Two young local boys keen to learn how to surf in a lakeside town have taken the challenge into their own hands this year.

Holy Family Catholic School year four students Victor Tessier and Ollie Crosbie, both nine, have built a wooden ‘horseradish board’ and donated it to the school following a self-driven project in their Ignition class.

A horseradish board is shaped as a surfboard and suspended by ropes in a system that’s designed to mimic the sensation of a surfboard in water. 

The boys, who had never surfed ocean waves before embarking on their project, researched the design of the board during ‘Genius Hour’ in their Ignition class.

They visited Ross McCarthy at YourWave in Hāwea before settling on the design. With the help of Victor’s dad Bastien Tessier, they approached Breen Construction who agreed to donate all the materials for the building project.

“We started off using cardboard and chairs, then we used a Swiss ball and then we researched and found a board called the Horseradish Board,” the boys wrote in a letter to their school.

During the school holidays, the boys built the board and frame using macrocarpa donated by Breen. It was specially sanded and oiled to create a smooth finish for young feet.

“The idea was presented to me by Bastien and once I knew it was to be school kids doing the project, I was all in,” Breen Wānaka area manager Ross McCulloch said. 

“I love this kind of thing – getting kids into using tools and materials to make creations that have a finished product they can use was a highlight of this project.”

Once the project was completed, Victor and Ollie wrote to their teachers to see if the school would like the board to be donated to the school.

“Our surfing balance board will help with teaching children balance and it will be good for brain breaks. We have had a look and think that on that back field by the sandpit, but not too close to the sandpit might be the perfect place,” they said.

Holy Family acting principal Ange Scoullar says the school’s Ignition programme – a weekly class for likeminded year 4-8 students – offers youngsters the opportunity to extend their learning and is the perfect place for creative ideas to start and self-directed projects to be developed.

“We are very grateful to Breen Wānaka for donating the materials and helping to make the boys’ ideas into a reality,” Ange said. “It’s been a great learning opportunity from start to finish and the board has been well received by the students.”

PHOTO: Supplied