Have board will travel: Matt Becker logs miles for SUP, big-wave surfing

 

Matt Becker can fill in for the character of Waldo in the “Where’s Waldo?” series of children’s books.

The 19-year-old Santa Barbaran has been all over the place. Just replace the red-and-white-striped shirt, black-rimmed circular glasses and red-and-white bobble hat with board shorts, a Stand-Up paddleboard and a paddle.

Presidio Sports was fortunate enough to find the local waterman before he heads off on a journey that will take him to Utah, Hawaii, Oregon, Mexico and back to Hawaii. He had just returned from the islands, where he competed in the prestigious and grueling Molokai to Oahu World Championships last month.

“(It’s) a race I do every year,” he told a reporter in an email. “To do well at that race and cross that 32-mile stretch of open ocean known as the Kaiwi Channel, you not only need to be extremely fit and a strong paddler, but also have an innate understanding of the ocean and its moods.”

In his third year doing the race, Becker finished third in the 14-foot stock division with a time of 5 hours, 14 minutes and 30 seconds. He was the best overall finisher from the mainland.

In other major SUP competitions this year, Becker placed sixth at the 13-mile Carolina Cup off Wrightsville Beach, N.C., won the dual paddle and placed fourth in the shootout at Surftech Shootout in Santa Cruz and took first place at the Jay Moriarty Memorial Race in Santa Cruz. He capped last season with a fourth-place finish at the inaugural Ultimate SUP Showdown in Waikiki, Hawaii, an event that featured the cream of the ...more