Riverboarding is like wakeboarding, but you're in a river using the current to plane rather than in a lake being towed by a boat. The board needs to be bigger because the river current is probably less than 10 mph, and wakeboarding is done at around 20 mph. The kids call it skurfing, I guess because it rhymes with surfing. Small groups of kids, including me, have been doing it in the summer where I live for the past several years or longer.
A friend and I made the board in the pics below many years ago with scrap wood scrounged from our parents' houses. The rope is tied to a tree on the river bank. You control the board by leaning in the direction you want to go, like most other boards you ride. You can go out in the river away from the bank until the rope makes about a 45 degree angle with the current direction. It's fun to put a garage door spring in the middle of the rope. When you lean the board back, it stretches the spring, then when you lean forward, the spring pulls you forward. You can repeat this a few times, stretching the spring a little more each time, and sometimes get the board to jump out of the water. I broke the spring we had though, so now we use a deflated inner tire tube. The rope is attached to the bottom of the board a few inches back from the front. This is important, because if you fall off the board will stay on the surface rather than get pushed down by the current and stuck on the bottom.
We've had many good times hanging out on the bank and riding the river.
