Everyone just wants to stand up paddle further...
Aside from the obvious fitness challenges, endurance stand up paddling requires different skills and equipment from the standard kind of paddling. Boards tend to be longer than a cruiser type SUP, but just as wide to aid in stability. Food and supplies must be carried by paddlers, so a board with heaps of buoyancy always helps, plus there's always the support team. Long paddles usually need support, which means a boat, someone to drive the boat - someone to feed the boat driver and a heap more equipment, just to name a few things. The extra equipment isn't holding anyone back though, with a seemingly never ending battle to paddle for longer, further and faster than the person before - here's a few recent examples...
Just recently, we heard of Australian Rob Kidnie stand up paddling for two weeks on the Mekong River in Cambodia and South Vietnam. The aim was to raise awareness of water pollution, particularly plastic pollution in Southeast Asia. The journey was a success - and gained the Sydney local worldwide media attention.
This week, Alex Linnell & Dave Cornthwaite continue their massive paddle (as individual endeavours) from Minnesota to Mexico. Over 46 days into his paddle, Alex has broken the half way point after paddling over 1900km's, but his spirits are still high, and conditions are favourable. In front of him, Dave's nearly home already - and when he makes it, he'll be the current world record holder; paddling around 3800 kilometres on his own.
On a slightly smaller scale, (and it seems strange saying so) - the Molokai to Oahu race will begin on the 31st of this month. The famous race is regarded as the Stand up paddling world championship, and takes around 5 hours for the front runners to complete. Paddlers from 15 countries are converging on the home of SUP for the race, which is set to be the biggest ever. Stay tuned to hear more on the Molokai to Oahu race, as there are several Australian teams and individual paddlers racing this year.
Last year, the Molokai to Oahu race was considered to be one of the hardest paddles around at 50km. This year, it seems like a stroll in the park compared to some of the epic endurance paddles being accomplished. Granted, racing is very different and more demanding per hour compared to long distance, but still - 50km's compared to 3800km's is a huge jump in distance. No doubt later in the year there will be more epic paddles, as they say - records are made to be broken... Would you consider an endurance paddle yourself?
Hastings, VIC
