There’s always been a thread between surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding. Tricks are similar; the flowy style that comes along with each one has a similar feel. But one thing that hasn’t really been all too successful in surfing is the rail. Oh, it’s been tried before, but never with any degree of success. Ricky Whitlock, Ben Gravy, Kalani Robb, the Transworld crew — they’ve all tried it, but putting a rail in the ocean just isn’t feasible. Now, however, with the rise in wave pools, rail surfing (actually grinding one, not getting on rail, which is rad, too) could really become a thing. Imagine a time in the future when wave pools are like indoor skateparks: rails, ramps, obstacles all popping up mid-face.
Julian Wilson is probably looking forward to something like that.”For a long time I’ve had the idea of trying to combine the skatepark and the ocean,” Wilson said. “To take something that I have so much fun with, like a skateboard at a skatepark, and apply that to my profession as a surfer.”
He’s been working on the Rail Project for a full year, and with the help of URBNSRF in Melbourne, it became a reality. Here’s a look at how it all happened. It does appear to be more of a box than a rail, but who are we to nit-pick?
