Wind Beneath Their Wheels : Windsurfers, tired of waiting for the breeze to pick up enough to take their boards onto the water, are scooting along on O.C.’s parking lots and beaches.

On a handful of beach parking lots in Orange County, windsurfing and skateboarding meet.

The incongruous blend of the two sports creates a puzzling sight for drivers cruising along Pacific Coast Highway as windsurfing sails glide above the asphalt on breezy afternoons.

Skate-sailing has been practiced informally for years. Windsurfers, tired of sitting in their cars while they waited for the wind to pick up enough to take their boards into the water, figured out a way to attach their sails to skateboards and scoot along on dry land.

Now the pursuit is showing signs of going mainstream, as a handful of manufacturers market boards designed specifically for skate-sailing.

Sunday, under a bright sky washed clean by the previous day’s storm, Steve Bogart and Julian Roborgh raced quickly along the blacktop, working their sails to catch a light but persistent onshore breeze and maneuvering around the few cars parked in the lot at the north end of Bolsa Chica State Beach.

The wind, Bogart figured, was blowing about 10 m.p.h., not quite enough for windsurfing but plenty for skate-sailing. “We need about 15 miles an hour to sail on the water,” he said, while he assembled his sail rig and attached the mast to his board.

He pointed to a car at the far end of the parking lot, where a group of windsurfers waited in vain for the wind to pick up enough for a sail. “They sit and wait and wait while we do this,” Bogart said. “This satisfies our need for wind.”

Bogart has been windsurfing for about seven years, skate-sailing for about a year. The skills used for the two sports are roughly the same, he said, although there are differences: “The (skate)board’s a little more unstable. You’re moving a lot faster (because) you don’t have as much drag and resistance.”

The speed is one reason that most people who skate-sail come from a windsurfing background--learning the intricate sail-handling techniques on asphalt could be a bruising experience.

While special-made skate-sail boards are commercially available (for $300 to $400, sans sail rig), most of sport’s local practitioners still use a modified skateboard, or a homemade board with skateboard trucks and wheels. Skateboards are confined to asphalt, but commercial boards have larger wheels that can negotiate packed sand as well as parking lots.

Bogart owns a skateboard he modified himself, but because he works part time at a windsurfing shop (UP Sports in Newport Beach), he is able to borrow the larger commercial boards, and he’s discovering a liking for riding on the sand.

“It hurts less when you land (on the sand). You lose less skin,” Bogart said with a laugh. He said he needs a little more wind to ride on sand, and it’s best to go at low tide, when more packed sand is exposed. But when conditions are right, the sand allows him a longer run.

“If the wind is blowing in the right direction, I can do a couple of miles,” Bogart said.

From the north end of Bolsa Chica, he sometimes rides all the way to the Huntington Beach Pier and back, he said.

Skate-sailing is distinct from the sport of land-sailing, which is practiced in sit-down rigs on large open spaces such as desert dry lakes. Skate-sailing, along with its parent sport of windsurfing, is more popular in Europe and some other areas than it is in the United States, Bogart said.

Roborgh is wrapping up an extended stay in Newport Beach in a few weeks and is heading back to his native New Zealand. Back home, he said, both windsurfing and skate-sailing are “a lot more popular.” Skate-sailing is particularly popular in the New Zealand winter, when the water and the weather turn cold.

Another beauty of skate-sailing is that it can be more spontaneous. Roborgh recalled one recent evening excursion: “In the middle of the night, while it was blowing like crazy, I strapped a flashlight to the sail” and cruised a local school parking lot. (The endeavor was cut short, he said, when a curious policeman stopped by.)

According to Bogart, windsurfers have an “addiction” to wind--and skate-sailing can provide a quick fix.

“It’s not so much of a production,” he said. “I’m a student, so I don’t have time to sit around and wait for the wind to pick up.”