Novice paddlers stand up for cause

 

Tauranga Community Foodbank and people who donated in exchange for stand up paddle boarding reaped the benefits of a "give it a go" day on offer at Pilot Bay.

The Give Stand Up Paddling a Go event offered people the chance to enjoy a 30-minute lesson and experience of paddling yesterday in exchange for a tin of food or gold coin donation, with all proceeds going to the foodbank.

The opportunity was hot property among crowds of people who gathered at the beach to take their turn to learn the modern water sport. It was part of an initiative of Sport Bay of Plenty, which has helped organise "give it a go" days for other sports in previous years.

Organiser Tinikai Rolleston said this was the third time paddling has been on offer.

"It's always a good ...more

Stand Up World Series Finals Long Distance race win for Kai Lenny

 

...they then used the trade winds to head south towards the finish line at Halewia, running parallel past some of the best surf breaks in the world along the North Shore of Hawaii. Today tested paddling ability to the max, not only contending with the 13 mile course but also the conditions and paddlers used them to their advantage to show their true waterman ability. The tough course provided the perfect platform to show just how testing this sport is and just how good a waterman you need to be to race in these ...more

Anderson, Ching Win 2014 SUP Champions Tour

 

The inaugural season for the The SUP Champions Tour has come and gone with Annabel Anderson and Danny Ching taking overall titles. The Tour released a presser yesterday. Here’s the gist:

Six months ago several of the top male (Travis Grant, Connor Baxter, Danny Ching, George Cronsteadt, Lincoln Dews, Jamie Mitchell, Casper Steinfath, Chase Kosterlitz, Matt Becker, Chuck Patterson and many more), and female sup racers (Annabel Anderson, Jenny Kalmbach, Lina Augaitis and others) sat down with the goal to unify professional SUP racing around the world.

There are currently at least three entities that claim to crown a world champion: the WPA, World Series, and ISA. However, none of them have the support of all, or even most, of the athletes. And all are restricted to a particular board class and racing style.
The Champions Tour athletes wanted to support the biggest and best events (in the sport), events we felt deserved our support. (And we posed these questions to our panel): Does bringing top competitors to an event help grow the sport? When professional paddlers show up to events, does it help grow the event and make it better? Where do athletes rank at the end of the year based off race results at the best events, against the best racers?
The Champions Tour picked seven races that encompass a wide range of styles and board classes. The men were scored for their top five races and women for their top four results. Here are the seven:
Carolina Cup, Graveyard elite result, winner Danny Ching
Olukai Ho’olaule’a, line honors, winner Connor Batxer
Lost Mills, distance race, winner Eric Terrian
Ultimate SUP Showdown, race side final result, winner Kai Lenny
Gorge Paddle Challenge, combined 2 day result, winner Connor Baxter
BOP elite, line honors, winner Kai Lenny
BOP distance, 14′ elite division, winner Danny Ching

The tie breaker this year was a count back to next best result (sixth result for men, fifth for women) to reward consistent finishes.

So that’s the meat of it. Here’s where the racers that made enough starts to qualify ended up:

 

1 Danny Ching
2 Travis Grant
3 Connor Baxter
4 Georges Cronsteadt
5 Kai Lenny
6 Jake Jensen
7 Chase Kosterlitz
8 Eric Terrien
9 Slater Trout
10 Beau O’Brian
1 Annabel Anderson
2 Lina Augaitis
3 Sonni Honscheid
4 Candice Appleby
5 Jenny Kalmbach
6 Angela Jackson
7 Fiona Wylde
8 Andrea Moller
9 Kelsa Gabehart
10 Talia Decoite

A quick takeaway before we get into more analysis for the upcoming season, The Champions Tour was a really solid first stab at trying to unify a severely ...more

Controversy ensues at the world’s largest SUP race

 

Stand Up Paddleboard racing rules are suddenly a hot topic for conversation on the beach and online after following last weekend’s Battle of the Paddle. 

The BOP saw a few false starts, missed buoys and other rule infractions that have become common at races around the world.

The main controversy of the event surrounded a wave ridden by Connor Baxter and 

Kai Lenny during the elite race final.

 Both paddlers were on the same wave and exchanged fouls back-and-forth to the point that

 they fell off of their boards. 

Kai and Connor were not given any penalties after the race. 

We are not implying that this was the right or wrong decision, we simply want 

your feedback so we can improve our rules to cover similar incidents. 

This particular incident would currently fall under ...more

Racers Brave Big Surf in Paddling Contest

 

Hurricane Simon brought relentless overhead sets to Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point last Saturday and Sunday, turning the seventh annual Battle of the Paddle into a wild free for all, as hundreds of men, women and children of all ages and skill levels battled the breakers to compete in the world’s largest stand up paddle event.

“It was kind of crazy,” said Kristin Thomas, Laguna Beach resident and ...more

Beyond the Shore Paddle Fest this Sunday

For the second annual beyond the shore paddlefest and 

help us set the Guinness World Record for the Largest SUP Yoga Class. 

(World Record Attempt for the "Largest Stand Up Paddle Yoga Class" will start promptly loading on to the water at 8:30 am.)

Never tried SUP Yoga? 

Feel free to sign up for an Olympus SUP Fit SUP Yoga class any time before or after the festival. See their entire SUP activity schedule on Meetup.

The festival also includes a 4.4 mile SUP race, a relay fun SUP race,the kids’ Seaside Lagoon race,

 live music, a kid's activities, slack line demonstrations, aeriel yoga demonstrations (think Cirque de Solei!) raffles, silent auction items, and a ton of family fun!

Each registered participant will be entered into ...more

Opinion: Kai vs. Connor at BOP 2014

 

If you were at the 2014 Battle of the Paddle Elite Race last Saturday at Salt Creek Beach, 

or if you read a recap or talked to anybody about it, 

you inevitably heard about “The Wave,” where now-two-time champ Kai Lenny and 

2011 winner Connor Baxter played an aggressive game of 

bumper boards until they both went down. 

Lenny was able to regain his composure and go on to win the race. 

The beach was alive with chatter. Was it fair? 

Do there need to be rules in place for this sort of thing? Who’s at fault? 

Now that we’ve received press releases from every conceivable source on the matter, 

read page upon page of forum posts and heard all sorts of industry insiders opine on the hot topic, 

here’s our take:

An episode of this magnitude has been brewing for some time. 

Baxter and Lenny have been at the forefront of racing for a couple of years now and there’s a lot of insider talk about how these two ...more