No Boat, No Friends, No Problem

Despite the ironic imagery we often employ of surfing the High Plains of the American Ghost Coast, there are actual ways to do just that. In the last couple of decades, wakesurfing has catapulted into one of the most popular and widely available options. Any decent-sized lake has the potential to host a wakesurfer. The sport has two problems though.

Wakesurfing requires a boat with special features like an inboard motor, a v-hull, and ballast. None of that sounds cheap, and it isn’t. A good used one will still put you out about $40-50k. A fancy new one might run to $300k.

The bigger problem, depending on your personality, is that it requires a friend to drive that expensive boat while you surf behind it. Easier said than done for us socially challenged and unfriendly flatlanders. Ideally, not only do you have a friend, but it’s also your friend’s fancy boat. And your friend who makes all those fancy boat payments and drags it back to the shop to get it fixed all the time. This scenario is like winning the lottery.

For everyone else though, there is a solution to the boat-friend problem. Windsurfing. The sport of commoners, the motorless and destitute. You can find a full set-up for $1,500; less than the cost of boat insurance on that Malibu or MasterCraft. The only requirements: a body of water and a little wind. You don’t even need a boat ramp. Thanks to a mid-nineteenth century dam-building spree, lakes of sufficient size now exist across the Great Plains. And wind—well, that’s not a problem on the Ghost Coast.

Admittedly, the “surf” part of windsurfing a lake is a little lacking, but that’s just splitting hairs. Fair warning though, your first time out might not go as smoothly as you envision, and you could be in for a long trek back to the truck. You’ll get the hang of it soon enough.

The next time you’re feeling down about missing out on all the great surf on the Plains, just grab a board, a sail, and get out there. No boat, no friends, no problem.