555 Reasons to Try Stand Up Paddle Boarding 30 December 2015 – Posted in: Stand Up Paddle Boarding, Surfing

Stand Up Paddle Boarding is a sport that might not look as flash or fun as regular old surfing, but after 10 years of SUPing, i feel like I’m just beginning to understand the magic of the sport. During a recent 4 day camping mission to a secret surf spot, (to protect it, lets just call it: Bailey Road, Pungarehu, Taranaki – google it!), I had the most truly epic four days of surfing of my entire life. Every day was some sort of amazing ground hog day surfarama, where the conditions change from 3ft foot faces to pumping double over head and everything in between. Being able to take off and ride swells long before they break gives you the world of options, you can actually head right on left hander, then backdoor the peak, something that’s really quite difficult to do on a regular surfboard or even a mal for that matter. The SUP boards have also changed heaps in the last ten years, from being something like a malibu on steroids crossed with a clubbies knee board, to a refined wave catching machine which you can shred just as hard as a shortboard. Its not unexpected to see Stand Up Boards in the sub 8ft range these days and man they turn on a dime, combined with being able to dig your paddle in for extra grip and a nice thick rail, you can throw it up into a section that would normally smash a surfer of my ability.

Where Stand Up Paddle Boards truly excel is in the length of ride, check out this pic below from my Rip Curl GPS Search Watch account.

Not sure if you can see it but at the bottom it says 555.8 meters as my longest wave. How was the quality of the wave tho? Here is a couple shots that my friend Ange took as i headed off on a 500m+ left hander.

The wave walls up quite a bit more shortly after this phat section on take off and is an amazingly long left, that then goes straight and then reforms on the inside to another left.

There probably isn’t a better place in New Zealand than Taranaki to go Stand Up Paddle Boarding, it rocks! There are heaps of uncrowded breaks that are just slightly too phat, too far or a little windy for regular surfers, but still rate a 9 out of 10 on the stoke factor if you hit them on the SUP.  A lot of these waves you can ride on shortboards also, here’s Ange heading in on a left on here 7’10” ginger mermaid.

How long will it take to learn to SUP? Bugger all time, here is couple shots of Aussie Tim from Westcoast Sail Repairs, on his first SUP surf mission in NZ. In the pic below Tim didn’t understand the difference between goat boating and SUP’ing, despite me trying to demonstrate how to do it! (Actually you can tell Tim is a natural from below, who else would take off in the barrel sitting down in there first session??!)

After a couple more waves Timbo cracked it!

In the four days i surfed in paddled close to 65 kms, with rides hitting around 500 meters  on regular occasions, a single wave and paddle out can cover 1km! 30 minutes after catching a 555 meter long ride I was so buzzed i paddle out again and got a 621.9 meter ride! (which doesn’t sound as cool as 555 hence the title of this post).

Below: heading back out in front of the mountain after some amazing waves

Below: Ange, Tim and myself heading out to “Crushers” for some lefts and rights.