is going to increase the agility of your board allowing for quicker turning. The reasoning is a little different for each, so we’ll get into the why of it below

Human Body Mechanics and Performance

What we haven’t covered in previous posts is how we, as riders, influence performance. Riders affect the performance of a wakesurf board in two major ways: skill level and body mechanics. These factors, along with Agility, Speed, and Air, all play a crucial role in your board's performance. Unfortunately, at Smith Board Co., we can’t engineer your skill or body mechanics (though we’re still holding out hope for cyborgs!). That's why we focus on the three aspects we can control.

Understanding The Rocker

Understanding the rocker of your wakesurf board is one of the keys to optimizing your riding experience. Whether you're looking to enhance speed, improve control, or prevent nosediving, finding the right balance in your board's rocker will allow you to ride more confidently and effectively on the water.

Not All Carbon Fiber is the Same: Why Quality Matters in Wakesurfing

When you hear the term "carbon fiber," it might be easy to think of it as a one-size-fits-all material. After all, carbon fiber is just carbon fiber, right? But in reality, not all carbon fiber is created equal. Just like any other material, the quality, manufacturing process, and design application can make a world of difference. At Smith Board Co, we believe that understanding these differences is crucial, not just for those of us in the engineering and design worlds, but for every rider looking to push the limits on the water.

Agility: The Unsung Hero of Wakesurf Board Performance

In our ongoing series, we’ve been breaking down what makes up the elusive concept of "performance" in wakesurf boards. We’ve already explored how Speed and Air contribute to your ride, and now it’s time to shine a spotlight on Agility. This is the final piece of our performance trifecta, and it’s the one that truly defines how responsive and versatile your board can be.

The Rise of Carbon Fiber in Wakesurf Boards

At Smith Board Co, carbon fiber is more than just a buzzword; it is an integral piece of our path to a higher performing board. Carbon fiber is an unlock to a whole new level of board performance. We’re currently engineering carbon fiber into our full board lineup and will look to transition every one of our boards over from the industry standard glass fiber to the higher performing carbon fiber.

Wakesurf board width and how it affects your ride

At Smith Board Co., our mission is to delve deeper into these nuanced aspects of wakesurf board design, providing the industry with comprehensive insights and data-driven understanding. By continually testing, simulating, and sharing our findings, we aim to empower riders with the knowledge needed to choose the perfect board for their style and skill level. Stay tuned for more detailed explorations of other critical board features in our ongoing blog series.

What Makes a Good Beginner Wakesurf Board?

Ultimately, the ideal beginner wakesurf board combines buoyancy, appropriate size, sharp rail profiles, a suitable fin setup, and sufficient speed. By optimizing these features, we can make wakesurfing significantly more accessible for newcomers, helping them enjoy the sport right from the start.

The Role of Air in Wakesurf Board Performance

In one of our first posts, we started to unpack what it is we mean when we are talking about wakesurf board performance (link here). In it we defined performance as being a function of the combination of wakesurf board speed, agility, and air. By defining what exactly is meant by performance we could then start to optimize for performance and make measurable gains in that direction. In our most recent article we took this a step further and started to unpack Speed in particular (link here). In this follow up, we’ll take a deeper look into Air and what makes up Air as a performance metric. 

The Speed Factor: How It Shapes Wakesurf Board Performance

By now you may be asking yourself why it matters that we’ve separated out speed into two separate pieces. For that matter, you may be asking yourself why do we even care to measure speed in the first place? We all know a fast board when it’s under our feet. Aren’t boards out there fast enough? NO. By defining speed and truly understanding what makes up speed allows us to test and measure different changes we make to boards. It allows us to carry forward those changes that increase speed so that every year our boards get faster and faster. Ultimately, faster boards mean that you can ride a smaller board which will increase it’s agility and allow you to do more on the water. Designing a faster board means that you have more forgiveness when you are learning a new trick to fall farther back on the wave because you can recover faster. Faster boards are an unlock to bringing out the best wakesurfer in all of us.

Why does board size matter?

The big takeaway here is that there’s a sweet spot when it comes to finding the right size board for your body. If you go too small, you’re going to sink too far into the water, and you’ll find it hard to build up speed. But if you go too big, you’ll have to work much harder to maneuver the board in any way. Currently there’s no definitive guide on what size board you should get based on your weight, height or any other factors. There's no where to find that if you’re 180 pounds you should get a 50” board, if you’re 150 pounds you should get a 48” board. That doesn’t exist yet, and it’s not quite as simple as that anyway, but here at SBC we’re working to build and pass along an understanding of these things so that everyone can choose the best board for them. Hopefully by reading this article and understanding the physics behind these choices, you can get an idea of what to consider and why it’s important. 

3D printing: the next phase of custom boards

Here at Smith Board Co we’re taking an active role in bringing 3D printing into the wakesurf industry. 3D printing currently allows us to prototype designs that we can then test out at small scale before iterating and getting into our upcoming boards. But we’re not stopping there, we’re partnering with 3D printing experts to see what more we can do with 3D printing and how we can help usher in a new era of wakesurf board design. 

FEA: A Better Way to Design Wakesurf Boards

What exactly happens to a car during a crash, or to the Golden Gate Bridge when it sways in the wind? What about when a rubber band snaps or you wear an indent into your favorite spot on the couch? When your laptop heats up your legs as you watch Netflix, or the handle on a pan gets hot enough to need an oven mitt? The last few of those aren’t too important, but knowing what happens in a car crash or when a bridge sways helps engineers build those things in a way that keeps us all safe. In engineering, you often want to know how something will behave before you build it. Especially if you're building it for other people to safely use like a bridge or a building.

The Perfect Pro

It is the same ethos that we look for in everyone that is involved with Smith Board Co. We want pro wakesurf athletes who are willing to work hard every day at their craft. Athletes who are willing to learn from their mistakes and to use those same mistakes to drive their improvement forward. At the end of the day we are looking for someone who’s not out to beat the competition but is there to beat themselves every single day. We understand that there’s no such thing as perfect and those that want to go down in history are those that are here for the process. This mindset is fundamental to everything that we are doing here at Smith Board Co. In our products, in our people, and ultimately in our perfect pros.

Performance Optimization Methodology

At Smith Board Co, we’ve set out to design and create the highest performing wakesurf boards to give every surfer the most out of every ride. We’ve discovered ways to make boards faster, lighter, and easier to spin. We’ve simulated new designs and worked with different materials. We’ve even defined what wakesurfing performance means, but we’re new. We’re a small team. There are thousands of riders in the US alone, no two of which ride the same way or want the same thing. So how do we align our goals with the goals of each and every person who rides one of our boards?

CFD: Driving Continuous Innovation In Wakesurf Boards

Computational Fluid Dynamics, or CFD, is a game changer when it comes to designing anything that flies or floats. Why? The complex models that take humans weeks, months, or years to calculate, CFD can model in minutes or hours.  Engineers use these models to enhance designs and increase performance in aircraft, boats, and more. For example: have you ever noticed that almost all planes have slightly turned up wingtips? Using CFD, aerospace engineers discovered that adding these winglets to airplane wing design decreased drag and reduced the amount of fuel needed to fly. 

When Force is Fluid: Using Fluid Dynamics to Inform Wakesurf Board Design

If you've ever tried a skim-style wakesurf board and then switched to surf-style, you’ve likely noticed that they feel and ride completely differently. It makes sense because the former is usually smaller and thinner, while the latter is larger, thicker, and has bigger fins. But why do these design differences change the ride? Is it that bigger boards have more contact with the water, while thinner boards have less volume and buoyancy?

Why does it matter that we define performance?

Going back to the original idea we started off with I would like to add to it, "you can't improve what you don't measure and you can't measure what you don't define". As a sport and an industry we need to start defining what Performance is, otherwise we will continue to stagnate where the only improvement we will see is by way of randomly prototyping new ideas.

What is Performance?

Smith Board Co is on a mission to set the industry benchmark in an industry devoid of standardization while pushing it to new heights. The nuance of performance, from board design to rider experience, is complex. But put simply, performance can be defined as the relationship between three main aspects: speed, agility, and air.

The Wakesurf Dictionary

Get stoked with our quick guide to wakesurf board lingo! From 'Deck' to 'Sweet Spot,' learn the key terms that’ll help you talk shop and surf better. Whether you're catching your first wave or aiming to perfect your technique, understanding your board is the first step to nailing those sweet rides. Dive in and up your wakesurfing game with us!

What is Computational Fluid Dynamics?

Computational Fluid Dynamics, or CFD, is a computer modelling technique that analyzes the flow of fluid. It can be used to simulate airplanes in a wind tunnel, or air flow through a combustion engine. At Smith Board Co, we use CFD to simulate and analyze our wakesurf boards so we can build the best boards out there. Read the full article to get an idea of how CFD actually works, it's written so you don't have to be an engineer to understand it!

Unraveling the Mystery of Rocker in Surf vs. Skim Style Boards

Have you ever wondered why surf style boards boast a significant amount of rocker, while skim style boards remain almost flat? A visit to any board shop might leave you with the simple explanation that "it's just how they are." However, there's more to the story of your board's rocker than meets the eye.

Why Do Some Wakesurf Boards have Blunt Tails?

Surface Area Advantage: A blunt tail offers a wider surface area at the back of the board. This design translates into increased stability, an attribute especially beneficial for beginner and intermediate riders. It's like having a more forgiving board to maintain balance.

Mastering the 360: Choosing the Right Wakesurf Board for Spinning

As your wakesurfing skills progress, you'll naturally be drawn to learning new tricks. One of the first major feats for many riders is mastering the 360 - a full circle rotation on the water, starting and ending in a forward position. Though challenging, understanding the characteristics of a board that aid in spinning can be a significant advantage.