Is bellyboarding the sport of the summer?

This summer, the World Belly Board Championships will return to Cornwall on Saturday 14 September, after a five-year hiatus. But what is bellyboarding? And how does one get involved? Bellyboarding is a relatively new term describing the act of riding the surf on a length of wood. The board often sits no further back than the belly, arms extended out in front and holding the widest part of the nose.

There’s no denying that surfing is one of the sexiest sports around: its carefree, casual attitude belies the technique and tenacity needed to do it well. But it can also be challenging and expensive, and barriers to entry are high. The awkward polystyrene slabs of bodyboarding are often touted as an easier equivalent but lack style and skill. Enter: bellyboarding. Bellyboarding has been around in the UK for at least 100 years, and exists somewhere in between the two, and its popularity is being revived, thanks to the infectious spirit of a creative community in Cornwall that’s getting people in the water and spreading the word.

In Newquay, you’ll spot Dick Pearce’s brightly-painted boards on the beaches of Perranporth and Great Western. Founded in 1928 as a tannery, Charles Pearce started hand-crafting bellyboards in the 1960s. He passed the legacy onto Jamie Johnston in 2010, who grew up on the south coast and spends as much time as he can in the ocean. “People think of surfing as Hawaiian, but bellyboarding has become this quintessentially British thing: there are pictures from the 1900s of Cornish people riding waves on coffin lids,” Jamie laughs.

A traditional bellyboard is four feet by one foot – originally, the pieces would be cut from one sheet of ply, and these measurements meant makers could get eight boards from one sheet. “I love that this timeless design has nothing to do with hydrodynamics; it’s just pure economy,” says Jamie. Today, their size isn’t the only thing that reduces waste. Summer season in Cornwall sees up to five million tourists visit, many of whom purchase cheap polystyrene boards to play in the surf, only to abandon them on the beach afterwards. Plastic and polystyrene pollute the water, ruin the beaches for locals and disrupt the ecosystem. “We’re trying to provide an alternative,” says Jamie. “You can spend a little bit more, take home a really cool local craft, and use it for life.”

Many people have already spent a lifetime bellyboarding, including local icon 79-year-old Gwyn Haslock, Britain's first competitive female surfing champion. She grew up in Truro and has been using bellyboards since she was a toddler. “There’s a lot of ego and snobbery in surfing,” she says. “The great thing about bellyboarding is that anyone can do it.” James Otter, a surfer and woodworker who owns Otter Surfboards in Porthtowan, seconds this. “Even on a good surf day, you can watch surfers sitting in the line up for ages, waiting for the perfect wave. Meanwhile, bellyboarders have caught 10, 20 waves, and they’ve done it together.”

Much of the community meets regularly. “We started a WhatsApp group 18 months ago, and there are now 400 members,” says Chris Porter, who runs Moor Boards from his home in Liskeard. “On the first Monday of every month, people from their twenties to their seventies will bring a cake or some sausage rolls, and everyone leaves with a smile. It promotes such joy.”

This inclusive attitude and community spirit is at the heart of the sport: the championships themselves were started in 2002 by a group of bellyboarders in memorial of their friend Arthur Traveller, who would meet them at Chapel Porth to surf-ride every year. A decade on, the National Trust had thrown its weight behind the event, and hundreds of attendees would mill in and out of the tents, yurts and a pop-up cinema that sprang up in the car park. The event outgrew the space in which it all began, funding dried up, and the pandemic dealt a final blow: the World Bellyboarding Championships hasn’t taken place since 2019. Until now.

“We can’t wait to get everyone together again; it’s going to be like a mini festival,” says Jamie. Dick Pearce is collaborating with the Newquay Surf Riders to bring the competition back this summer, and all proceeds raised will go towards the organisation. Anyone can enter, and the rules are simple: no leashes, no wetsuits, no fins, wooden boards only. Competitors will join heats of 20, and, in keeping with tradition, prizes will be awarded for best-dressed and longest distance travelled – one guy from the British Virgin Islands took the title several years running.

Surfing is still a male-dominated sport, but bellyboarding tips the scales: anecdotally, more women than men participate. “We had an 18-year-old girl who saved up in her gap year and camped here to attend a workshop,” says James, who runs DIY classes for those who want a bespoke board. “And some of the community’s most seasoned pros are women in their sixties and seventies,” he adds, referring to Haslock and founder of The Original Surfboard Company, Sally Parkin, who not only can be found riding waves in Porthcothan but also works closely with The Museum of British Surfing to preserve the history of this brilliantly British seaside pursuit.

It’s not just the sport that’s endured – the boards themselves last a lifetime, but that’s not the only reason they’re a far more sustainable choice. Dick Pearce uses TSC-approved birch from Europe to reduce airmiles, and boards are treated with eco matte varnish. Scrap wood is turned into accessories like key rings and lightboxes. Moor Boards’ best-seller is a superlight Paulownia wood with a layer of bamboo in the centre, imported from a sustainable plantation in Spain, whilst Otter Surfboards sources cedar and poplar from regenerative farms in Wiltshire and Somerset. “It’s easy to think that wood is sustainable because it’s natural,” says James, “but it has to be sourced and supplied responsibly, too.”

All over the world, surfing has long been associated with environmental campaigns and efforts to protect the natural spaces in which the sport exists: the ocean’s health becomes intrinsically linked with your own. The benefits of the sport, the community it fosters, and the creative process can have a huge impact on people’s wellbeing. ‘We did a workshop with Finisterre,’ says James,‘ and one of the guys who attended told us it was the cheapest three hours of therapy he’d ever had,’ says James. It’s mindful, meditative and, quite simply, heaps of fun.

“Every surfer should have a bellyboard, too” says James. “You can maximise the potential of the waves. It’s about time in the ocean and playing with the sea. It’s also about the crowd – our average clientele are 40-50-year-old lifelong bellyboarders.” Jamie Johnstone adds that lots of people slip them in their board bags when they travel to surf, but they’re also easier to pop in the car or travel on the train. He’s supplied surf riders in Japan, Puerto Rico, and California. Closer to home, hotels are catching on, too – guests at Watergate Bay and The Scarlet can borrow custom Dick Pearceboards free of charge.

And it’s no wonder guests are taking them up on the offer. Not only are the boards beautiful, but their sustainable credentials, wellbeing benefits, inherent community spirit and compact shape make them the coolest beach accessory this summer. But the makers are unanimous: these boards are not just made to hang on a wall – they’re made to be loved, used and shared. “We do sell a lot of wall mounts for people that want to put them on display,” says Jamie, “but even then – they look better when they’ve been used. Plus, the cool thing about these is you can bring them back to us and we’ll freshen them up, strip them down, whatever you want – they evolve with you.”