Upgrade your Paddleboarding

Advice from Paul Simmons, UK Brand Manager – Starboard SUP

Stand up paddleboards come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes. Choosing board that’s wide and boasting width in the nose and tail brings the stability that first-timers require for confidence-inspiring paddling. Such boards do have their limitations though, with the characteristics that bring the best stability hampering glide and efficiency. In the early days of a paddler’s progression, simply being afloat and moving around gently provides initial fun and excitement but after clocking in days, weeks and months on the water, most are seeking to cover more distance, whether small-scale exploration or epic adventure.

Technique

One of the best pieces of advice on in the early stages of SUP is to have the occasional session with planned immersion. Donning a wetsuit and practicing moving around on the board rather than the session focusing on staying dry accelerates progression and improves the ability to cope with the effects of chop, flowing water and wind. By embracing choppy water rather than avoiding it and sharpening skills in the early days of paddling makes the move to a narrower, more performance-oriented board nowhere near as daunting. Techniques like moving the feet into a slightly offset position in some conditions adds stability and helps control pitch of the board when riding over steep chop. Honing paddle brace skills and building muscle-memory to naturally bend the knees to stabilise when the board wobbles boosts a rider’s ability to take on both narrower boards and more challenging conditions.

Touring boards

In simple terms, longer, more pointy-nosed boards offer more speed and efficiency for covering distance effectively, gliding further on each stroke than shorter, wider models. Round, wide noses create more drag and resistance to paddling, reducing top speed. Touring boards are generally more efficient shapes but can vary from being as wide as many entry level boards, right through to being as narrow as racing boards, with a correspondingly challenging nature. For every paddler, factoring in their height, size, experience, skills and usual paddling conditions dictate how much stability can be sacrificed sensibly.

Testing

There’s nothing better than to test out different boards, whether with a shop or in a club or organised demo-days by brands. The best shops will offer demos of the key touring models to aid paddlers’ selection. Bear in mind dimensions are only part of the equation: one brand’s 12’6” x 30” board may feel considerably more stable than another’s due to shape, technology and other features like fin, rails and other innovations.

Environment

Consider the likely paddling environments: if a board is only going to be used on calmer days on sheltered water, a narrower model may be viable. A board of the same shape but a couple of inches wider will add significant stability. If a choppy, flowing river with a lot of passing marine traffic is the usual playground, choosing the wider option will avoid a good deal of involuntary immersion.

Future-proofing

Nobody likes to invest in a product that is quickly outdated, whether by innovation or their personal development. Moving to a touring board may be fine on flatter water but initially a little too challenging in rougher conditions so if finances allow, it’s a sensible option to retain the more stable board it’s replacing so there’s an option for the choppier days.  Fortunately in the SUP world, there are brands who have been producing boards for a long time and have thought carefully about every feature, not only the shape but features like handle positions and fin systems. Designed and tested by experienced paddlers and built in proven technologies that increase stiffness and stability.

A good touring board will last countless adventures and while some paddlers may move to yet narrower boards, the stability and cargo-carrying capacity of a first touring board means it should be a “keeper” for many exciting years of a paddler’s journey.

Starboard UK