THE TOP TEN REASONS STANDUP PADDLING IS A GREAT CROSSOVER ACTIVITY FOR WINDSURFERS
Written by Bruce Barry
- The first part of the word WINDsurfing is wind. No wind? In the Metro, really? SUP. You are still on the water and getting a bunch of benefits that extend to your greatly anticipated windy days.
- Pretty much any sailboard over 125 liters or so with even a cheap paddle can give you a bit of a SUP experience with most of the benefits described below.
- Paddling in any conditions but especially in wind/chop improves balance and your ability to “read” the terrain. Improved balance and terrain awareness is good for windsurfing.
- In SUP the paddle force is transmitted thru the hands and arms to the lower body from holding the paddle. the windsurfing force is transmitted thru the hands and arms to the lower body from holding the boom, so paddling strengthens key upper body areas needed for windsurfing
- Vigorous paddling gives you callous on the fingers from holding the paddle exactly where windsurfing causes callous from holding the boom. This is a nice bonus if your hands are like mine and prone to boom blisters.
- The core is engaged in both sports in transmitting the upper body power to the lower body for control and extra spurts of power thru the legs thus becoming a perfect cross over for both sports
- The board/ water connection and ultimate control is exerted by the feet and lower legs again being a perfect crossover for both sports.
- Vigorous paddling maintained over time is a high intensity exercise that builds endurance. Greater endurance leads to longer windsurfing sessions.
- While the intensely used muscle groups are largely the same, the orientation of movement is different between the two sports so it is easy to have hard windsurf sessions and then hard paddling sessions because of the different muscle orientation: SUP( mostly up and down) windsurfing (mostly in and out.)
- It is easier to SUP to near exhaustion or dehydration than windsurf to the same level so high intensity SUP becomes a better avenue for learning hydration and fueling requirements for long distance windsurfing. Yes, I have heard multiple arguments that some folks get more tired windsurfing, point being that you need wind to windsurf and you can do endurance fueling testing and happily paddle yourself to exhaustion on any day in the metro that there is little wind (assuming of course that a day like that would ever come around......)
- (This is the bonus 10) Schlepping a 12'6" or larger SUP on top of your car is good for balance, the lats, and looking hard at your storage spaces to determine how to stack, store, and explain to your possible significant other the need for your next three boards...... :)
The Shapes Of SUPs - A Brief Look At A Complex Subject
Written by Bruce Barry
Contact me thru NW Windtalk or [email protected] for any questions on this post, or to learn about my favorite local shop and group for local tours.
Like sailboards, standup paddleboards come in an almost infinite number of shapes and sizes. The goal of the following tutorial is to offer a brief description of the most common configurations with photos helping to offer strong visual clues to performance.
Contact me thru NW Windtalk or [email protected] for any questions on this post, or to learn about my favorite local shop and group for local tours.
Like sailboards, standup paddleboards come in an almost infinite number of shapes and sizes. The goal of the following tutorial is to offer a brief description of the most common configurations with photos helping to offer strong visual clues to performance.
- 8’5” Surf SUP. (8’5” x30” wide with 125 liters of flotation) This is the classic “tongue depressor” style that was the original design of all SUPs. This planform comes in a huge variety of shapes, lengths, and volumes with some really aggressive Surf SUPs being under 7 feet in length and under 100 liters in volume. The board in the photo has been my primary surf Sup for around 5 years. This has been a “magic” board for me, and has been used 30 or more times a year in small as well as big waves. Like several of my current favorite boards this one is a DLCO – a Don Ledford Cast Off. Originally purchased by Don, then found to be too small for Don, but perfect for me. For this particular board if you think in terms of a Frisbee on the water, that is a pretty close idea. This general planform in a more generous 10-12 foot length with more parallel rails is still the basic entry level style of board and without question is the most versatile. Tour, fitness, yoga, surf, light air wavesail with a mast insert, even race as many of the large races have “surf” classes which allow this style of board. Used or new from major retailers, this style can be found at a relatively inexpensive level and a great deal of fun can be had on one.
- 12’6” Flat Water Race Board ( 12’6” x 26” wide with 230 liters of flotation) 12’6” is the defined length for pro women and best for people with a smaller stature. At 5’7” and 145 pounds I am always more competitive on this length board. 14’ is the defined length for pro males, and then some of the larger guys use “unlimiteds” which have this same general shape but are as long as 20 feet. Raceboards from the major brands tend to be fairly expensive, light, delicate, and tippy. The one in the picture is 26” wide, but tippier than the width would suggest because the entire bottom has a V to decrease form resistance. And decreasing resistance thus increasing speed thru the water with reduced physical effort is what these boards are all about. Rails tend to be fairly parallel to promote tracking, tails tend to be wide to promote stability, and bows are usually very straight with little rocker to promote full waterline length – also called a canoe or cutting bow. A full on raceboard would probably not be a great first choice, the major brands all have detuned boards sharing many of the same characteristics that they call touring or all water boards that would be a better intro level board. If you look at this shape and then think of the shape of a state of the art windsurf race longboard like the Exocet D2 you will immediately notice the similarities.
- 14’ Downwind Board (14’ x 27.25” wide with 270 liters of flotation) Now we are getting even more specialized. DW has exploded in popularity both here and the gorge and a parade of DW paddlers is in the East Channel from Coulon/Cedar River to Newcastle/Enatai on every windy day. The board pictured is the current DW favorite, the SIC Bullet V2. Bigwinds in the gorge sold more individual units of the Bullet V2 in 2016 than any other type of board (sail and kite included) in their inventory. Planform is just plane curvy to promote looseness without loss of stability: lots of nose and tail rocker to support big drops and difficult water terrain, very narrow and pointy bow to reduce resistance when punching into a wave, very narrow tail to reduce pitching and rocking, and lots of bottom contour with a V’d bow and tail to minimize resistance and concave middle section to promote planing. A DW board is ok for touring as they tend to be fairly stable, but always slow for their length in flattish water as the bow and stern rockers significantly reduce wetted length thereby diminishing overall speed which is predicated on waterline until planing. Dropping into a head high wave at the Hatchery on this board is a real rush!
